Paul Myhre interviews Wilson Yates and Bill Cahoy about religion and the arts. 

Paul Myhre interviews Bill Cahoy and Wilson Yates about religion and the arts. 

SARTS, the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, has created three podcasts that offer the reader “Conversations on Religion  and the Arts”.  These “Conversations” are with theologians and historians of art Robin Jensen, William Dyrness, and Charles Pickstone: all figures who helped create this modern dialogue within the churches and schools of theology.   With moderator Wilson Yates, the discussion with The Reverend Canon Charles Pickstone, Vicar of St. Laurance Parish, London, begins with his relationship to ACE, the British religion and arts organization that he helped develop while serving on its Board of Trustees and as an art critic for its publication The AaC Bulletin.  The discussion considers the future of the conversation on religion and art in Great Britain, and it focuses on certain of his own critical writings including an article on The Cuban culture’s positive view of the body as expressed in art and as an expression of both artistic and personal freedom. He considers the renewed interest in the work of the British sculptor Barbara Hepworth, and he explores the amazing and enigmatic work of art, Malevich’s icon Black Square.  It is a lively and challenging conversation that is touched by laughter and by seriousness as he explores the spiritual power of modern and contemporary art to engage the religious life.  And he remembers a colleague, Graham Howes, who was also central to the “Conversation” and missed by so many of us.  Graham Howes died in November of 2020.   wy

SARTS, the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, has created three podcasts that offer “Conversations on Religion and the Arts”.  This is one of the three “Conversations” with theologians and historians of art Robin Jensen, William Dyrness, and Charles Pickstone: all figures who helped develop this modern dialogue.   With moderator Wilson Yates, the discussion with Robin Jensen begins with broad strokes on her work as an art historian and historian of early Christian art.  She then moves in light of that work to a criticism of those who interpret the meaning of art for the people without—as a good historian must—asking what the people say that meaning actually is for them.  In the discussion she considers the experiences people have with art that moves them onto sacred ground and she explores the range of meanings that major religious symbols, such as the Cross—the subject of one of her books—have had down through history.  It is a discussion of delightful repartee and a profound exploration of the interactions of art and the religious life.  wy

SARTS, the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies, has created three podcasts that explore “Conversations on Religion and the Arts”.  This is one of those “Conversations” from three of the figures who helped create this modern dialogue.   With moderator Wilson Yates, Professor Emeritus of United Theological Seminary, Dr. William Dyrness, Professor of Fuller Theological Seminary, begins with comments on his now classic work on Rouault—including delightful commentary on the European settings where the book was written.  And from there he moves down through a host of ideas and events  in the life of the “Conversation” that considers the importance of Hans Rookkmaaker to the earlier academic consideration of religion and art, the importance of John Calvin to modern aesthetics, and a discussion of his work,  Modern Art and The Life of a Culture-- co-written with Jonathan Anderson, where Dyrness own approach to the interpretation of art is made alive and vital to anyone interested in the interaction of the arts and the religious life.   His conversation is filled with stories that speak to the larger narrative within theology, history, and the arts and with a special interest in the arts and Reformed Protestantism.   wy