The Bible and Its Modern Methods: Interpretation Between Art and Text
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Morse, Benjamin L. (2008) The Bible and its modern methods: interpretation between art and text. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/498/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] THE BIBLE AND ITS MODERN METHODS: INTERPRETATION BETWEEN ART AND TEXT Doctoral dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts by BENJAMIN MORSE University of Glasgow Department of Theology and Religious Studies 31 October 2008 In memory of my mother The Reverend Jane Anderson Morse (1943-1995) 2 ABSTRACT The dissertation that follows pushes the boundaries of biblical interpretation by formulating relationships between passages of the Hebrew Bible and unrelated works of Modern art. While a growing field of criticism addresses the representation of scriptural stories in painting, sculpture and film, the artwork in this study does not look to the Bible for its subject matter. The intertextual/intermedia comparisons instead address five different genres of biblical literature and read them according to various dynamics found in Modern images. In forming these relationships I challenge traditional perceptions of characters and literary style by allowing an artistic representation or pictorial method to highlight issues of selfhood, gender and power and by revaluing narrative and poetry in nuanced aesthetic terms. The comparative analysis derives its two-subject structure for each section from the undergraduate art history seminar, in which two slides are projected and the group encouraged to identify similarities between disparate works. My use of this heuristic method then appropriates secondary sources to forge a relationship in which art criticism ultimately speaks for the biblical text. Chapter I juxtaposes the figure of Michal in 2 Samuel 6 against that of Queen Guenevere (1858) by William Morris in an essay that questions the portrait popular opinion has painted of the barren daughter of Saul. The Pre-Raphaelite painting and Morris’s related poetry help to build a defence for Michal against those who inflict her barrenness upon her as if it were a punishment from God. Morris’s sympathy for his adulterous heroine allows us to see the Deuteronomistic History’s maligned queen as one whose character and action in fact seem very in tune with the prophetic agenda of the greater work. In Chapter II, a woodcut portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche (1905) by Erich Heckel provides a counterpart to Abraham’s representation in Genesis 23. The German Expressionist reduced his palette to a bold black on white to memorialise the Modern father of great men. The comparison frames Abraham as the embodiment of the Übermensch, as one who laid waste to his father’s heritage and followed his own God. His role as one who lives ‘over’ others casts the haste with which he gets up and buys Sarah’s plot as a sign of his will to possess. Luce Irigaray’s Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (1991) is then incorporated to create a dialogue between the dark space of the portrait (symbolic of Abraham’s masculine ego) and the white space caused by Sarah’s death. Sarah thus speaks to ‘Abraham the Overman’ as the ‘Marine Lover’, beckoning him down from his high place and resisting the force in him that wants to bury her out of his sight. Chapter III turns to prophecy and reconsiders Isaiah 44 first as a collage made in exile and then as a performance piece conducted in diaspora. The Merzbild by Kurt Schwitters entitled Green Over Yellow (1947) takes a critical Modern step away from representation and forward to abstraction. Schwitters assembled his cut-up forms to 3 give them new visual value and made conspicuous their arbitrary edges and artful overlapping—a compositional and structural ethos not unlike the collage of forms in the exilic prophecy. Schwitters’ relative ease as an exile and expatriate in Britain also fuels questions scholars have asked about the nature and scale of the biblical exile. Finding that the text does not fully orient itself towards Jerusalem, a second part to this comparison introduces an alternative analogue for Is. 44 by treating it as a record of performance and drawing upon the work of Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) to discuss the passage’s broad approach to land and identity. The fourth chapter hangs an individual lament alongside Jackson Pollock’s Cathedral (1947), likening its parallelisms to streams of paint poured across the canvas and foregrounding the site of Psalm 13 as a field of/for abstract expression. Short though this hymn may be, its generalised