A Poem for Christmastime

This little Babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold.
All Hell doth at His presence quake,
Though He Himself for cold do shake.
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of Hell He will surprise.

With tears He fights and wins the field;
His naked breast stands for a shield.
His batt'ring shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need,
And feeble flesh His warrior steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
A crib His trench, haystalks His stakes;
Of shepherds He His muster makes.
And thus-- as sure His foe to wound--
The angels' trumps alarum sound!

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that He hath pight.
Within His crib is surest ward;
This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly Boy!

-Robert Southwell

Giving thanks for art

I came across another great G.K. Chesterton quote lately:

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and the pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

Cited in Frederick Buechner's Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought To Say), which in turn was cited by Ron Reed in his blog Oblations.

How to read the Narnia Chronicles

Several of my students (and their parents) have recently been asking me "What's the right order in which to read the Narnia Chronicles?" Actually, they probably said "What's the right order to read Narnia in" since they're in my Inklings class and not my grammar-crazy writing class, but that's OK. The purpose of language is the communication of ideas, and I understood them. Well, there are lots of other purposes of language, too, including patterns & the sheer beauty of the sounds & traditions & wrestling with the ineffable, etc. So.

But back to Narnia. Well, I told them that I didn't think it mattered in which order they read the Narnia Chronicles. I added that I had a slight preference for the "Published" order, but that's only because that's how I was raised, and I'll never forget the moments of wonder & revelation when I read The Magician's Nephew for the first time. Wow. But I didn't know which order Jack himself preferred.

So first of all, which order do you prefer? And why?

And then here's a really good posting on that over at another web site called What Order Should I Read the Narnia Books in (And Does It Matter?). I couldn't discover the author. Please do read it, and please read all of it, if you can. There are some very interesting points, especially the quote from Lewis. And I wonder what you think of the ending of this article?

By the way, I was really glad that the new movies are being made in the "original" order (even though that idea is now skewed a bit by that article), but I think we should all write to Douglas Gresham & beg him on bended knees to make sure the screenplay of Prince Caspian is much, MUCH more accurate than LWW! Sure, Disney probably thinks that modern viewers are too dumb for that kind of slightly elevated British 1950s English. But, as CSL himself said in the preface to Mere Christianity, "I don't think the average reader [viewer] is such a fool." Hear, hear.

The Myth of Talent?

Paul Butzi has a couple of good posts on the myth of talent over at his blog, Musings on Photography: the first is here with follow-ups here and here. I've commented on the first of those on his blog. His thesis is essentially that innate talent is an overrated notion. There is no way of gauging a person's early talent that will predict whether he will end up successful as an artist. It is only in hindsight that you can recognize talent. Furthermore, this mysterious thing called talent is no substitute for hard work. Given enough determination and practice, even someone who did not think she was talented can develop the skill to make good art. Deciding after a couple of false starts that you have no talent and just giving up on art would be a tragedy, whether you're destined to become another Rembrandt or not. Here's my friend Jayne's great story of how she never thought she'd become a good knitter but then persistence paid off. Her present passion for knitting (addiction, one might call it) means she gets tons of practice and gets better and better. You should see some of the amazing stuff she does (all photographed and shown off on her blog, See Jayne Knit).

Of course as a Christian I believe that there are gifts bestowed by God, including artistic gifts. Some people have them and others don't, or rather some people have certain gifts and other people have other gifts. But I agree with Paul's observations that thinking one has no artistic gifting (or "talent") is no excuse for not working hard to develop it (and even, I might add, to discover it in the first place). Even the most gifted artists have to work at their art. A lot of times an artistic talent can be buried by hurtful (and untrue) comments made to one during childhood by insensitive adults. While it is not always the case, usually you will find in the background of great artists a supportive parent or patron. Mozart, for example, doubtless had a larger measure of gifting/potential in the area of music than most of us do, but he was also fortunate enough to have had a supportive father who took him all over the place to play for and get training from famous musicians. Some artists who have suffered early discouraging remarks have been able to break through that later in life and rediscover and develop their creative gifts. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron helps people do that.

