Illusion or Reflection

Last week, Leeper briefly talked about Renaissance and Catholic art pieces.

His take on Enunciation and Magnifica was very fresh to me. I had nothing against Catholic church take on Maria, but I never really have appreciated enough about a virgin being chosen by God. It is something very beautiful I guess... Renaissance did depict Jesus in many ways. Most of the times, Jesus was portrayed as a baby Jesus or as a suffering flesh on the cross.

From my understanding and interest in history, Renaissance was based on the philosophy of Dante, who believed that salvation came from "self-awareness", and Beatrice in his "Divine Comedy" was the pinnacle of "self-awareness". Starting that point on, many artists inspired by Dante started to draw their own Beatrice. Botticelli, the painter of "The Birth of Venus", was one of them.

To go back more, another philosophy that not only shaped Renaissance but the Western culture as a whole was Plato, who asserted the separation between the spiritual world and the physical world. To be more specific, Plato defined the physical world as an illusion. He basically belittled the reality. It is a fact that the Western world is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, and even Christianity (for example, monks causing pain on themselves.) I do believe that many Christians nowadays tend to hate there physical body, and value only their own spirit.

I am not trying to downplay western civilization or the Renaissance. In fact, I am a huge fan of Renaissance art, and with all my heart I do appreciate western cultures as much as I love my own. Actually, I believe that the boundary between the West and the East is becoming more uncertain nowadays. We can blame it on globalization or thank globalization. 

However, my point is that I do think it is false to believe that this reality that we live in is a mere illusion or "phantasma". 

I believe that there is a meaning behind God separating water from water in Genesis 1. As water reflects objects, the heaven(spiritual world) and the earth(physical world) were made to reflect one another. I believe that it would be too much to say that one is less than the another. Yes, sin made us to fall. Yes, the earth has failed and it is tinted by our sinful nature. However, consider this. God justified us with the blood of Jesus Christ and already made us glorious(Romans 8). The spiritual and physical world are not separate. Word integration might be superfluous in this context, since they've been one. Those two worlds are interdependent.

Considering this, the responsibility of artists increases, because we have to capture the reflection of heaven and share with the others so that they could be delighted.

As faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see...

let us reflect heaven and let heaven reflect us... Let us live by faith alone.