ZEDS Blog


I enjoy the essays of Dafoe, Addison, and Samuel
Johnson, all of which were published in pamphlets. Pamphlets were in vogue from 1650-1800, providing writers a forum to express views on politics, society, religion, and art. This has been revived in modern times in the form of blogs.

This is now a slight revamp of my blog that started in 2008.
My reading has become a little more specialized, although previous books commented on show I was heading this direction. At this point I will review mainly Christian texts or other texts from a Christian perspective. I intend to post more regularly with book reviews.

I consider reading and writing as part of the spiritual
journey toward maturity and, I hope, wisdom. These are postings of what I’m learning along the way.

Rod Zinkel, August 19, 2015


Monday, May 30, 2016

The Christian Tradition of Art

Titus Burckhardt holds to a traditional approach to Christian art because Christian art requires it. "For this very reason traditional symbolism is never without beauty: according to the spiritual view of the world, the beauty of an object is nothing but the transparency of its existential envelopes; an art worthy of the name is beautiful because it is true." (Locations 136-138 Kindle version) Burckhardt expresses a premodern view of art (Medieval), as opposed to a modern view (Renaissance and after). In the former the truth of traditional symbolism is important; in the latter individual expression is important.
          One of the most tenacious of typically modern prejudices
     is the one that sets itself up against the impersonal and
     objective rules of an art, for fear that they should stifle
     creative genius. In reality no work exists that is traditional,
     and therefore 'bound' by changeless principles, which does
     not give sensible expression to a certain creative joy of the
     soul; whereas modern individualism has produced, apart
     from a few works of genius which are nevertheless
     spiritually barren, all the ugliness—the endless and
     despairing ugliness—of the forms which permeate the
     'ordinary life' of our times.  (Kindle Locations 146-150)
In the first essay, “Introduction to the Sacred Art of Christianity,” and the last essay, “The Decadence and the Renewal of Christian Art,” Burckhardt writes of the differing perspectives, and the loss of the sacred in the modern one.

The second essay, “The Role of Illuminated Manuscripts in Christian Art,” introduces the reader to several important manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, early Northumbrian manuscripts, early Syrian manuscripts, and the Ambrosian Illiad. The author writes of the style of illumination and the cultures these books came from.

The title essay, the longest, is more technical than the others. Burckhardt discusses the art of the icon, architecture, and what these represent; medieval philosophy, mainly from Aristotle, but also from Plato and Boethius; and art of Eastern Orthodoxy. In this essay the author includes specific examples of each art.

As these are essays, and the topics significant, the book is a rather broad overview, far from comprehensive. Aptly, the author’s writing is significant. In writing a review there are many quotations I would have liked to have included. Burckhardt’s words have the weight of someone who knows religion and art, both of which use the language of man’s nature and the timeless.

P.S. In the last essay, “The Decadence and the Renewal of Christian Art,” the author addresses the question of whether Christian art can be renewed or reborn. He makes two separate statements:
          But a renewal of Christian art is not conceivable without
     an awakening of the contemplative spirit at the heart of
     Christianity; in the absence of this foundation, every
     attempt to restore Christian art will fail; it can never be
     anything but a barren reconstruction.  (Kindle Locations
     1461-1462)
"Christian art will not be reborn unless it completely frees itself from individualistic relativism, and returns to the sources of its inspiration, which by definition are situated in the 'timeless.'" (Kindle Locations 1497-1498)

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Chapbook: Two Natures

The Neville Museum series has published a chapbook of 15 of my poems. They are of human and spiritual natures. Here are two poems from the book:

Two Natures

On still water of the pond
two natures you may notice--
where scum has been gathering,
there also grows the lotus.

One Way

There's a boy
who stands knee-high
to a July cornstalk.
He stares one way
down the dirt road
his mother has gone.
He find Fortune
has desrted him,
like the poverty-stricken,
society-forbidden parent.
"I can't take care of you," she said.
I am the child who mirrors
his mother's tears without knowing why?