Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2011
Forrest Clingerman
Pages 1-24
From Artwork to Place
Finding the Voices of Moreelse, Bacon, and Beuys at the Hermeneutical Intersection of Culture and Nature
This essay investigates the correlation between theological investigations of culture and those of the natural world. A fruitful question emerges when reflecting on how theological thinking resides between these subjects: how does our theological reflection on art meaningfully inform our consideration of nature? The path to exploring this question takes the form of questioning three different works of art: Willem Moreelse’s A Portrait of a Scholar, Francis Bacon’s Landscape,
and Joseph Beuys’ Lightning with Stag in Its Glare. Exploring the interconnection between these works, a hermeneutical mediation between art, place, and the spiritual is suggested.