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icons, franky schaeffer, comic books, etc.
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Peter T. Chattaway
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Apr 01, 2004 20:27 PST
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Franky Schaeffer (sorry, old habits die hard -- he will always be "Franky"
to me, never "Frank") makes some interesting comments in his essay on why
he will not see Mel Gibson's movie about the death of Christ. But one
sentence kind of jumped out at me:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/passion-notthiseaster.html
Icons are not understood to be "art," but part of the liturgical life
of the Church, no more open to individual interpretations than the
Lord's Prayer. That is why Orthodox Byzantine-style icons are so highly
stylized, "unrealistic" and otherworldly. They are sacred objects
portraying sacred themes that cannot, indeed must not, be pinned down
too closely to earthly reality.
Ironically, I think one of the reasons abstract artforms such as Orthodox
icons seem so "sacred" is precisely because they *are* open to multiple
interpretations -- or, rather, because the lack of "earthly" detail in
them creates a blank space of sorts onto which we can project whatever
suits our instincts regarding the "sacred" and so forth.
To explain partly where I'm coming from: Some years ago, Scott McCloud
wrote a fascinating book called _Understanding Comics_ in which he argues
that readers identify quite easily with characters who are drawn using
just the most basic lines (he calls this style "iconic"), and that, the
more detail you put into a portrait, the more "objective" and removed from
the reader it becomes; to encourage "subjective" participation in the
comic, you tone down the detail and create a certain degree of blankness
that the reader can fill in with whatever he thinks would go there. One
of McCloud's great examples of the difference between, and the potential
for mixing, objective/naturalistic art and subjective/iconic art is the
Tintin comics -- the *characters* are drawn incredibly simply, their faces
just circles with a couple dots and a few lines; but the *environments*
within which these characters operate is quite detailed by comparison.
I have cited McCloud's theories when explaining to people why it doesn't
really matter that films like _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ don't really give
us any reason to buy into the relationship between the main character and
her fiance -- the point of the film is not the romance, but the woman's
relationship with her culture; thus, all the detail must be in *that*
relationship, while the *romantic* relationship must have as little detail
as possible, so that we can all project ourselves into her situation. I
think something like this also explains why Mel Gibson's _The Passion of
the Christ_ has been as successful as it is -- his flashback structure and
his frequent use of point-of-view shots encourage the audience to think
they are experiencing the thoughts and memories of Christ himself, yet
Gibson doesn't actually put a whole lot of detail into the film to tell us
what *he* thinks Christ is thinking at any given point; the "iconic"
approach allows each of us to make of these images what we will.
Now, of course, Mel Gibson is anything *but* "iconic" in other aspects of
the film, especially where his obsession with the details of the scourging
and the crucifixion are concerned, and in places like that, we can see how
a "realistic" approach to the subject tends to put the artist in the way
of the subject of the work of art itself; we don't see the eternally
truthful significance of the scourging, but rather, we see Mel Gibson's
obsession with blood and gore. The artist who wants to point us towards
"higher" things will tend to avoid fixating on the details that he or she
finds personally interesting, and will move the work of art to some sort
of more-universal level by toning down that kind of detail.
So I do think it is perfectly valid to say that art may do a better job of
communicating the "sacred" when it is not so "realistic" -- but at the
same time, I think the very abstraction inherent in such art allows each
person experiencing the art to bring their own understanding of the
"sacred" to that experience, which leaves room open for interpretation.
All relationships involve multiple points of view, after all, so I could
see thinking of our relationship with the "sacred" along the lines.
I'm just thinking out loud here -- does this make any sense to anyone?
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- pet-@chattaway.com ---
Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they
claim remembrance, on account of their scars. -- Chris Marker, La Jetee
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