How Should We Then Live Part 3: The Renaissance

Continuing his themes regarding humanism as expressed through art and culture, Schaeffer is clearly torn. For him the 15^th-16^th century Renaissance was a veritable glory. Clearly he loves the period and yet is torn apart by it because in many respects its values are in opposition to the Reformation culture he champions.

Whether this is actually true is of course a complicated question, one beyond the scope of this essay and certainly beyond what Schaeffer hopes to accomplish in his series. That said, I'm not sure his understanding of the period and its context is profound enough to warrant serious consideration. That may be harsh judgment by some estimations but again when considering how badly he mis-reads and categorizes the philosophical currents of the period, the faulty way in which he seeks to interpret its art and after watching this episode, I think such a statement is defensible and in fact stands on solid ground.

Schaeffer asks if art reflects the culture or advances it? I must say I don't even agree with how he's chosen to phrase the question. Art often serves as a form of cultural critique. Whether such critiques are 'advancements' remains an open question. I don't think Schaeffer properly answers any of these questions and I am certain that as Western Civilisation progresses (chronologically) he won't view such artistic critiques as cases of advancing culture. Would he then say that art is in all cases a mere reflection of culture? He would find very few indeed who would be willing to cast the age old question in such simplistic terms. Does he think art provokes changes in culture? Then he should say so. In truth the answer to the age old question of the art-culture dynamic defies easy explanation.

However he does make his preference for realism unambiguous and explicit. He clearly rejects any kind of symbolism, representationalism or esotericism in art. He focuses on terms like lifelike, proper perspective and accurate body posture.

We're left wondering, just what is art? Schaeffer clearly believes it is absolutely one thing and not legitimately something else but never explains why. Is art then a mere photograph in another medium? Is it allowed to communicate ideas? Is it a photograph (as it were) in someone's mind? Does the mind or the senses always accurately reflect reality? Are different perspectives legitimate? What about the spiritual dimension? How is that communicated in terms of realist art? Is it always possible?

Probably the greatest critique I have is with regard to what Schaeffer did not say. Not once does he ever explore the theology of the art and the problems of so-called Sacred Art. There is no talk of idolatry, sacrilege but only the philosophical difficulties generated by improper art. This of course assumes there is a proper art. What a strange posture for a Calvinist-Reformed thinker to take. It certainly represents a serious departure from the thinking, assumptions and intuitions of his theological ancestors. What does that say about his appreciation for and connection to history or his appreciation of the theological heritage he claims?

The truth is that Schaeffer is concerned (indeed obsessed) with building culture and a grand civilisation which he would view as the outward expression of the Kingdom of God. You can't do that without art and thus this question was so important to him and other thinkers like him.*

Schaeffer attempts to read an awful lot into the art and the intentions of the artists. Renaissance art made man the center, a lamentable fact according to Schaeffer. And yet, when 17^th century art particularly in the Netherlands expressed the Reformation doctrine of Vocation in its art, which effectively sanctified the ordinary and mundane, the daily life of regular people engaged in everyday tasks, this is something to be celebrated indeed – at least according to Schaeffer and other Reformation-minded art critics. And yet from a Catholic Sacred Art perspective, the Reformation art of the Dutch Masters was in many cases humanistic and man-centred. It would seem that one's context determines how one sees the question.

Renaissance artists were fascinated with the human body, with anatomy and with the growing interest in the sciences, something sparked by new knowledge being brought in from the East, along with the rediscovery of old texts (particularly Greek manuscripts) which flooded the West throughout the 15^th century. There was a fascination with the Classical World and an acknowledgment that much that was great (in terms of skill) had been lost. The old Greek sculptures had reached heights that had not been attained for centuries and thus the Renaissance artists and sculptors pursued mastery of the fine arts. As artists have always done they provoked each other and pushed each other along. There was innovation and experimentation just as today. Not every twist and turn or development was rooted in some kind of deep philosophical message. Art can certainly take that hue at times, but at other times it's just a case of artists and their world and a desire to improve something someone else has done or to try something unique. Schaeffer seems to miss or ignore these perhaps dull but nevertheless pertinent realities.

One would think he would celebrate the attempt to depict the human body as it is and that there would be an appreciation for the growing interest in the world in the form of landscape and the like. And yet he quibbles over proportions which in some cases are pregnant with symbolic meaning – a way to distinguish one from another, things that later artists would learn to do by experimenting with light for example.

I find his commentary to be filled with suppositions, a type of self-serving eisegesis and in some cases just plain error and contradiction. Schaeffer sees the Renaissance as forward looking, despising the past and yet at the same time he acknowledges they looked past the Dark Ages into the Classical World for inspiration. So were they forward looking or looking back? He laments their synthesis of the Classical World with Christianity – a strange statement indeed for in many respects that perfectly describes Medieval Culture. If we want to be more nuanced we could describe the Middle Ages (culturally speaking) as a syncretism between the Hellenistic culture of Late Antiquity, Constantinian Christianity and finally Northern European Germanic culture. Is that a synthesis to be preferred? One would hope Schaeffer would be just as a critical. Why didn't he raise such questions during the previous episode as he praised the art of the Carolingian era? What Schaeffer celebrated as advancement, Classicist contemporaries would have viewed as ostentatious and derelict if not degenerate.

