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An Art of Predestination: textual​-​visual​-​aural approaches to imaging the Bible

by John Harvey

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1.
Part 1 22:23
2.
Part 2 17:00
info
3.
Part 3 15:08
4.
'The Second Commandment' 04:26

about

In this paper I contend that Calvinism and art interact symbiotically: as the nature and our understanding of the one changes, then, so does that of the other. For example, originally, Calvin’s censure of art was directed at the superstitious and vulgar use of religious imagery prevalent in the Church of his day. However, since the late-nineteenth century (during the period when art became increasingly secular), Neo-Calvinists, such as Kuyper, have revisited, re-emphasised, and re-applied Calvin’s positive embrace of the visual arts as gifts of God bestowed for his glory and humankind’s good. One of my aims is to contribute to this rapprochement between religion and art.

In my research, the thread that unites them is the visual culture of religion — a field of investigation which connects art to branches of learning such as religious studies, biblical studies, and theology. In part, this is in recognition that a religion’s art can express values and beliefs in very different ways to its sacred texts, and that art can comment upon those texts in ways that words cannot. My own interest in cross-referencing religion and art derives from a faith commitment to Reformation theology, as well as from an aesthetic commitment to non-representational, systemic, and conceptual practices of Modernism. These two spheres, of commitment, I believe, are entirely compatible. In this lecture, I want, in part, to demonstrate how they fruitfully integrate in my own thinking and practice.

The presentation is, here, in four parts (which does not reflect the divisions of the paper), followed by a recording of the sound presentation.

credits

released May 5, 2021

Personnel: John Harvey.

Instrumentation for sound performance: Adobe Audition CS6, Apple MacBook Pro OS X 10.8, Apogee Gio guitar interface Apple Mac Book Pro OS X 10.8, Apple Logic Studio Pro 9, Apple MainStage 2, Boomerang III phrase sample pedal (two connected in parallel), Roland FV-50H and FV-50L volume pedals, and Traveler EG-1 guitar.

Context: Paper presented at the 'Calvinism and the Arts' conference, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA (April 14-16, 2011).

Source: Sample derived from recordings on an open-access online archive of sermon by A. W. Pink and other ministers (accessed June 2009).

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John Harvey Aberystwyth, UK

I’m a practitioner and historian of sound art and visual art, and Emeritus Professor of Art at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, UK. My research field is the sonic and visual culture of religion. I explore the sonic articulations of the Christian religion by engaging visual, textual, and audible sources, theological and cultural ideas, and systemic and audiovisualogical processes. ... more

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