The Visual Arts in the Classical Tradition

The visual arts have encompassed everything from painting and sculpture to architecture, tapestry, furniture, pottery, and more recently photography. The visual arts have been a part of the human experience since prehistoric times, with cave paintings being some of our only means of understanding the earliest civilizations, since the visual arts predate written language. In fact, wherever civilizations have emerged, the visual arts have been produced. We often think of the sculpture of ancient civilizations such as Greece and Rome. Included amongst these ancient works are artifacts from Eastern civilizations such as China, the Middle East such as Egypt and Babylon, and the Americas such as the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans.

In the Western tradition, the guilds that developed during the Middle Ages shaped our understanding of the visual arts. In order to become a master who could take on apprentices, artisans would have to produce a “chef d’oeuvre” or a masterpiece (also referred to as a magnum opus). By the time of the Renaissance, this masterpiece idea led to advancements in architecture and painting, particularly through the application of mathematical formulas that enabled the building of taller structures, such as the dome on the Florence Cathedral, and the discovery of linear perspective by Brunelleschi in the early 1400s. Virtuosity became the litmus test for true masters, and artists continued to push the envelope of effects that could be created on the canvas. Painting in particular took on epic proportions in part due to the promotion of the great artists in Vasari’s publication of Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550). Art history was now created and the personalities of individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo came to dominate the landscape of painting for generations to come.

In and amongst this personality-driven approach to art history, the creation of works of enduring beauty and significance were produced in a succession of art movements down through the centuries. What gives these creations such significance is the fact that they are idea-driven works with religious and philosophical insight. For instance, the famous Creation of Adam by Michaelangelo is simultaneously a religious interpretation of Adam’s creation by God showing an intimate connection between God and his creation. At the same time, we can see the philosophical humanism of the Renaissance in the details of the painting, such as the depiction of God in human form, an outline of the human brain behind God, and an idealized depiction of Adam.

Picture study, then, becomes this valuable treasure trove of idea-rich artifacts that have historical significance as the means by which some of the most important aspects of Western culture are handed down through the ages. Through works of art, we encounter truth, goodness and beauty in ways that can cultivate the affective domain. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m not certain one can create some sort of equivalency between art work and the written word. That being said, a classroom and a course of study ought to incorporate the visual arts alongside all the other areas of the curriculum from literature to history and from science to mathematics.

How to Do Picture Study

Our ability to teach a picture study lessons does not rely on any expertise we bring to the subject, but on a clear and consistent method of interacting with works of art. In fact, picture study can be approached just like reading a text, only the “text” we are “reading” happens to be of a visual nature. I cannot stress this point enough, as there ought not to be the thought that one must have studied art history or gained some competency as an artist in order to teach picture study. If you find yourself lacking in expertise, great! You get to encounter works of art alongside your students, growing in your own appreciation of artists and their works.

Charlotte Mason spells out what picture study looks like in her sixth volume, A Philosophy of Education:

We recognise that the power of appreciating art and of producing to some extent an interpretation of what one sees is as universal as intelligence, imagination, nay, speech, the power of producing words. But there must be knowledge and, in the first place, not the technical knowledge of how to produce, but some reverent knowledge of what has been produced; that is, children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group, by reading, not books, but pictures themselves. A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term. After a short story of the artist’s life and a few sympathetic words about his trees or his skies, his river-paths or his figures, the little pictures are studied one at a time; that is, children learn, not merely to see a picture but to look at it, taking in every detail. Then the picture is turned over and the children tell what they have seen,––a dog driving a flock of sheep along a road but nobody with the dog. Ah, there is a boy lying down by the stream drinking. It is morning as you can see by the light so the sheep are being driven to pasture, and so on; nothing is left out, the discarded plough, the crooked birch, the clouds beautiful in form and threatening rain, there is enough for half an hour’s talk and memory in this little reproduction of a great picture and the children will know it wherever they see it, whether a signed proof, a copy in oils, or the original itself in one of our galleries. We hear of a small boy with his parents in the National Gallery; the boy, who had wandered off on his own account, came running back with the news,––”Oh, Mummy, there’s one of our Constables on that wall.” In this way children become acquainted with a hundred, or hundreds, of great artists during their school-life and it is an intimacy which never forsakes them.

Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, 214-215.

Let’s break this down into some clear steps. First, notice that the interest students bring to picture study is innate and universal. Children are predisposed to bring their own intelligence and imagination to the task of viewing works of art. All we need to do is place before them a healthy diet of various great paintings and they devour the meal quite readily. Second, the children encounter the works of art themselves by way of prints. Today we have access to so many via the internet. We can print out copies on printer paper, or can purchase postcard sized reproductions. Hanging great artwork on the walls is another means of placing these works of art in front of them.

With this philosophical framework in mind, let’s turn to the method itself. The lesson begins with a short reading about the artist and the artwork. This shouldn’t be too lengthy, only enough to spark interest in the painting to be looked at in the lesson. Then the students look at one painting at a time. This is a full-focused immersion in the painting. Mason has the children “look at it, taking in every detail.” They can spend several minutes just looking at the print, noticing quite a number of highly specific details. Once the print has been looked at, students turn the picture over and narrate what they have seen. Notice how narration occurs just like we would expect of students reading a literary or historical book. They tell back the details they have noticed: colors, people in the picture, obscure items in the background, little details we ourselves may never have noticed. We will take a look at how we can develop art vocabulary in a moment, but for those just beginning, children can use simple descriptive language to tell back what they see.

I generally have students turn the picture back over to do another round of observations. This time they will notice items shared by other students. Sometimes debates emerge as to what some of the obscure objects might be. At other times, a teacher can focus their attention on key details, such as the source of light, the nature of the subject, the use of color, the development of perspective, and a host of other topics that helps develop their understanding of art.

A lesson of this sort – a short reading, focused attention on one painting, narration, and discussion – does not take very long. In fact, such a lesson is a great one to have in hand on days where there’s only a short amount of time between other classes. If you have a good set of prints, it is easy to distribute a set and encounter another new painting by the artist being studied. The simplicity of the method means that over the course of weeks and months, the student accumulates a good number of paintings of a single artist. The students develop a sense of the artist’s style and immediately notice similarities between paintings studied according to this method. Over many years, as they encounter numerous other artists, they develop a sense of differences in style.

Formal Elements of Art

I myself never studied art in any formal way. There has always been an appreciation, but my own study of art began when I started teaching picture study in the way outlined. It has become one of my favorite subjects to teach, and along the way I have fallen in love with the landscapes of William Turner, the works of Caravaggio still move me, and the philosophical ideas of Eduard Manet still compel me. One of the best ways to help students (and sometimes ourselves) to encounter art is to develop their art vocabulary. Here I’ll lay out the basic or formal elements of art: line, shape, space, texture, color, light.

Taking the first three together – line, shape, space – these are essential to the way an artist conveys three dimension in two-dimensional representation. We can find lines, whether well articulated or implied in the work of art. Sometimes the lines are straight, angled, curved or otherwise. Many times the lines move our eyes throughout the painting or focus our eyes on the subject. With shape, we are looking at the basic shapes being used – such as circles and triangles – and how they are arranged. All of these exist in the space depicted on the canvas. Are the shapes of flowers, vases and fruits placed on a table? Do ships sail on a rolling sea? Is there a window behind a lady in a portrait that gives a sense of the setting? All of these questions point to the use of space.

Texture, color and light are effects that play with our perception of what is happening in the picture. Artists use these effects to create visual realism or to trick the eye through impressions. Texture gives the sense of roughness or smoothness. Even without touching the painting, the eye gets the impression that there is a tactile aspect to the painting. As to color, even a basic understanding of the color wheel can help students see the use of contrasting colors – such as blues and oranges – or the use of warm and cold colors – red hues versus blue hues. The concept of light pertains to the way a source of light plays off of objects, so that there are faces that appear brighter and faces that appear darker. You can often look for shading to identify where the source of light is located.

As you prepare lessons for your students, bringing in these formal elements can open new lines of observation. I recommend choosing one or two formal elements per painting during the second round of observations. I might say, “Okay, this time when we look at our painting, look at the way our artist has used color.” Then I would have students tell back what colors they found, where they are located, contrasts they see, interesting or odd uses of color, and so forth.

