{"title":"What Do We Look At When We Look at Art? The Bible, Visual Art, and the Redemption of Existence","authors":"J. Hoult, A. Kulak","doi":"10.5406/15437809.56.3.02","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study is dedicated to examining how the principles and values that mark the difference between the ancient Greco-Roman and biblical traditions help us to think about what (and who) we look at when we look at art. We begin with the Bible’s self-reflexive communication to its readers regarding the status of its own images and then consider works by Michelangelo, Tejo Remy, and Charles White—while also calling on Shakespeare, Hegel, and Kierkegaard—to show that art in the biblical tradition presupposes and expresses love as the transformation of life’s finite immediacies, the transformation of its finite givens, into the gift. We argue, overall, that the art of the biblical tradition demands that viewers pose the question of whether, where, and how deeply they find in those works—and in themselves—the principle of love as the redemption of finitude, the redemption of existence.","PeriodicalId":45866,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AESTHETIC EDUCATION","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF AESTHETIC EDUCATION","FirstCategoryId":"1092","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5406/15437809.56.3.02","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:This study is dedicated to examining how the principles and values that mark the difference between the ancient Greco-Roman and biblical traditions help us to think about what (and who) we look at when we look at art. We begin with the Bible’s self-reflexive communication to its readers regarding the status of its own images and then consider works by Michelangelo, Tejo Remy, and Charles White—while also calling on Shakespeare, Hegel, and Kierkegaard—to show that art in the biblical tradition presupposes and expresses love as the transformation of life’s finite immediacies, the transformation of its finite givens, into the gift. We argue, overall, that the art of the biblical tradition demands that viewers pose the question of whether, where, and how deeply they find in those works—and in themselves—the principle of love as the redemption of finitude, the redemption of existence.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Aesthetic Education (JAE) is a highly respected interdisciplinary journal that focuses on clarifying the issues of aesthetic education understood in its most extensive meaning. The journal thus welcomes articles on philosophical aesthetics and education, to problem areas in education critical to arts and humanities at all institutional levels; to an understanding of the aesthetic import of the new communications media and environmental aesthetics; and to an understanding of the aesthetic character of humanistic disciplines. The journal is a valuable resource not only to educators, but also to philosophers, art critics and art historians.