Art History - Pastor's Pen for 28th Sept 2025

Dead Tree, Schnapper Rock Rd.

I have a strong memory from 1984 of sitting in Mr. Hawkins 6th form maths class and realising that maths at this level was a bridge too far for me. The sinking feeling I had encompassed the fact that the teacher was less than inspiring, though a pleasant enough person, the maths part of my brain had reached its humble peak the previous year, and a number of my classmates were quite irritating.

I wished I had taken something else, and Art History came to mind. Foolishly, I stuck with maths. Art History would have complemented my practical art, which I took throughout high school and continued at teachers college, given me an appreciation of history, and fed into my later theological study.

Apparently, Art History is soon to be removed from the curriculum and merged into other things. There is of course a backlash, particularly from the Art History Teachers Association, and an open letter to the minister from 25 leading galleries. We see a recent narrowing of focus in education, which in my view, may not suit the amazing diversity of young minds.

The same thing can happen in the field of Christian faith. The evangelical, protestant tradition is not strong on art installations or visual representations of our faith. We are all about words. But words are easy to twist into political and moral weapons. This has become abundantly clear in the current international news cycle. Are we too narrow minded in this way? It would be good to explore other ways of knowing that are available to us. The scriptures themselves are an amazing diversity of genres which fire the imagination. Let us invest our time in both the art, and the history of our faith tradition.