Art Movements and Artistic Techniques

Mason recommends reading from a biography of the artist being studied. There are many biographies that can be found for the most prominent artists throughout history appropriate for whatever age level you are working with. The goal with these readings is to understand the personal life of the artist, perhaps their early years, where they studied art, breakthrough moments in their career. Most biographies will indicate what sort of art movement the artist contributed to or was reacting to. For instance, Claude Monet was a prominent figure in the impressionist movement in France during the late nineteenth century. Unpacking what impressionism was as a movement gives a sense of the historical setting as well as the techniques used by artists associated with that movement.

Using impressionism as an example, we know that it was a movement that was reacting to the art of the establishment which has become very staid and formal. Eduard Manet expressed the philosophical concept that “art is artifice,” an idea that inspired a controversial new art scene to emerge. There’s a sense of rebellion amongst the impressionists. As a movement, the artists of this scene contributed to a cultural revolution associated with the modernism of the late 1800s. We can trace some of the tendencies to break with tradition in later art movements to the ideals of impressionism, such as the depiction of everyday life scenes rather than classical or historical subject matters. The irony is that today impressionist art is looked upon as some of the most beautiful artwork ever produced, but in its day the original audiences of these works of art were scandalized by much of what was produced during this era.

The techniques associated with impressionism are tied to the philosophical ideas these artists espoused. For instance, the quick and unblended brush strokes create blurred effects where they eye perceives objects in the painting, but can also see splashes of paint and brushstrokes. In some cases, the canvas itself is left untreated and peaks out amongst the brush strokes. When observing these paintings in a museum, you will often find people standing very close to the painting to see the individual brushstrokes and then moving away from the painting to more clearly see the subject matter of the painting. The brushstroke techniques used by impressionist painters gives a sense of lightness and energy to the paintings, in part because the activity of the artist remains visible in the completed work.

As you read about artists, there will emerge a strong connection between the historical setting of the artist and their works as well as specific techniques that artist used and developed over the course of a career. These readings enable students to see items in the paintings they observe and provide even more language for them to describe what they are noticing.

Hopefully this exploration of picture study has inspired you to incorporate paintings into your classroom or school. No matter what subject you teach, works of art can make lessons come alive.

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The Beautiful and the Grotesque

How do we value beauty? What does our evaluation of beauty tell us about nature of reality? And can we find beauty in the seemingly grotesque? The evaluation of beauty led Charles Dickens to eviscerate what was then a new art movement, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The conventions of what beauty constituted had stagnated into rote forms, so said the small band of English artists who looked back on the early Renaissance masters — figures such as Leonardo, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo — as their inspiration. The humanistic impulse of the Pre-Raphaelites matched that of the early Renaissance painters, meaning there was a penchant for emotional expressionism and an attention to realistic detail. For Dickens, the break from accepted norms was too much to bear, something he calls “the lowest depths of what is mean, odious, repulsive, and revolting” (Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones,” Household Words 12 (1850), 12).

Consider how Dickens describes one particular painting:

“You behold the interior of a carpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown, who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest ginshop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy, with some small flavor of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying any attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist’s next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed. Such men as the carpenters might be undressed in any hospital where dirty drunkards, in a high state of varicose veins, are received. Their very toes have walked out of Saint Giles’s.”

Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones,” Household Words 12 (1850), 12-13

Now Dickens is known for his censure of industrial society, searching through the gritty streets of London for stories of genuine humanity. He can tend to exaggerate certain details and is given to biting sarcasm. So what shall we make of this particular painting he highlights for contempt? Christ in the House of His Parents by John Everett Millais was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850, where Dickens first set eyes on the painting. In fact, it was Dickens’s scathing review that put the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood on the map. Queen Victoria herself, in response to Dickens, requested a private viewing of the painting at Buckingham Palace. I can’t help but be reminded of Pope’s lines in “An Essay on Criticism:”

“But you who seek to give and merit fame,

And justly bear a critic’s noble name,

Be sure your self and your own reach to know,

How far your genius, taste, and learning go;

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,

And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.”

Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”

The Millais, looked at afresh, has many qualities worthy of our consideration. Perhaps Dickens was too hasty in his judgment. (In fact time has been on the side of Millais.) The Christ figure, central in the painting, is garbed in all white. He holds up a hand that has been pierced. Why know not by what, but with the many sharp object and fragments of wood around the shop, one can only imagine cuts and nicks occur frequently in this space. Mary kneels down to kiss Jesus on the cheek, but it is hard to know whether the mother is comforting the child or the child comforting the mother, such is the ambiguous arrangement of their faces. The four figures encircling the scene of mother and child are all in some state of bowing. True, they are all bent over their work, but note how their eye lines all focus on the Christ child. The scene is unified by the earthy tones of the wood throughout the shop. The work bench, the door frame, and the lumber set aside is all rough. The bare feet of all the figures brush up against the wood shavings from the carpenter planing the wood upon his bench.

There is a rustic beauty in this scene. It is not the stylized beauty of aristocratic portraiture. Instead, we have a view into the domestic life of a carpentry shop. The real beauty comes in part from the masterful realism of Millais, but also in part from the theological insight Millais provides. Beginning with the cut on Jesus’ hand, we are reminded that this child’s journey will lead to pierced hands and feet. That same journey will see him bear the rough wood of the cross to the hill called Golgotha, the same kind of wood scattered around this carpentry shop. The wood and nails in the carpentry shop foretell the crucifixion of Christ. Outside the door of the shop, one sees two more theological reflections. One item is the rose bush beginning to bloom, which anticipates the crown of thorns. The other is pasture full of sheep, a reminder of the lamb who was slain.

Millais has provided a theological paradigm that enables us to consider the grotesque as something beautiful. The cross of wood is the epitome of the grotesque, being a torture device. Today we wear beautiful crosses around our necks. But this painting reminds us that there is pain, suffering and sadness associated with the cross. We would not be inclined to embrace a heavy beam of rough wood whose splinters would get under our skin. And yet that is exactly the call, to embrace the cross and follow him. A profound kind of beauty is found in the grotesque as we embrace that which the means of our salvation.

Cruciform Christianity

Western Christianity, particularly in its North American iteration, has at times tended toward the triumphalistic. We live in light of the resurrection. We anticipate our future glory. We emphasize the “already” of God’s heavenly kingdom more than the “not yet.” This creates a framework for our perspectives on economics, politics and culture. I am mindful, though, of the centrality of the cross and the alternative perspective this brings.

Paul embraced the cross wholeheartedly. He writes to the Galatians, “far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Is Paul triumphalistic? Yes. But his boasting centers on the cross, which gives a very different kind of framework for viewing the world. How much would our perspectives on economics, politics and culture change if we were to view the world as dead to us and us dead to the world? Morbid, yes. And yet there is a beauty, profound and invigoration, that opens to us through this perspective.

Despite generations of dispute over the nature of the atonement, Evangelicals of the past few centuries have largely agreed that the cross is central to our Christian faith. David Bebbington in his work Evangelicalism in Modern Britain spells out the lines of dispute and debate:

Learn more about Christian worldview training in the article Educating for a Christian Worldview in a Secular Age

“The Evangelical ranks were riven in the eighteenth century by controversy between Methodists, who were Arminians, and most others, who were Calvinists. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, this debate was dying down. Most Evangelicals were content to adopt a ‘moderate Calvinism’ that in terms of practical pulpit instruction differed only slightly from the Methodist version of Arminianism.”

David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 16.

I think this assessment of British Evangelicalism holds true broadly for North America as well, inasmuch as we have seen the rise of reformed Baptists and the like over the past few decades. What I find interesting about this historical perspective is that the cross itself is the point of commonality in different theological systems. It is where we come together in our Christian faith. By embracing the cross we draw closer together to one another.

Much of the dispute and debate of our current moment in the West has little to do with theology as we see the pull of politics sweeping into matters of faith. It could be that in a post-Christian society, politics becomes the new religion, which means that we must be ever vigilant to keep the realms of politics and faith separate. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Here is where I think embracing the cross offers a solution to the hostile divide we have experienced in society. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). How much impact could we have on society if this were our fundamental orientation? In the face of identity politics, we become the people who lay down our identity to embrace the cross and follow Jesus. For Christ to be our identity, though, is not an easy road. We are reminded of the raw lumber, full of splinters, that must be carried daily.

