Speaking of the canon, I am neither for or against it, but see it as a barometer of not only caliber among individuals in a given endeavor, but also of the imbalances that exist, unfairly or not, inherently or by design, within that endeavor, in the society where that canon has developed.
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Mention of either of their names might’ve aroused in the mind of the reader the question as to why I chose one of those artists, for my example, rather than somebody else. Because the choice of an example, in discussions such as these, always seems to reflect back on the speaker, as if that person is trying to impart to his listeners something more than a mere technical point; to persuade them of something obliquely, due to his own biases or agenda (even if those are subconscious), rather than to illustrate something openly and neutrally by alluding to whatever historical personage happens to come to his mind; so that suddenly his preferences, till then unspoken, seem to be revealed, and attention is drawn to him as much as to his subject. Which might be inevitable, even if it is not the speaker’s intention, and even if it does not evince what he is, in fact, doing.
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Not that those two women themselves aren’t canonical (or will be, in the case of Weems), but that, had I chosen the works of either of them, as my example, rather than those of Cézanne, the choice would’ve seemed no less arbitrary than it did.
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Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolors would have made an equally good example, as would the black and white ‘Kitchen Table’ photographs of Carrie Mae Weems.
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I chose the works of Cézanne as an example, but mainly because Cézanne is a recognizable name, and his paintings easy to call to mind, because they are old enough and well-regarded enough that they belong to the Western canon. I could have chosen any number of artists whose works are not explicitly religious but who render the things of nature with such style or duende that their audiences become aware of a spiritual meaning in them.
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Perhaps what I’m saying here is obvious, in that all art shares this purpose; to honor the spiritual dimension of reality by representing reality, through a medium, in its awesomeness.
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None of those works are explicitly religious, but all of them communicate that sense of awe that I have mentioned; in this way they are surely invested with spiritual meaning.
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And yet even as I say this I wonder if it is really what I mean. I think, for example, of the paintings of Paul Cézanne, particularly his still lifes, and the ones of Mont Sainte-Victoire, of which he produced many versions, over and over, as if trying to find in that subject some essence that never fully revealed itself, or that revealed itself always, but in different shades, at different instances, or times of day.
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Which is to say that, within the arts, religious motifs and iconography are the most immediate and intense avenues into our own spiritual depths.
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Now, all things in reality have a spiritual dimension, and can be recognized as having such by anyone who would contemplate them with the aforementioned awe. But religious things are so occupied with the spiritual that even their corporeality draws attention not to itself alone but also to some incorporeality that is their ‘real’ subject, and that can awaken awe in us, instead of merely depending on it to already be there.
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My point being that an artist who attempts to depict a religious subject will discover, perhaps faster than in any other way (due to the character of religious things), that a work of art depends, for its success, on an understanding of appropriateness, or seemliness, as it relates to tone; and on an openness to the ‘possible’ that may expose the artist to ridicule, insofar as that artist takes seriously the ‘miraculous’ (which audiences have learned to regard dubiously, even cynically). All of which arrives, I think, out of a capacity for awe.
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One might say there are exceptions (the films of Mel Brooks and Monty Python come to mind), but a viewer will notice that the levity in those works is achieved not so much by a denigration of a faith as it is through a delight in revealing comedically (as opposed to meanly, or gratuitously) the foibles, absurdities, and bewilderments we experience when we try to fathom the divine, or encapsulate it in human terms.
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I suppose the same could be said about art of any subject (religious or not), in that a levity that has no reverence for truth, or even for mystery, cannot rise above mockery or sarcasm. But insofar as religion seeks to elicit, in those who are present to it, a somberness that is justified, levity can seem not only unwarranted, or out of place, but injurious to the soul.
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This isn’t to say that levity has no place in art that deals with religious subjects, but that levity is best achieved when it manifests incidentally, rather than principally, and only when it is a function of the artist’s talent.
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I’m talking about a sort of hubris, I suppose, a willingness to indulge in the practice of one’s art at the risk of making a banality of scripture. Which, to my mind, because it is holy, is greater than art, in the sense that scripture belongs to divine revelation, and thus should be treated with enough reverence that any artist, approaching it as a subject, errs on the side of reticence, or inexpression.
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In other words, in this project, not only is there the possibility of a failure of aesthetics (which might occur anyway, at any time, due to a liability in my talent), but of conscience, by which I mean a failure of the ego to inhibit itself, or refrain from the activity of art, when a spiritual instinct tells it to do so.
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And, because my impetus for the project is the scope (in that I’ve never seen an unabridged adaptation of any book from the Bible, and would like to find out if it can be done), a possibility exists that the project could be undermined, or warped, if I persist at it for the sake of persisting, rather than because it calls to me for its continuation.
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But what I mean is that while my scope is an entire Gospel, without abbreviation, regardless of the fact that some parts of it don’t allow for an easy rendering in image, their scope is individual scenes, discriminately selected, based (I would wager) on dramatic appeal.
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This isn’t false modesty, just the truth, which I’m ok with, even good with. Besides, I’m doing something different than what those artists were doing, in that my project is more a work of endurance than of aesthetic achievement (though it does also invite judgment on aesthetic grounds).
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I probably sound too serious, given that my illustrations are cartoonish, and lack sublimity, and are not in the same category as the works of, say, Gustave Doré, William Blake, or James Tissot, who, like me, sought in the Bible a subject for their art, but whose talents were more profound than mine.