Art for God's Sake

A Call to Recover the Arts

Philip Graham Ryken

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781629955032
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Ryken brings into sharp focus a biblical view of the arts and the artists who make art for God's sake.

NOTES

Introduction

1 See Makoto Fujimura, Images of Grace (New York: Dillon Gallery Press, 1997). For more information about Fujimura and his work with the International Arts Movement, go to www.iamny.org.

2 Emily Cottrill, quoted by Lucas McFadden in “Freedom of Expression? The Plight of Wheaton Artists,” The Record (September 27, 2002): 6–7.

Art and the Church

1 Stuart McAllister, “What Is Good and Who Says?” as quoted by Ned Bustard, “God Is Good Like No Other,” in It Was Good—Making Art to the Glory of God (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2000), 13–14.

2 Witness the vulgar creations of Martin Creed, Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, and others; see Gene Edward Veith, “Stealing Beauty,” World (March 20, 2004): 32–41.

The Artist’s Calling

1 While accepting full responsibility for all the inadequacies that remain, the writer wishes to thank Craig and Margaret Claudin, Bill Edgar, Mako Fujimura, Sam Hsu, Paul Jones, Sheryl Woods Olson, and Leland Ryken for making substantial improvements to this essay.

2 This insight comes from Frank E. Gaebelein, The Christian, the Arts, and Truth: Regaining the Vision of Greatness, ed. D. Bruce Lockerbie, A Critical Concern Book (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1985), 64.

3 R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Leicester, UK: InterVarsity, 1973), 210.

4 John I. Durham, Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 410.

5 Gene Edward Veith, “Stealing Beauty,” World (March 20, 2004): 37.

6 Ibid.

7 Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (1941; repr. Cleveland: World, 1956), 34.

8 Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism: Six Stone Foundation Lectures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1943), 142.

All Kinds of Art

1 John I. Durham, Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 410.

2 Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Christianly about the Arts, The Wheaton Literary Series (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1989), 54–57.

3 John Calvin, quoted in Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism: Six Stone Foundation Lectures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1943), 153.

The Good, the True, and the Beautiful

1 Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 72.

2 H. R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), 38.

3 Francis A. Schaeffer, Art and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 56–59.

Art for the Glory of God

1 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Rhodora,” quoted in Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Christianly about the Arts, The Wheaton Literary Series (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1989), 85.

2 Henri Matisse, quoted in George Steiner, Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991), 209.

3 Igor Stravinsky, quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft, “Stravinsky’s Early Years,” Ovation 1 (May 1980): 20.

4 Nigel Goodwin, as quoted by Makoto Fujimura, “That Final Dance,” in Ned Bustard, ed., It Was Good—Making Art to the Glory of God (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2000), 58.

5 Francis A. Schaeffer, Art and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 96.

Beautiful Savior

1 Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue, quoted in Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination, The Wheaton Literary Series (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1989), 70.

2 Francis A. Schaeffer, Art and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 30.

3 Ibid., 31.