December Poem of the Month

It certainly is not feeling like Christmas around here; 70 degrees today.... But here's a Christmas poem to help usher in Advent. It's a few years old now, and stylistically outdated, but perhaps you'll find something to enjoy notwithstanding.

Incarnation

Immense and joyful was His infinite
existence, massive both in size and bliss,
in cosmic comfort, starry celebration,
and sustained aseity of happiness.
He folded up that hugeness slowly. In
an instant crammed into the virgin’s seed,
gently holding back so not to burst
by size and speed: and thus contained knew grief.
When born, He suddenly was jarred by pain,
embraced by arms that, too, knew pain, and lost
the warm protection of that prenatal place.
Stabbed with sudden hurts, He later stood
on weak legs, scarce contained by skin, and lost
the cool perfection of an infinite space.

~ Sørina




© 2002, Sørina Higgins. Do not use this work in any way without permission from the author.

To photograph, or to take photos?

Interesting post over at Shards of Photography. I quote it in its entirety:

"To photograph" is to talk, to sympathise, to open up to people, to interact and to share your emotions with you[r] subject, and hopefully vice versa. The actual act of tripping the shutter is only second to that. This is in contrast to "to take photos", where a photo is "taken" without "giving". When photographing, the subject gives a part of himself to you in response to your giving your attention, your showing interest, your sympathy. It's still not an equal deal as you gain income, fame or whatever you think to gain from your photographs. The subject most likely doesn't benefit materially from this deal unless he (or often she) is a model posing for you. Often the subject, however, is left with a positive feeling, a sense of importance or just had a pleasant interlude in an otherwise boring day.

I think this is very important, as a Christian and a photographer. Creating art with my camera, when it involves a human subject, must involve my relationship with the person I am photographing. I am guilty of "taking photos" when I've shot pictures of charming looking natives in foreign countries where I'm traveling, all from the safe distance of several yards, with a telephoto lens so the subject doesn't even know she's having her image "taken." I am realizing now that, aside from being somewhat unethical (you are supposed to get a person's written permission before publishing a photograph of him anywhere [though I've never published any of these surreptitiously "taken" photos], and in certain cultures having your photograph "taken" is akin to have your soul captured), it is not a very Christian way to do photography. As someone who has been touched by relationship with the Almighty God, I should be ever more keen to engage relationally with the world and the people I photograph. This post by ShardsOfPhotography has really got me thinking.

Shutter & Palette

This past week G. & I spent our Thanksgiving Vacation in Washington, D. C. In addition to running around looking at the monuments at night (in the freezing cold), touring the Capitol, sitting in the empty House gallery listening to a police officer give his rather leftist interpretation of the intricate workings of the U.S. government, and going hungry because of the atrocious cost of food in our capitol city, we whiled away several afternoons in the excellent Smithsonian museums. I’d like to take a moment to talk about the photography was saw in two to them, and to contrast these to some of the paintings we saw.

Well, first of all I’m wondering what makes a good photograph. Yes, of course, I know this is one of those unanswerable questions, like What is art and Why is this awful piece of music so famous and My 6-yr-old could paint like that what makes it worth hanging in a museum. Right. But I was a little baffled by some of the sharp contrasts we encountered. I’d like everyone to answer, of course, but I’d also like to direct you to Rosie’s photo blog for you to view some contemporary photography & maybe bring it into this discussion.

First of all, we saw a collection of photographs of NYC at the National Gallery of Art. Here are highlights. I was confused by this exhibition. I couldn’t understand why these were worthy to hang in the first art museum in the US of A, why they were supposed to be good. I mean, I’m no photographer, and I know that photographers love to mess with traditional settings, etc., but these were just out of focus, poorly arranged or not intentionally arranged at all (like aleatoric music, perhaps), oddly cropped, and so on. I felt like any hack with a camera could do better. Yet here they were, hung all neatly in their lovely rows, with plaques pronouncing how revolutionary and profound and gritty and full of the sense of life they were. Well, fine, but I didn’t get it.

