For many Christians, engaging with modern art raises several questions: Is the Christian faith at odds with modern art? Does modernism contain religious themes? What is the place of Christian artists in the landscape of modern art? Nearly fifty years ago, Dutch art historian and theologian Hans Rookmaaker offered his answers to these questions when he published his groundbreaking work, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, which was characterized by both misgivings and hopefulness. While appreciating Rookmaaker's invaluable contribution to the study of theology and the arts, this volume―coauthored by an artist and a theologian―responds to his work and offers its own answers to these questions by arguing that there were actually strong religious impulses that positively shaped modern visual art. Instead of affirming a pattern of decline and growing antipathy towards faith, the authors contend that theological engagement and inquiry can be perceived across a wide range of modern art―French, British, German, Dutch, Russian and North American―and through particular works by artists such as Gauguin, Picasso, David Jones, Caspar David Friedrich, van Gogh, Kandinsky, Warhol and many others. This book, the first in IVP Academic's new Studies in Theology and the Arts series, brings together the disciplines of art history and theology and points to the signs of life in modern art in order to help Christians navigate these difficult waters.
"In seven chapters, artist/art critic Jonathan Anderson and noted cultural theologian William Dyrness offer a compelling counter-narrative to Hans Rookmaaker's provocative and highly influential Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. . . . This volume is indispensible not only for Christians seeking to be faithful participants in the contemporary art world (artists, curators, critics, etc.) but anyone desiring a fascinating account of the omission of religious sources feeding modern art. Indeed, by taking modern art on its own terms, the authors have demonstrated convincingly that the standard story of modern art as a purveyor of secularism is untenable, making it impossible ever to view modern art the same way."
Bob Cavolo, SEEN/CIVA, XVI:2 2016
"Just what should Christians think of modern art? Is it void of all religious impulses and persuasions? Or is there a deeper vision often left unexplored? Rather than writing off the last century and a half of visual art as purely secular, Anderson and Dyrness meticulously detail the patterns of piety and spirituality that both influenced and empowered artists like van Gogh, Gauguin, Kandinsky, and Warhol."
Wade Bearden, Christianity Today, The 2017 Book Awards