Using his governing theme regarding the Problem of the Universals, he continues his pro-Platonic commentary by attacking Dante and Aquinas as being focused only on particulars. Again, this is a strange line to pursue. No one would agree that Aquinas was a Nominalist. Some might call him a Conceptualist, others would argue he was a Moderate Realist but no one (apart from Schaeffer it would seem) would be willing to call him a Nominalist or Terminist. For that matter Nominalism wasn't the majority view in the Middle Ages. Some of these issues were addressed in the previous critical essay.

Dante is made into some kind of Nominalist, an odd thing to assert and one that Schaeffer would be hard pressed to find anyone to agree with. A pro-Guelph author who focused on romantic ideals, cosmological order and harmony is hardly in keeping with an applied or theoretical Nominalism. I'm afraid on these points Schaeffer is clearly out of his element. Somehow Dante's seeming bifurcation with regard to love in terms of an ideal versus the ordinary affection due to one's real life spouse reflects his rejection of the universals? Actually the opposite is true. I could just as easily argue he's recognising imperfections in particularised manifestations and yet clearly to points to the existence of a universal form or reality (ideal love) that exists and should either be yearned for or attained to.

His attacks on Nominalism are all the more strange given that the outlook is usually associated with William of Ockham who is praised by Martin Luther and indeed not a few scholars have argued that Nominalism great affected and shaped the thinking of Luther, Calvin and not a few of the other Magisterial Reformers. This point alone negates many of Schaeffer's suppositions and all but decimates his narrative.

Schaeffer critiques Renaissance artists for their sought-after fame, self-portraits and tendency toward autobiography and this is contrasted with earlier Medieval ideals of anonymity. This is all part of his Renaissance narrative concerning loss of proportion and how the cultural balance has tipped toward man.

Many things could be said in response. We could point out Schaeffer's contradictions, how he on the one hand speaks of progress and advancement but now seems to suggest the Medieval was more ideal than the Renaissance. We could also point out that the world and society was becoming ever more complex. Additionally there's the context of Italy and just why the Renaissance arose there, a complicated but relevant question. Contacts with the East, the political structure of the Italian city states, the rise of trade and usury led to something unique, a developing patronage that existed outside the confines of the Church. The new wealthy class of bourgeois proto-capitalists, condottieri and self-made men commissioned art for themselves. Schaeffer seemingly laments this secularising trend but fails to understand this is in no small part due to both nascent capitalism and the growth of republicanism, the middle class and its values... all notions that were associated with the Reformation and notions that he would champion. There is a real short-sightedness at work in his critique, not to mention a glaring incoherence.

Artists wanted to paint real life and yet the 'sacred' restrictions of the earlier period which certainly lingered made this difficult. Art is often a game and in this case what they were often painting was Italian figures in 15^th century garb in the Tuscan countryside and yet it was packaged as the Magi visiting Christ or Joseph and Mary on their way to Jerusalem. Eventually this gave way to what could be described as secular art which certainly for a time tended toward a focus on the real. In some context Schaeffer seems to praise this but in reality (given his commentary) he ought to condemn it.

Artists slip messages into their art often exposing the hypocrisies in society or something about their rulers. Fouquet's famous painting which Schaeffer uses as a notorious example of degenerate humanism is not as clear cut in interpretation as he seems to think. While Sorel was indeed the king's mistress (a common but accepted sin and hypocrisy that you get in a Sacral culture), she was nevertheless dead and in accordance with Catholic theology, one in good standing. She was also considered to be extremely beautiful and thus by some estimations a reflection of this world-otherworldliness, a perfect frame for the depiction of Mary who was often thought of in terms of form or ideal. It's all rot of course and none of this is properly or Biblically Christian but given that Schaeffer embraces the largely Platonist categories I find his critique wanting, even confused.

An examination of the period and the dress in court also demonstrates that as depraved as things are today, it can get worse. It's also a lesson in the undulations and cycles of history and culture. We live in a particularly depraved moment and yet it's possible (if there isn't a complete collapse) a cultural correction may occur in the future. It's happened before but don't think that all past times were more moral. That would be a mistake. Again, Sorel was scandalous but died a good Catholic. Sacral culture always lowers the moral bar and indulges hypocrisy. It must, because the truth of the matter is that most people are unregenerate and try as you might you can't get them to act like Christians, unless you're willing to execute 2/3 of the population you're going to have become tolerant of sin... which is exactly what happens. The scandal of the period is not Sorel's body on display in the painting but the fact that she died a good Catholic. This is the bankruptcy of the so-called Christian culture and yet one finds that it wasn't always much better in the Protestant Christendom that would emerge a century later.

