Museums the world over, including Madison’s Chazen Museum, are filled with religious art. But the connection between art and religious faith today is not what it once was. Many Christian artists feel the disconnect profoundly.
Madison artist Cam Anderson, the executive director of Christians in Visual Arts – a national organization based in Madison, remembers the first time he realized the pursuit of art could impact how others viewed his faith. And conversely, how genuine Christian devotion could impact his standing in the art community.
That was twenty-two years ago at a conference in Kansas City. But the observation came up again and again in discussions with other artists. “There must be a reason for the dissonance we all felt,” he concluded.
So that began two decades of research that ultimately ended in a book that has just been published by InterVarsity Press, The Faithful Artist – A Vision for Evangelicalism and the Arts. And along the way he realized his research had changed his perspective on art and faith in conflict. “It resolved the tension that gave rise to the project,” he said.
At an author’s reception at Upper|House on the University of Wisconsin campus Friday evening, Anderson said that he felt the widening gulf between faith and art was starting to close again. “So many artists of faith are making so much good work,” he said.
Even if there’s an animus against Christian faith in the arts today art is still spiritual, people can still have a spiritual experience looking at art. And even if they don’t see their own faith reflected, “Christians can look for spiritual yearning and the presence of God in art,” he said.