Art Seeking Understanding
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About this book
Fides quaerens intellectum is the idea that living faith naturally seeks a more complete understanding of God in relation to his creation. It has motivated Christian education from the very start. Although Ars quaerens intellectum--"art seeking understanding"--is by contrast a contemporary locution in the Christian context of this volume it is a parallel to the more familiar phrase. "Art" here includes human making of the sort associated with any craft; this volume focuses on those usually called "fine" arts namely poetry painting sculpture and musical composition. The contributors to Art Seeking Understanding contend that art in almost any medium is typically born of a desire for some kind of understanding--perhaps of the potential in their medium an aspect of the external world or of the artists own compulsion to create. An artwork may be prompted by a desire for greater understanding of transcendent realities. A distinctive value of the collaboration represented in this book is thus the reflection of artists themselves set alongside remarks by philosophers theologians literary critics art historians and musicologists. Together these authors argue that there is a tacit if not explicit theological dimension to art-making that reveals itself readily in religious art but also in works that may have no such conscious motivation. The artist like all human creatures is made in the image of God ( imago Dei) but as both Scripture and tradition suggest may in fact realize more intensively than the rest of us an aspect of the divine Maker. In turn those who appreciate art may come to acquire an understanding of the nature of the Original Artist indirectly through allowing the works of gifted artists to spark their imaginative reflection. In this way art "speaks" to us theologically in ways that substantially enrich our knowledge of our Creator and his creation. This volume invites readers to consider how God speaks his characteristic poetic voice and the influence of that voice on our knowledge of the holy.
