Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Kristen Rowe - Art Without Music?

In Van der Leeuw's last chapter, Theology of the Arts, he discusses his philosophy on art being considered within dance, drama, word, image, and building. All of these things revolve around God. The birth of art begins in the center with the Image of God the Son when He represents himself. Van der Leeuw suggests that art doesn't begin with creation, but with redemption. Van der Leeuw further goes on to discuss in detail what each component of art means and the contributions it has brought to art. However, when he gets to music, he states that "[music] represents eschatology in the theology of arts." Eschatology is defined as "any system of doctrines concerning last, or final matter, as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc." In his diagram, Van der Leeuw writes music in as demolishing, however, it's part of God the Holy Spirit. In my opinion, these are contradictory, unless I don't understand Christianity fully. I also don't understand how music can be seen as demolishing, when dance is part of art. More times than none, dancing involves music, therefore they'd both be considered art in my eyes.
Later in his discussion, Van der Leeuw points out that every true work of art is in a sense religious. I'm not sure how it was back in older times, but I believe now people who go to church sing hymnals in order to praise God. That can both be a combination of word, which is art, and music which is not art.

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