Death, Art & Christian Aesthetics: Part 3, Death and Christian Aesthetics

In my last post I discussed a replication of Landau et. al's study in a Christian population. Specifically, we showed how Christian judgments of Christian art are affected by mortality salience manipulations. Phrased more simply, death anxiety appears implicated in Christian aesthetic judgments. I wondered in that post if death repression might be why a significant amount of Christian art is less challenging and provocative than it might be. That is, a significant amount of Christian art might be created and consumed for existential comfort and solace. That is not a bad thing. People seek out all kinds of things for comfort. But this analysis might help us understand ourselves a bit better.

But surely this analysis can only explain so much. For example, a central subject of Christian artistic expression is the crucifixion. Clearly that subject isn't one that aids in death repression!

Or does it?

Recall some of the posts from my series on The Theology of Ugly. Surf to this post and compare the two pictures of the crucifixion. Also, surf to this post concerning the Isenheim Altarpiece. Surf and come back; I want you to look at the artwork.

If you look at those paintings of the crucifixion you realize that depictions of the death of Jesus can vary markedly in how existentially difficult they are upon us. Some depictions of the crucifixion can almost look peaceful and idyllic. Some can be horrific. Some can be hopeful. Others are devastatingly hopeless. Take, for example, Hans Holbein's Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (click for a larger view):



In Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot he describes Holbein's painting and has a character exclaim: “Why some people may lose their faith by looking at that picture!” (h/t to Kim Fabricius.)

The point here is that Christian art isn't necessarily involved in death repression. The very best Christian art can be very existentially unsettling. Further, there is the whole tradition of memento mori, much of which is motivated by Christian impulses.

Memento mori, a Latin phrase, can be translated "Remember you will die" or "Remember you are mortal." Memento mori is a broad category covering a range of artwork and cultural artifacts that share the common goal of reminding us of our eventual death. A particular subset of memento mori is the Vanitas still life genre where a reminder of death is depicted within a fairly mundane still life. The most overt example is the inclusion is a skull:



Sometimes a hourglass is added:



More subtle still, and my favorite addition, bubbles!



The point here is that, obviously, not all Christians, Christian art, or Christian artists engage with art for existential comfort. In fact, as we've seen, the exact opposite may be the case.

Can we come to understand these differences within the Christian population? Well, one approach that I've taken has been to try to quantify the existential comfort various faith configurations might provide. The tool I developed is called The Defensive Theology Scale (DTS). The idea behind the DTS is fairly simple: Which theological belief is more comforting, the belief that God will protect you from harm or that he won't (relative to others)? Obviously, the more comforting belief is that God is out there protecting you. Now, I have no means at my disposal to determine which belief is, in fact, true. But we can determine which belief is more comforting.

So, what the DTS does is ask about a lot of these kinds of beliefs assessing the degree to which a person subscribes to a whole cluster of relatively comforting beliefs. If you score high on the DTS your faith configuration is very comfortable, existentially speaking, relative to other Christians. Although we cannot know for certain why a person holds this comforting configuration we can guess that existential anxiety is implicated. Why? Because at each turn of faith this person has systematically adopted the most comforting faith positions available. It is reasonable to assume, then, that comfort is implicated in belief adoption for this person.

Now, take these insights regarding the DTS and revisit the experimental design from the last post. What might we expect about high versus low DTS scorers as they approach Christian art after a death prime? Assuming that high DTS scorers are seeking comfort we would expect that, in the face of death, they would prefer the Christian art. And, in fact, that is what we found. By contrast, low DTS scorers appear to eschew comfort. That is, when confronted with a comforting versus uncomforting belief choice a low DTS scorer is likely to choose the discomfort over the comfort. Consequently, in the face of the death prime we would expect these believers to be much less reactive, existentially speaking. That is, they should not show a stronger preference for the Christian art in the face of death relative to the high DTS scorers. And, in fact, that is exactly what we found. Low DTS scorers were much less likely to prefer the Christian art in the face of death when compared to the high DTS scorers.

These findings appear to confirm the typology I've been working with in my research. Sometimes I've used the labels "Defensive" versus "Existential" believers or "Summer Christian" versus "Winter Christian". In short, as I've argued in Freud's Ghost, while Sigmund Freud may have been partly correct that religious faith is motivated by existential fear, there appears to be many Christians who defy that assessment. And we see evidence for this conclusion in the way various Christians approach the world of art.