ART AND THE OPACITY OF RELIGION
Shakespeare said that art is a mirror and my hero, Joseph Campbell, agreed with him.
Though it pains me, I have to disagree with the bard and my hero — at least I disagree with my own interpretation of their words. I interpret “mirror” as basic reporting. If I could speak to either of them they’d likely say, “No, not just reporting! You’re missing our point!” Then I’d listen close, happy to be corrected and probably ask for a selfie — cuz, you know… dead guys…
In similar discussions, Campbell bemoaned the opacity of religion — meaning, when religions took their myths and sacred texts and tried to cast them as literal, concrete events. He compared this to looking at a frame instead of the work of art it contained. Religions and religious stories were like stained glass windows to him — they gave shape and color to something otherwise hard to see.
I think stained glass makes a pretty great metaphor for religion and for art.
Sunlight obviously effects everything around us — grows plants, boosts our immune systems, powers solar panels, and even gives the moon it’s radiance. It’s effects are easy to see — yet, somehow, invisible. Somehow easy to overlook, somehow common place and easily taken for granted.
When someone create stained glass and installs it in a church or other building, and sunlight hits it, we suddenly experience that light in a new way — once invisible beams take on new shape and meaning.
That’s also the work of art. To give new meaning to the things we too easily ignore. To reshape our surroundings.
Another of my heroes, Dan Harmon, creator of the TV show Community and co-creator of the cartoon Rick and Morty said, of art,
…it helps to remember that any act of creation, whether folding a paper airplane, baking a cake or writing an episode of SVU, is, by definition, a religious act and a subversive one. We reach out with ape-like hands and filthy minds and we mock and challenge all that came before us by making something be there that was not there. We change the history of the world, we change who we are and we change everything that touches what we make, so we may as well also always change the rules by which we make them.
I love that quote. Art is subverting reality. When we create we’re not just reporting, not just holding up a mirror — we’re reshaping what was already there, giving it deeper context, pulling out the important parts and shining a light on them. We’re changing the word.
Is this a mirror image of a starry night?
Of course not. It’s a subversion of a starry night. It’s Van Gogh’s interpretation of a starry night. It’s a view of the world that was unique to him but he wanted to show up. It’s taking a thing too easily taken for granted and showint it to us anew — in hopes of making us look deeper at the real thing. That’s art. It’s letting the sunlight shine through us an create new shapes, new meanings.
What is your art? Painting? Writing? Cooking? Business? How do you re-interpret what has gone before? How can you? How can you bring people’s attention to what’s being ignored?
