- Joined
- Feb 19, 2017
Up to the 4th century, only splinter sects (gnostics) regularly produced or disseminated identifiably "Christian" art, especially of Christ. Once Roman paganism got mixed in, icon use skyrocketed, triggering periodic iconoclasms in East and West, with the East actually undergoing a schism over it after two bouts of massive iconoclasm. The Reformation briefly triggered iconoclasms, particularly Calvinists, who brought their distaste for actively depicting Christ and biblical scenes to the US.
The art the iconoclasts popularized can today be mistaken as a "normal" feature of the church: ambiguous art, crosses, doves, orchards and pastures, repeating floral shapes (remarkably similar to the Islamic take on aniconic art), and symbols opaque to non-believers like the Ichthys or the Chi Rho. The older churches tend to accumulate these, with new or replacement stain glass often introducing direct depictions of Jesus or biblical scenes. While such art contributes to a religious experience, but they are not so compelling or aggressive as placing images of Christ on the cross front and center, or showing scenes of Jews' brief OT triumphs, or scenes of Revelations, all of which can be used to compel faith through sympathy, envy, and fear.
That's getting at what my original post was highlighting- you can make "religious art" that has value other than in the religious depiction, because it is not always mandatory for art to serve the purpose of evangelism. Leftist art has been defined in terms of its social power for a while now, so leftists don't really get that luxury unless they are a rare "apolitical," while conservatives and individualists make "apolitical" or even art that disagrees with their worldview much more frequently. The parallel I drew is between post-modern Leftism and American Protestantism, and as you say:
This sufficiently explains why very little Protestant art is enduring or appreciated these days. It served a purpose, not emphasizing the goal of high art.
Vapid art like this and this will be forgotten within another century, Warhol might make it into some art history books- if he's lucky.
Politics aside, Warhol definitely earned his place in the art history books, if nothing else because of his massive contributions to pop art and probably being the last modern artist who was still worth a damn.
It helps that Warhol also had a lot of apolitical kitsch art as well as his hippie artwork and he either coined or is credited with a lot of phrases and expressions still in common use today like "fifteen minutes of fame"