We are living in the age of postmodernism under the great influence of rapidly spreading and evolving mass media where one’s personality, sentimentality and diversity are considered important. Following the trend of this era, I repeatedly ask myself ...
We are living in the age of postmodernism under the great influence of rapidly spreading and evolving mass media where one’s personality, sentimentality and diversity are considered important. Following the trend of this era, I repeatedly ask myself a question as a Christian artist, "What am I pursuing and where am I trying to head for my artistic destination?" and these are closely related to the questions for the ultimate goal of my life and my identity. With this reason, this study is to explore the answers to those questions.
The artworks created by the artists project the internalized emotion and the world of artists. For the Christian artists, their artworks have an ontological status simply beyond the one as the physical object. The artwork implements the social role of the art and the human’s activities as well. In addition, it does not simply present the visualized aesthetic aspects. Besides, sometimes it can be embodied without separating the art from human lives so that the art can actually be utilized in the real world. This study is to provide better understanding for the activity called “Art Worship”, which Christian artists create as confession of faith to God. To do so, this study is aimed to exploring “Art Worship” as confession of faith to God in three aspects based on how the artist projects his/her Christian view of the world to the artwork. First of all, based on properly understanding ‘Theological Aesthetics’ and ‘Aesthetic theology’, this study is to deal with ‘Art Worship’ by integrating truth, goodness, and beauty and the one as an artwork which is re-embodied by the ones who appreciate it.
In understanding Art Worship, the storytelling technique taking advantage of Theological Aesthetics used in Art Worship makes it possible for the artist to illustrate the ‘Art Worship’ using the stories appropriate for the contemporary 21st century. This makes it the first aim to analyze the structure of the art and its aesthetic perspective, as well as reviewing the history of Christian Art with recollecting the course of Modern Christian Art in Korea. Most of all, however, it is to explore the new Christian art that can be easily read and understood by the public. In addition, we are to take a look at the fact that the true criterion in our lives (pursuing truth) is realized as the art (beauty) and it affects our lives. It has something to do with the aspect of ‘goodness’ that can be practiced in the artist's life through his/her fulfilling ‘Art Worship’. The Absolute being has the features of truth, goodness, and beauty, and these do not simply describe God-in-himself. This study is to examine the ontological features of the Absolute in detail. By doing so, we get to recover the divine beauty of the ultimate being, the Absolute. With a holistic concept, it is an attempt to observe the truth (human’s rationality and intelligence - cognitive ability) from a philosophical point of view, beauty (human’s emotion - aesthetic ability) from artistic perspective, and goodness (willpower - ability to practice) from theological perspective. Furthermore, this sort of artwork is created by the re-embodiment as a combination of the viewers’ imagination.
This allows us to take some time for theological and philosophical introspection on the art and to have contemplation on the aesthetic experience of the artists. In the same vein, this study introduces the artist named Oh, Ui-Seok, who has sublimated the Christian spirit aesthetically. Based on the Logos, it examines how the artist's sensational formalization is visualized through the artwork. He presents the world of the artwork with ‘Logos-ism’ in which the ‘Logos’ can be embodied with the image. The Logos-ism art goes beyond simply converting the Logos into the images, which leads to ‘Aesthetics of Embodiment’ by creating the artwork based on Logos with the Christian view of the world and the related theme.
This study has significance in that it can examine the potential of ‘Art Worship’ for confession of faith to God by according the artist's spirituality with the art in his/her life. Art Worship' implemented with the revelation of God and human's response for it can be visualized by the artwork, which extends the cultural prospect with its theological and philosophical analysis. Art Worship is the activity of the artist's confession of faith to God and it also leads to the way of salvation in gradual spiral form. The beauty of God should be projected to our lives in harmony with the spirituality and the intelligence through the critical consilience.
The ultimate goal of Art Worship is to encourage the public to easily understand and accept Christian culture, and to recover the true shalom in which the beauty of God is realized through art. To do this, we will need to present the definition of Worship and Art Worship with the extended prospect, and will consistently have interdisciplinary studies with the aesthetician, philosophers, theologians and so on.