“In the metaphors used by the Christian creeds about the mind of the maker, the Christian artist can recognize a true relation to his [her] own experience; and it is his business to record the fact of that recognition in any further metaphor that the reader [viewer] may understand and apply.” – Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, 1941 Harcourt Brace, p. 41
If we take Sayers’ statement to be true, and I do, then there is a responsibility on the part of the Christian artist to not only seek out cues in support of our intellect’s understanding of God, but to portray that information in clear and persuasive ways. This responsibility on the part of the artist comes into focus as a natural extension of the artist’s spiritual life, one that is supported by spiritual disciplines and practices that will enfold the artist both in private and in community. And on the part of the viewer, their responsibility is equally serious. For the viewer, their job is to look upon the work of the artist and measure it against the standard of Eternity.
On View: A Paradox of the Holy, photographic montage, by Wilfredo Benitez-Rivera, 2007.
About the artist: Wilfredo Benitez-Rivera is photographer who observes the world through a contemplative eye. He is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Los Angeles, and rector of St Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Garden Grove, California and a frequent exhibiting artist with Episcopal Church & Visual Arts. About the image A Paradox of the Holy, Benitez-Rivera writes, “Three images fused. Graffiti in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem; Muslim Children in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem; and a young girl’s face from the Anglican Church in Ramalah.”
Additional Resources: Sacred Text as Window – Seeing one’s self through the eyes of another, Epiphany West 2008 Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Co-sponsored by the Center for Anglican Learning & Leadership, the Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, and the Episcopal Church’s Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations.