Lately, I have been thinking about the theology of art. Almost certainly this is a bad use of my mind, as I am neither a theologian nor an artist. But I cannot help myself. And I feel compelled to think out loud, as it were, here on the Rabbit Room.
At first, I considered writing a bunch of paragraphs making some points about theology and art. Is there a Christian way to do art? One paragraph would say this. Another paragraph would say that. A conclusion would end with such and such. Inevitably I would sound like a pseudo-intellectual frump, though. While I am not a practiced storyteller, it seemed better to me to attempt to work through my thoughts on a theology of art in narrative form. That is how the “Sojourner’s Dilemma” came to be. Perhaps there will be other stories on this theme. Interpretations and discussion are welcome.
The Sojourner’s Dilemma
Let us call the territory in question Houven. The borders of Houven were established in the Southern Hemisphere sometime in the twelfth century. By the end of the sixteenth century, Houven had disappeared from maps.
Throughout its four-hundred-year existence, Houven prospered. In one way more than all others, however, did the territory flourish—its people were creative geniuses. Houvenians were prolific artists, more so than the people of Florence or modern-day Portlandia.
Houvenian artists pursued many media. Oil on canvas. Tapestry. They were sculptors and architects and musicians and poets. Yet they were most known for their perfection of pottery. They threw, glazed, and fired plates and bowls and goblets unmatched by any pottery before or any since. It was said that the plates were so gorgeous and of such fine quality that no person eating a meal off of Houvenian dinnerware could become fat. (This seems suspicious to me, because I would think a person enthralled by the dinnerware would lose track of his caloric intake and overeat. But, I am just telling you what was said.) Likewise, Houvenian goblets lacked imperfection. It was said drinking from a Houvenian goblet was the smoothest moment of one’s life. (Whatever that means.)
The point is, the Houvenians were master potters. There is a way to create perfect pottery. For four hundred years, Houvenian potters did it.
Once a traveling artist from another territory, likely in the Northern Hemisphere, came and sojourned in Houven. Knowing something of the potter’s craft, the sojourner marveled at the Houvenian creations. The proportions were exact. The glaze even. The designs were Platonic.
She even pretended one time to be tipsy and dropped a plate, which broke into several pieces. Really the sojourner had had nothing to drink and was in her right mind. But she pretended to stagger when she picked up the pieces and then gaped with amazement at the perfection of the clay exposed by the fracture. She played the scene well, and the Houvenians, thinking she stared at the shard like a drunkard, insisted she go to bed early to sleep off her liquor.
The sojourner lay in bed awake that night thinking.
Pottery was not her artistic gifting. The sojourner had a lazy right eye that made depth perception impossible and her pottery lopsided. But she was a genius when it came to mixing colors, unmatched by any artist on earth. (The lazy eye meant she kept to abstraction when she painted.) The sojourner lay in bed thinking, and then she determined what she would do.
Waiting three days, so the Houvenians would not relegate her ideas to the ignorance produced by a hangover, the sojourner approached the chief potter of the Houvenian potter’s guild.
She said, “Chief potter, you are aware, I believe, that it is as an artist from another land that I have come to sojourn with you here in Houven. I have these many days been on the watch, observing the Houvenian artists at work. The painters are expert. The weavers are expert. The sculptors are expert.”
The chief potter knew where this was headed, for he had heard praise like this before. He let the sojourner continue.
She continued, “The musicians are expert. The taxidermists are expert. The architects are expert. The poets are expert.” She drew in a contemplative breath, “And you, sir, must surely know there is no art in all the world as lovely as the pottery of Houven.”
He replied, “Yes.”
The sojourner reached into the satchel she had over her shoulder and took out many pieces of canvas. She laid them on the floor in front of the chief potter. He looked down and straightaway began to weep. He had never seen such colors. It overwhelmed him.
He said, “I believe my eyes have now seen the perfection of light.”
This is going well, thought the sojourner. So she spoke to the chief potter, saying, “Thank you for your praise! If I may appeal to your kindness and to the great keenness of your affections, then can I speak freely? I have seen no pottery more perfect than yours. And you say you have seen no mixture of color as perfect as,” she toed the ground, “mine. Could we not join what happenstance has kept apart? Would not the combination of perfected pottery and perfected color make a work of art more perfect still?”
Solemnity was no longer on the chief potter’s face. In fact, he now appeared logical. “Woman,” he inquired. “You are not from Houven?” She shook her head. “Well, then those colors were mixed up somewhere other than Houven. Thus, those colors are not from Houven, are they?” She shook her head again and also made a puzzled brow. “Well, then if I were to allow you to wet Houvenian pottery – which you yourself call perfect – with non-Houvenian color, it could not possibly remain Houvenian or, as I prefer to say, exactly as it should be.”
The chief potter then called a guard, which immediately took the sojourner to the Houvenian border and shoved her across. Those armed men stood with menacing looks, waiting for the sojourner to walk away and out of sight.
Something like this encounter with the sojourner happened only a handful of times throughout Houvenian history. Each time, the Houvenians banished the intruder and by doing so, for four hundred years, preserved the distinctly Houvenian way of creating art, especially pottery.