Books
Thistlethwaite, David: The Art of God
Book Info
David Thistlethwaite, The Art of God and the Religions of Art, Solway, 1999 / Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2008.
The Art of God is both a ‘personal aesthetic theory’ (Nigel Halliday) and a historical account of the relationship between Christianity and art in the tradition of Rookmaaker.
The theory accounts for art’s place in the scheme of things by looking at the Creation (Genesis). It argues that art is not just aesthetic, but a form of knowing. Even the decorative arts are ways in which we find and express our state of being in the world, as humans both part of and yet also above nature. (A great building uses the languages of nature to express more than nature: our aspirations as humans.)
The theory accounts for art’s place in the scheme of things by looking at the Creation (Genesis). It argues that art is not just aesthetic, but a form of knowing. Even the decorative arts are ways in which we find and express our state of being in the world, as humans both part of and yet also above nature. (A great building uses the languages of nature to express more than nature: our aspirations as humans.)