There's more going on than Schaeffer seems to admit or perhaps has grasped. Near the end of the episode he again asserts that Aristotelian Thomism opened the door to the Renaissance. Once again most historians would argue that the Renaissance was in many respects a movement in opposition or reaction to the culture so poignantly represented by Thomism.

After a somewhat erroneous interpretation of The School of Athens, Schaeffer plays a presuppositionalist card and argues that knowledge of God and truth are not known through statistical averages, a reference to inductive a posteriori reasoning, the proto-Empiricist programme of Thomism but rather through starting with the ideal. Schaeffer makes the Platonic case and argues that by starting with the ideal we can work out the answers to all the problems of society. Thus he casts himself within the Platonic-Rationalist camp, although he of course arrives at his starting point in a manner very different from someone like Descartes.

However, Schaeffer seems to be of the school that believes very much in the legitimacy of philosophy and the role of logic, rationality and systematic thinking. He advocates what some call the Faith Seeking Understanding model, an echo (by some estimations) of Augustine and Anselm. Once faith is present and treated a priori, philosophy can proceed unhindered. Rationality (and at times rationalism) plays a large role as does the coherentist theory of truth. Schaeffer would while utilising philosophy range far beyond the Scriptures in pursuing questions of art, culture, politics, the sciences and the like. The test for him is one of coherence. If the ideas pass the test and cohere with basic Biblical principles, even though the Bible itself does not address these topics or provide guidance with regard to them, then they can be considered 'Biblical'.

This is a very different idea of Sola Scriptura (and its necessary corollary the Sufficiency of Scripture) than what would be advocated by a Biblicist like myself. For Schaeffer the Bible is a starting point, a launch pad that's used to orient the ship but as it sets off it is destined to map out and create a new world. Synthesizing the knowledge of man along the way and tweaking and forming it into the service of God, a Civilisation-Kingdom is forged, or so they hope.

The irony here is that from my standpoint as one who believes philosophy is a dead end that leads to nihilism and thus can (for some) serve to drive one to embrace revelation, as one who believes that we are but dust, creatures who can at best attain to a type of informed ignorance, who can but apprehend knowledge, who cannot form a unified theory apart from what is granted by Divine Revelation which we are called to submit to... I see Schaeffer as very much a creature of the Enlightenment he so despises. He would see me as a sceptic, a nominalist, maybe even something of an existentialist or fundamentalist but I see his critique of culture as fatally flawed and rooted in a deeply erroneous epistemology and conception of Biblical prolegomena. These issues will be revisited as we continue to work through his series.

Finally, I must say I had to start laughing when I saw Schaeffer standing in the Uffizi next to Michelangelo's David. I also didn't agree with him on this point apart from the reality that 'David' has nothing to do with King David of the Old Testament. Schaeffer is right to see humanism on full display in the sculpture and yet this is a break with Thomism, not an extension of it. And it is dealing with categories that range well beyond universals and particulars. In fact Michelangelo was in some cases dealing with ideals and in other cases we could just say he was a strange bird... and don't think that such personal flaws and oddities don't play a part in the choices these artists made.

Leonardo was of a more scientific mind, fascinated with anatomy and (ironically) this-world oriented. Why the irony? Because in many respects had Leonardo been a Protestant he would be the object of praise because not a few of his ideals would actually resonate with Schaeffer's proclivities.

Why did I laugh when seeing Schaeffer next to the David? Because it reminded me of being in Sunday School and watching the series. Everyone was trying to act high brow, sophisticated and demonstrate how cosmopolitan and educated we were. Nevertheless everyone was a little uncomfortable because the truth is Schaeffer's standing next to this gigantic naked man on full display and it's a little awkward especially in that particular context.

But once again Schaeffer offered no critique of the art in theological terms and that's where I think he really failed but maybe he had no critique to offer. From what I understand he didn't want the art in the churches but he certainly wanted it in the museum. For my part, I am 'poor man' in Schaeffer's eyes. I can appreciate the talent and skill of the Renaissance artists. Bernini's skill with a chisel is breathtaking and yet in terms of the art itself, its ideology and subject matter, the Renaissance is (for the most part) hardly my favourite period. I can appreciate it and don't get me wrong I love Italy and miss it very much but I am not 'taken' with the Renaissance in the way Schaeffer seemed to be... and yet was obviously torn and tortured about it.

Continue reading Part 4

---

*There's an irony here in that the Islamic world has a rich artistic heritage but one largely devoid of creaturely figures and images. It's mathematical, geometric and even sublime in its quantitative and patterned complexity. Is it possible that Sacralist Islam in its prohibition of images actually produced a more Biblical artistic tradition than did Latin Christendom? If so, I would argue it's more of a comment with regard to Latin Roman Catholicism than it is with regard to Islam.

There's the additional irony in the fact that in Eastern Europe the Ottoman Turks were a little more favourably disposed to Calvinistic church buildings because often they were plain and austere and thus less offensive to Islamic sensibilities. They viewed Roman Catholic churches as idolatrous temples full of blasphemy. I'm sorry to report that they were right, albeit for the wrong reasons.