The Cross and the Good Life

Embracing the cross implies the loss of our lives. But the deeper truth – what we might call the “deeper magic” in the vein of Narnia – is that embracing the cross leads to a life of flourishing. Last year I reviewed Jonathan Pennington’s book Jesus the Great Philosopher in which he compares Christian philosophy to alternative philosophical traditions, including Stoicism. I admit that Stoicism has its attractions. Yet all the attractions of Stoicism have their analogue in Christianity. In addition, Christianity answers the problem of sin through the cross of Christ. The Stoic works to have a dignified death, whereas the Christian dies to self to have a right relationship with God. On the difference between Stoicism and Christianity, Pennington writes:

“But I believe there is a philosophy of the emotional life that is more comprehensive and effective than even the best of Stoicism – the Christian philosophy. And beyond practicality, the Christian philosophy also has the distinct advantage of being true – rooted in the historical and theological reality of the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. It is a philosophy for the whole of life rooted in a metaphysic more comprehensive than Stoicism.”

Jonathan Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher, 122-123.

Emotions are a significant part of life. Pennington’s claim is that whereas Stoicism promotes detachment from emotions, Christianity views emotions as controllable. His view is that Christianity as a life philosophy “recommends a measured and intentional detachment from the world and its circumstances for the sake of living a tranquil life” (114). To put it another way, our emotions are plugged into a higher reality and in this framework emotions are good and valuable. This higher reality is connected to the cross. To embrace the cross is to direct our passions toward something visceral that is both tragic and triumphant at the same time.

One of the mantras of the Stoic philosophy is memento mori. It means “remember that you will die.” The Stoic takes on a mindset that life is short and meaning is derived from fully embracing the present moment. There is real power in this kind of mindset because it snaps into focus what is meaningful from what is trivial. However, a more profound mantra for the Christian comes from Paul: memento mortui. True, this is a bit manufactured from the Vulgate. In Colossians Paul exhorts his audience to “set their minds on things above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). Then he reminds his congregation that “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). The Vulgate translates the Greek (ἀπεθάνετε γὰρ) with mortui enim estis, both meaning “for you have died.” As Christians, our philosophy is not based on a view of our own future death, but a remembrance of our death with Christ on the cross followed by our new life in Christ in the resurrection. Thus, our mantra can truly be memento mortui, “remember you have died.” Being hidden in Christ takes us to Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” When we embrace the cross of Christ, making it our own, we follow in the footsteps of Christ in the ways that Paul advises the churches under his care.

The Beauty of the Cross

There are many ways in which the cross, a tool of torture, is beautiful to those who embrace it. To begin with, the cross is the place where our atonement was accomplished. Repeatedly Jesus told his disciples that he would be delivered up, killed and then rise again in three days (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33 and parallels). His life and teachings were crucially oriented toward this objective, to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. There is something beautiful in the act of sacrifice, especially as the crucifixion of Christ is the most profound expression of God’s love for us.

I find in the cross another aspect of beauty, which is intermingled with the grotesque: the mortification of the flesh. We are called as followers of Christ to “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13) such as immorality, evil desires, covetousness, etc. (Col. 3:5). The cross is emblematic of this, with Christ laying down his life and inviting us to follow him in this manner. If we are to be his disciples, we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). There is something freeing in this radical discipleship. We confront the worst parts of ourselves and in so doing we see ourselves transformed into the image of Christ.

Read more about discipleship in the article, Christ Our Habitation.

Finally, the beauty of the cross is found in they way the cross serves as a beacon to all believers. In many, and perhaps most, of our churches, there is a cross raised up usually at a focal point such as the altar. The act of entering church moves us closer to the cross. I am reminded of the hymn Lift High the Cross, which speaks about how the Lord, “once lifted on the glorious Tree, As Thou hast promised, draw men unto Thee.” The cross becomes the gathering point for believers. When we embrace the cross, we share in an ingathering of the saved, in the knowledge that this splintered wood is where our sins were forgiven.

In a sense, Dickens was correct to comment upon the grotesque in Millais’s painting of the boy Jesus in carpenter’s workshop. Yet, beauty is often intermingled with the grotesque. The Millais shows us this dichotomy and in this way serves as an apt meditation on the very tactile nature of what it means for Jesus to suffer on the cross for our sins as well as for us to bear our cross daily. My hope is that during this Eastertide, we may have a renewed sense of how our embrace of the cross places us at the intersection of the grotesque and the beautiful.

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