Journeying in December

Incarnation & the Arts

Dear friends,

I am very happy to write to you from the other side of two papers & two exams. All has gone well. There was a lot of studying and writing the last few weeks, but with my sister in for a visit and some friends from Austria over as well, I’ve also been able to play the role of the tourist and do some sightseeing in Edinburgh too. After Christmas spent in the Austrian Alps, I now sit at my desk at my parent’s house in the Netherlands, resting and slowly preparing for the next semester.

In general, I will gladly admit to enjoying exam weeks: with nothing much to do than revise all day and with probably a bit too much time, I always find myself getting sidetracked into the strangest corners of research. This past week it’s been a mixture of comparing Orthodox and Catholic conceptions of the development of doctrine and pondering who should be my new intellectual guide: C. S. Lewis and Plato have been most formative to me until now, but I’m looking for someone new. This has led me down some rabbit holes reading up on Hildegard of Bingen and Simone Weil, as I have an inkling that female mystics are where I should be looking.

The holidays haven’t cured me of this continual reading, but it is currently much more leisurely. My father has turned my old room in my parent’s house into his study, so I am sharing a room with my thirteen-year-old brother. I must confess that this was not something I was particularly looking forward to, but it has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. My brother is currently reading his way through Percy Jackson & The Olympians, a book series for children I read 15 years ago (it requires all my self-control not to blurt out spoilers.) It is a rather long series, and since my brother reads slowly, it has become a rather time-consuming hobby. Thus he has now taken to going to bed early so he can read before he goes to sleep, and since we share a room, this healthy habit is required of me as well. So I find myself in bed by 9:30 PM, leisurely reading some Elizabeth Goudge. A rather nice change from studying till 1 AM for weeks on end, I will grant.

Reading Simone Weil in the Alps

Ideas I’m pondering this month

Christmas should perhaps be the patronal feast of all those interested in theology and the arts, as it lies at the basis of the discipline. It is on the basis of the Incarnation that the Second Council of Nicaea defended the use of icons 1200 years ago, arguing that since God has become man, we should be able to portray Christ in the flesh.

For one of my exams last week, I found the Incarnation to play a crucial role in approaching certain forms of art. Popular art, from pop music to cartoons, is often attacked for its passivity and inability to pose an intellectual challenge. Time and time again art critics laud high art (which often requires a whole book’s worth of background knowledge to understand) whilst denigrating popular art. Initially, I found myself agreeing with art critics. If man is differentiated from animals via his reason, any art which makes less use of one’s intellectual faculties seems of a lower order, more fitting for animals than for us humans.

From the perspective of the classical philosophy I was taught during my undergrad, it seemed a foolproof case and I diligently made it during the seminar we had on popular art in St Andrews. But my Protestant classmates (not burdened by Aristotle but directly accessing the Bible ;) reminded me that I had seemingly forgotten to factor in the Incarnation into my argument. God has become man, and thus was capable of more than just intellectual exertion but also of aesthetic experience mediated by the senses. Christ didn’t just think and debate with others, but ate good food, drank wine and listened to music. From this perspective, popular art gains new merit. Let’s take the example of rock music. It’s typically enjoyed dancing to the music whilst singing along loudly. All this requires very little intellectual effort, but instead emphasizes the role of the body in our enjoyment of art. This bodily emphasis points to the reality of the Incarnation in a way which the intellectual effort of high art does not.

Christ does not merely exist as a mind but became flesh, capable of enjoying music physically as well as intellectually. I doubt Christ was sitting off in a corner at the wedding in Cana, pondering the terrible quality of the music they were playing at the wedding. More likely, he was dancing with the rest of the crowd. So, let’s join him!

Recommendations:

The Nativity by Giotto, found in the Arena Chapel in Padua

During my very first class in Scotland we discussed the Arena Chapel frescoes by Giotto. Painted at the end of the Middle Ages, Giotto’s style is already more realistic than his medieval predecessor’s and hints at the flowering of realistic forms in the Renaissance. Instead of a golden background, usual in the Middle Ages, we have a landscape background, heightening the realism of the frescoes. His frescoes can be used not merely to teach believers about Biblical truths but can also be used in meditation, as a visual exemplar of the practice Pseudo-Bonaventure describes in his Meditations on the Life of Christ.

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Bethlehem Down, sung by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge

One of the joys of living in the UK has been attending numerous Nine Lessons & Carols services. In the first week of December I attended three in one week, and was introduced to a whole new range of carol’s I’d never heard of. One of them was “Bethlehem Down”, which wonderfully transports Bethlehem to a southern English down (hill), where Christ’s mother Mary ponder’s the gifts he will receive once he is king: “Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown.” It’s accompanied by a melancholic melody, which highlights the sad reality of the gifts Christ did receive once he was king: “Myrrh for embalming and wood for a crown.”

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The Dean’s Watch, by Elizabeth Goudge

Elizabeth Goudge is a 20th century English novelist, who wrote a long list of lovely romances through which an inklings of Christ always manage to seep through. This book is sent in an English cathedral town in the 1870’s, where the cathedral dean and the watchmaker strike up an unlikely friendship during the Christmas season which illuminates their lives and the lives of those around them. The literary quality is not of the highest standard, but it’s a blessedly wholesome story that will encourage one to strive for holiness. Highly recommended for this time of year.

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A Tale Of Winter, by Eric Rohmer

One of my paper’s this semester was on religious experience in relation to the films of Eric Rohmer, which gave me a good excuse to watch a large array of this Catholic director’s films. A Tale of Winter is one especially fitting for winter. It tells the story of Felicie, who loses contact with her lover Charles after a summer fling. Five years later, we find her a single mother courted by two men she doesn’t really care for. Despite their interest in her, she refuses to give up hope in finding Charles. In this way, Felicie embodies the virtue of hope, hope in a love long lost, but waiting to be reborn at Christmas time. And who doesn’t need to be reminded of the importance of this virtue? As Charles Péguy writes of hope:

“It’s she, the little one, who carries them all.
Because Faith sees only what is.
But she, she sees what will be.
Charity loves only what is.
But she, she loves what will be.” ( from The Portal of the Mystery of Hope)

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Returning home also means visiting family and catching up with friends. The long, dark evenings spent talking with loved ones are my favourite part of winter. So I’ll leave you all to go downstairs and have tea with my grandfather.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Maria