Reason and Sentiment in Art

(Charis-Kairos (The Tears of Christ) 80x64", Mineral Pigments, Gold on Belgium Linen--Makoto Fujimura " Charis (Grace) Kairos (Time), takes the methods I developed for my Soliloquies series which exhibited my large scale works with Modernist master Georges Rouault's paintings. Taking Rouault's indelible images as a cue, I decided to start with a dark background, to illumine the darkness with prismatic colors. I write in the introduction to the Four Gospels' project by Crossway: "I painted the five large-scale images that illuminate this volume, The Four Holy Gospels, using water-based Nihonga materials (Japanese style painting), with my focus on the tears of Christ (John 11) - tears shed for the atrocities of the past century and for our present darkness." (Makoto Fujimura) To my delight, I'm discovering that there is a growing interest in contemporary and modern artists among evangelicals. Still, many of my peers are uncomfortable with what they would argue is essentially an emotional medium of without regard for reason. However, and to an extent, I agree with Marshall McLuhan that the medium is the massage. Now, I'm not advocating postmodernism, ambivalence, or religious relativity. I simply pose the idea that we ought to consider each work and the context of its presentation with an open mind. For example, one of the most internationally respected Christian artists, Makoto Fujimura, abandoned the comfort of realism and instead communicates to the broken and isolated of New York City through abstract expressionism. Yet the beauty in his works speaks to the soul and affirms the truth of propositional sacred statements,making soul sense of the cerebral data. I forget who said this but one composer is quoted to have said that if he could communicate the truth with 'real' words, he needn't bother with music. Emotions and experience are not the truth's enemy. The abstract is the sense that our vocabulary is ill-equipped to rationally apprehend. Of course, sensations may be good or they may be evil. But whatever they are, they are powerful. As such, must Christians submit to the premise that abstract expressionism must ipso facto abandon the basic principles of rational engagement that initiated the clearest formation of the Enlightenment? I don't see why that should be the case. Writing from the mid-nineteenth century, Victor Cousin wrote a powerful statement that when there is a beauty of reason engaged in sentiment produce a true sense of humanity: "It is a singular, but incontestable fact, that as soon as reason has conceived truth, the soul attaches itself to it, and loves it. Yes, the soul loves truth. …..Sentiment follows reason, to which it is attached; it stops, it rests, only in the love of the infinite being. In fact, it is the infinite that we love, while we believe that we are loving finite things, even while loving truth, beauty, virtue." A true artist engages the brilliance of reason and intuition. The mind is never suspended: Intellectual effort is required through discipline to technique and through meditative attention on God. And by abstract’s nature, invites mystery and vulnerability. While prudence determines what is appropriate for the public, abstract’s persuasive language enjoins community.