THE FIVE HUNDRED YEAR QUESTION

The following I didn't write. It is written by Makoto Fujimura an artist who is a committed believer and I find his writings compelling from several directions. He doesn’t approach things like the writers I am accustomed to. He makes me think in ways I am not accustomed to thinking. A lot of people don't like that but I find it refreshing. As I reread this piece today I began to think of the same concept (the Five Hundred Year Question) in regards to worship. Is there any worship out there today that will still be sung in 500 years? Or have we succumbed to the Worholian concept of getting our “15 seconds of fame”?

Enjoy.

 

It all started again when I visited the Fra Angelico (1395-1455) exhibit at the Met last December*.


Behind the splendor of the Christmas cresche, I entered the back hall of the Met. Surprisingly, there was no line (as opposed to the van Gogh drawing exhibit – 45 minutes). But there was a hushed gathering of many, moving about in the darkly lit halls.


I entered the halls and the golden aura of a diminutive Virgin Mary painting greeted me, with her azurite robe, and the Christ child’s supple body, reflecting her humanity -- a simple work full of weighty colors. Then I had to close my eyes, after a few seconds of pondering the saturated surface. I realized this was too much to behold, all at once. As I staggered about looking for a blank wall to stare at, almost feeling ashamed to be in the presence of such greatness, I had a “500 year” question pop up in my mind.


What is the five hundred year question? Well, it’s a historical look at the reality of our cultures, and asking what ideas, what art, what vision affects humanity for over five hundred years. It’s the opposite of the Warholian “15 seconds of fame.”


Contemporary art does not encourage such thoughts. Except for a few notable exceptions, like video guru Bill Viola or the minimal zen of Agnes Martin, contemporary artists want to compress time, rather than stretch time. We are immersed in a visual culture that squeezes life into 15 second commercials with instant gains. Chelsea galleries are full of art that screams for attention, as if to say they are the twenty first century version of Willy Loman. “Attention, Attention must be paid to such an art,” gallerists dressed in their designer fashion calls out. Rather than profundity, they pine after instant recognition and fame. Just like Willy, we peddle our goods to find significance and survival, all the more as the grey world all around us passes by.


Meanwhile, artists who labor to develop their craft, artists who are committed to a longer view of their art, suffer. I can name many mid-career artists, in their 50’s who deserve much attention, but galleries do not pay attention to them, and give fresh-out-of-art-school artists solo exhibits. But of course, they are replaced the next year by the next round of twenty year olds.


Nothing wrong with twenty year olds, by the way: Fra Angelico was one, but that’s the year he entered the Dominican order. That’s where his gift was discovered, in the long lasting tradition of art. He was trained as an apprentice, and his first notable piece was a visual echo of Lorenzo Monaco, which suggests that he studied under him.


If Fra Angelico was born today, he would have a hard time finding anyone to teach him their craft, to be apprenticed, let alone to join an Order. The church would not be the first place a creative genius would look for to be trained in art. That statement alone reveals how much Christians have abdicated our responsibility to steward culture.


If you spoke with people staggering about in the Met with me, having a similar reaction to looking at the glory of Fra Angelico’s paintings, you may find them to be Enlightened secularists who also grieve today over the fragmentation, the loss of a spiritual anchor in the contemporary art scene. They may be even atheists who by the very essence of their denial may have to appreciate the sheer weighty anchor of Fra Angelico paintings. Atheism demands a language of belief to wrestle against. Fra Angelico’s paintings are undeniably Christian to the core. Enlightened secularists would be staggering because the spirit has left them. Atheists stagger because they have lost the defining opposition. I stagger and grieve because, as a Christian, I realize I do not see anyone on the horizon who could create and paint today who would rival Fra Angelico’s angelic weight.


In short, we are all staggering about, or should be…those who have eyes to see. That is precisely how we should react to Fra Angelico and the five hundred year question. We stagger because we have lost even our ability to ask that question.

makato fujimura