Then we went on down the road to the Museum of Natural History (or, as we young-earth Intelligent Design Creationist like to call it, the Museum of Unnatural Fiction). There we were swept breathlessly away by a fantastic, gorgeous, stunning display of photographs from the current exhibition of winners from a nature photography contest. Wow! These were just wonderful. Picture after picture, crystal clear, vivid color, astonishing poses, stories printed on the sides of courageous photographers risking their lives to get the perfect picture. Take a look at this one of a giraffe at sunset, or this one of a polar bear afloat on ice. These struck me like the great sky-scapes of Tuner. Then there were astonishing compositions, like this one of an alligator’s snout above & below water. There was one of clownfish, not presented on the website, in which the camera was placed below bright orange seaweed where brilliant orange-and-black clownfish played, and the leaves of a mangrove tree were clearly visible above the water in the sky beyond! Wow. And eagles in their nests, and snow monkeys frolicking in the snow, and owls & bears & flowers. G. asked why these shouldn’t be hung up the street in the National Gallery of Art. And I had to ask the same question. What made these beautiful, carefully crafted pieces “Nature Photography” and what made those fuzzy, haphazard NYC photos art?

Well, of course, it doesn’t really matter. We had our various enjoyments in each building. And people who would be, perhaps, scared away or bored by “Fine Art” were thrilled and blessed by those photos of Creation. So that’s fine.

And then here’s another contrast we experienced. There was one particular image of a bald eagle which became the icon for the entire exhibition. When we viewed it, 5’ long & 3’ high, in stunning color, G. said it looked like a painting. We were shocked that something in nature could be that vivid, that bold, that perfectly posed. The head looked carven, as if out of wood, and painting with sharp contrast. So that was our highest compliment to these photographs: that they resembled paintings. Well, the evening before at the National Portrait Gallery, we had done just the opposite! There was a starting painting of Toni Morrison by Deborah Feingold. When we walked into the spare, primary-yellow room, her figure clad in black & grey, with a determined expression on her face, leapt out at us from the bright white canvas. Unfortunately, this image is not available online. You’ll just have to go to D. C. to see it for yourself! But we could not tell if it was a photograph or a painting. We stood looking at it & guessed before we looked at the caption. One of us thought it was a photo; one, a painting. It was a painting, but you’d be startled to know that. She was coming right off the canvas at us! Her shoulders were a good five inches away from the white background, her hands and elbows and breasts curved outward towards us; and all this in two-dimensions. It amazed me. Here’s the link to the web site of an acquaintance of mine, friend-of-a-friend, who does photorealist paintings. Again, they amaze me.

Of course, you see where I’m going with this. We gave our highest praise to the eagle photo by saying it looked like a painting; we gave our highest praise to the Toni Morrison painting by saying it looked like a photograph. Why is this? Is the goal of visual art, then, to fool its viewers into thinking it’s something it’s not? Or, to put it in different terms, is mimesis primarily a deceptive practice?

And then what about art, specifically photography, that does the opposite: that achieves its artistry by giving an image of something that could occur nowhere outside its borders? I’m talking about “avant-garde,” or specifically “surreal” works, those fantastical images of random (or not-so-random) juxtaposition like this one of paper clips and cows by Rosie.

I have not even begun to talk about the ideological or spiritual implications of these questions. It seems obvious to me that an artists could incorporate surreal elements as religious statements that there’s-more-than-meets-the-eye, or that some people could take offense at what they see as the deceit of some art, or that comments could be made on social interrelationships by visual juxtapositions, or that photography & painting can slide in and out of one another as multiple visions of the way things are & they way they should be & the way the artists sees them & the way they could be.

Feel free to speculate.