What went wrong?

Creative people can tend to be very sensitive. They were made to be that way. But this gift must be harnessed. It comes from God and we must be healed.

Continuing the study on the ‘avant garde’ and modernist tradition of the recent century we shall look at a very interesting pattern. Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian had a christian tradition and background. Indeed Van Gogh’s father was a leader of a local church and Kandinsky grew up with all the tradition bible story teachings.

Vincent van Gogh, in fact, trained and studied as a preacher in Belgium for a while. He was a great pioneer and from an early age wanted to honour God with His work. But he didn’t get on with his dad.  Deep healing was needed. We know later that this man was tormented and in the end took his own life.

Kandinsky wrote much about the spiritual theory and meaning of art.  He listened to piano playing whilst painting and spoke much of his findings and expressed a new form of abstraction which has a huge influence. Yet he and Mondrian began to portray how they felt through form and colour.  Mondrian was best known for his Purist approach to his work where he removed emotion and expressed spiritual purity through a n absence of clutter, something which we do “outwardly’.  However both these painters arrived at a time when Europe was about to explode in the form of war and rebellion. They both subscribed to an occult based belief system. Called Theosophy, it was a new age thinking about a new order coming out of the chaos around them. The fruit of this was the destruction about to occur all over Europe but the influence and indeed seeds of this work continues.  This needs rooting out.

God needs to be central in our thinking and motivation. We need to get the deep roots and pain healed.  We can influence so many and defile so much at the same time. It is like a volcano to which immense pressure is applied beneath the surface. It can explode and effect many. Or it can effect many in a good way, but only when God is allowed to be in charge.

(C) 2013 Daniel Chuter

Creativity, reflecting & influencing society

I talked recently of the ‘avant garde’, a term that conjures up things that go against the expected norm... things pioneered... things that we are not used to seeing... NEW THINGS. However in terms of the discipline of painting and music particularly, we must be very careful about the original roots and birth of these. We need to have new expressions of creativity birthed by the Spirit of God. These will be of lasting value and ultimately they even change the atmosphere and pattern of society.

Let me give you an example, in the negative:
New avant garde ideas were being produced at the turn of the last century. Society was very disillusioned and the seeds of war existed. This in turn was reflected in creative terms. Philosophy at the turn of the century, about 1910, declared... ‘God was dead’(Nietzsche). German expressionist art tried to vent emotion whilst new developments in technology were de humanising society. Out of all this ‘Dada’ was born as a rebellious art movement, and in turn ‘surrealism’. All this of course was rooted in the thoughts that God had turned away or in fact that He didn’t even exist. These brief movements led to massive changes in the way in which we now see creative expression. We know what came later, maybe not directly as a result of art but this had a huge influence and effected the perception of many.  Creativity should be an indicator, RELEVANT to what is really going on.

God is raising up many different ways of expressing Himself.  But it must be rooted in His peace and order and pure motivation.

We are products of our society but only God can change what needs to be changed.  God’s creativity must be harnessed. When unchecked you get true innovative people but in rebellion.

What is happening in our society that must be reflected in creative expressions. But we must go further and reflect God’s values so that God is once more declared as ALIVE.  The Spirit of God comes to every generation and we all have a part.

So lets look at the roots. Lets come up higher and see what must happen.

(C) 2013 Daniel Chuter

Avant Guard

Avant Garde (guard) is a French term used to describe a group of soldiers going ahead of the rest.

Society as we now see it has been hugely influenced by the influence of modern art and creative thinking. In the disciplines of music, poetry, painting, dance and theatre the effect of this can clearly be seen. However, at it’s origin, this new movement was unpopular.

Obviously we must trace the real roots of this thinking, because it has had such a profound effect. You wouldn’t have to go far to realise that much of it was rooted in the anger of society and the rebellion of man. However it has now worked it’s way into every creative expression today.
In time we could do an in-depth study of the origins of the modern movement within many creative disciplines.

What is interesting is to look at the ways in which God births a lasting change in society. It is birthed in the creative heart of God and often the result of a generation asking for change. However the answer that God gives isn’t popular, or even understood. When Jesus came to earth, He wasn’t exactly welcomed as the answer to what people thought they needed.  There is a pattern within the way in which God has worked in the past.  It often involves the complete ABSTRACTION of what we have been led to expect and believe. The early church turned society upside down.

Are we witnessing this change. Modern art has changed everything, but it’s architecture resulted in awful modern flat units. Obviously, in principle, we can’t go too far in pursuing this.

However, something has to CHANGE.

(C) 2013 Daniel Chuter

Beyond cliché

It's a tough job... finding and digging the hidden and valuable things, but someone's got to do it... can't keep recycling the "same old, same old" all the time. -
Never Give Up, Dig for Victory!!!