language makes it accessible to a universal audience and lets emotion be splattered about in a personal protest against pain. Finally, Chapter V envisions wisdom literature and the character of Qoheleth with an understanding for the genre’s ‘conceptual’ outlook and the speaker’s sense of irony. A readymade gambler’s bond by Marcel Duchamp is projected opposite the opening chapter of Qoheleth’s reflections to introduce the wise man as a dandy who entertains his admirers through pleasing words. The comparison thus establishes a context in which a book that scholars have attempted to classify as either the work of an optimist or a pessimist can be appreciated for the attitude of witty indifference its author appears to affect. The project actively conceives of the biblical text as a ‘Modern’ phenomenon by emphasising areas in which it seems to invite abstract or metaphorical modes of understanding over literal interpretation. It utilizes an understanding of Modernism based not on the rejection of tradition but on the desire to rectify it. And it draws out the ways in which the Bible scandalizes the pious pictures critics have painted of it. Thinking not only of reading and visualising the Bible as an artistic process, the analysis aims to illustrate the legitimacy of viewing the text itself as a work of art. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION SCANDAL AT THE SALON ………………………………………. p. 12 Studies in the Bible and art, 19 Visual thinking, 23 Modern/ism, 37 An abstract method, 45 Project synopsis, 52 The religion of Modern art, 57 CHAPTER I HISTORICAL PORTRAITS THE DEFENCE OF MICHAL: PRE-RAPHAELITE PERSUASION IN 2 SAMUEL 6 ……………. p. 64 The first slides please…, 71 The woman by the window, 76 What the king said, 80 Defending her speech, 86 Towards her truer self, 92 Battles of the sexes, 96 Could we have the lights? 102 5 CHAPTER II EXPRESSIONISM AND THE PATRIARCH ‘THAT I MAY BURY MY DEAD’: MARINE LOVER OF ABRAHAM THE OVERMAN …………..... p. 108 Abraham by the book, 110 ‘R.I.P.’ with a sigh of relief? 115 A bridge from one man to another, 117 Dispossessing bodies, 128 Marine love, 134 Rereading the writing of ‘my dead’, 141 Abject aftermaths, 151 CHAPTER III PROPHETIC PRACTICE PICTURES PART 1: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME: ISAIAH’S CUT-UP CULTURE ……………………………………. p. 162 Exile is okay, 162 Prophets cut up culture, 168 PART 2: EARTH ACTIONS: DISINTEGRATION AND DIASPORA IN ISAIAH 44 AND IN MENDIETA’S SILUETAS ……………………………….. p. 184 Performance pieces, 184 Relating to the living earth, 192 6 CHAPTER IV ABSTRACTION ON A PSALM THE INDIVIDUAL LAMENT IN AN ABSTRACT CATHEDRAL: PSALM 13 AS POURED PAINT ……………………………………. p. 201 The style, 215 The self, 223 The nations, 228 The end? 232 CHAPTER V WISDOM’S CONCEPTUAL GAME INTRODUCTION TO A DANDY: QOHELETH’S TURN, WITH DUCHAMP AT MONTE CARLO ….. p. 239 Different dandies, 257 Before the vanity, 263 Playing roulette with Qoheleth, 270 Famous last words, 285 CONCLUSION DÉNOUEMENT ……………………………………………………… p. 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………… p. 304 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………………………… p. 328 7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plates Frontispiece: Minton tile design, probably Christopher Dresser, c. 1880 ….……. p. 9 I. Queen Guenevere (a.k.a. Iseult), William Morris, 1857-58 ……….. p. 62 II. Friedrich Nietzsche, Erich Heckel, 1905 …………………………. p. 106 III. Green over Yellow, Kurt Schwitters, 1947 ……………………….. p. 159 IV. Cathedral, Jackson Pollock, 1947 ………………………………… p. 199 V. Monte Carlo Bond, Marcel Duchamp, 1924 ……………………… p. 237 Figures 1. Study for The Seed of David, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1861 …………… p. 87 2. Stehendes Kind, Erich Heckel, 1911 …………………………………… p. 129 3. Untitled, Ana Mendieta, c. 1978 ..………..……………………………. p. 188 4. Isla, Ana Mendieta, 1981 ……………………………………………… p. 191 5. Detail of Cathedral, Jackson Pollock, 1947 ………………………….. p. 215 6. Photograph of Marcel Duchamp, Yves Poupard-Lieussou, 1917 …….. p. 254 7. Photograph of Marcel Duchamp, Edward Steichen, 1917 …………….. p. 286 8 [image] 9 In the fortieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God … As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. (Ezekiel 1.1, 4) 10 INTRODUCTION 11 SCANDAL AT THE SALON To define beauty, not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible. To find, not a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of Aesthetics, who will ask… …What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to me? What effect does it really produce on me? Does it give me pleasure? And if so, what sort or degree of pleasure? The Aesthetic critic … will remember always that beauty exists in many forms.