CM Conference Notes: Piquing Interest in the Arts

Lori Lawing gave this talk, and this is another one that I listened to without taking notes. There are some notes in the handout, though, and there was something that struck me that I wanted to remember. Since I can't say it any better than she did in her hand-out, I'll use her quotes.

Lori used the modern paraphrase of CM's Series, which was a first - it's the first time I've ever heard it quoted out loud, and I kept expecting to hear something off in the translation, or a typo said out loud. But it sounded fine (although I think I found a place where I need to add a comma . . .)

Lori said that CM wanted us to pique children's interest in the aesthetics of art, music and poetry. Those things move us "because they present truth and goodness in a context of universal beauty." Art isn't always beautiful, and it sometimes displays the effects of sin. But great art "can be beautiful even when it presents some aspect of the fall. As Christians, we see glimpses of paradise even in our fallen world. We have hope that our Redeemer is returning to restore all of creation back to the paradise that was lost . . . God's Word has a story to tell, a story of Redemption through the blood of His Son. That is the grand story of redemption. In a smaller yet still significant way, the aesthetics can portray stories of the hope of redemption in this fallen world."

Sometimes the question comes up, "What makes great art great? And who decides?" I think that the answer has something to do with what Lori is saying about the redemption story, although I haven't got it quite clear in my mind.

Then Lori showed us an example of art (Domenico Ghirlandaio's Old Man and His Grandson), music (Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; she showed the corresponding pictures as the music was playing) and poetry (Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Lessons from the Gorse) to illustrate how the beauty of redemption comes through in the aesthetics. See if you can see redemption illustrated in the examples.

Lessons from the Gorse

Mountain gorses, ever-golden,
Cankered not the whole year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong,
Howsoever pricked and holden,
Like your thorny blooms, and so
Trodden on by rain and snow,
Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?

Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Do ye teach us to be glad
When no summer can be had,
Blooming in our inward bosoms?
Ye whom God preserveth still,
Set as lights upon a hill,
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!

Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
From that academic chair
Canopied with azure air,
That the wisest word man reaches
Is the humblest he can speak?
Ye, who live on mountain peak,
Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek!

Mountain gorses, since Linnaeus
Knelt beside you on the sod,
For your beauty thanking God, -
For your teaching, ye should see us
Bowing in prostration new!
Whence arisen, - if one or two
Drops be on our cheeks - O world, they are not tears but dew.

E. B. Browning


(This is the last of my notes, although Tim has one to post; a complete list of conference posts is here.)