correction - on the radio

Regarding the previous post, I am reliably informed by my mother that the BBC interviewer was Roger Bolton, not John Humphrys.

on the radio

the other Sunday morning was this very interesting chat between John Humphrys and a certain Dr Christopher Watkin of Magdelene College, Cambridge, on the subject of his recent Cambridge Paper on the name 'evangelical' and one of its cousins 'fundamentalist'.

I don't think I've ever heard such a fair interview on the subject of Christianity. Well done to the BBC on this occasion and well done to Dr W.

Cam: Cambridge Alumni Magazine

Never in the history of human thought have so few been taught so little by so many

The words of C.D. Broad, a Cambridge philosopher, referring to the new moral sciences Tripos after WWII.

I am tempted to apply those words to the Cambridge Alumni Magazine – interesting reading, and many people have gone into its making, but how many alumni actually read it or remember anything from it? Anything, that is, except a nagging sense of inferiority at not being among those millionaires, stellar academics and public figures that the university has produced in recent decades. And what a lot of them there are. Actually CAM is often a surprisingly good read, and a useful reminder of just how small and insignificant I am! How wonderful that the LORD has chosen the weak things of this world to shame the wise. Though let that never become an excuse for mediocrity or indolence.

Speaking of which, no more blogging for a day or two as I have articles on utopianism to write for imminent publication, reviews of books on church life for NTI and research on the history of mission to Islamic people to crack on with, never mind two music recitals (incl. programme notes), a sermon and the laundry.

the critical eye

In her splendid Cambridge Paper, which should open the eyes of philistine Christians (as it has done for me) everywhere to the value of 20th century painting (even the stuff that doesn't look like anything!), Margaret Wilson draws on Italian art historian Guido Ballo's 1966 classic, Occhio Critico, 'The Critical Eye'.

The work is subtitled 'A new approach to art appreciation', but it might more accurately be described as 'a new approach to classifying and showcasing bad art appreciation', presented alongside titbits from the good, critical approach (which Ballo was hardly the first person to advocate, describe or model). He is incredibly rude about 'the ordinary eye' - a non-critical reaction to art conditioned by prejudice and sentimentality. The list of stock phrases used by 'the ordinary man' (pp.71-4) are painfully funny - sometimes I see myself in them, and sometimes I wonder whether Ballo is being a little harsh.

His discussion of the 'Categorical Eye' - a dogmatic approach to art that speaks from only one valid aesthetic position regardless of the art in question is also interesting - he suggests that this kind of single-minded dismissal of whole swathes of styles and movements is characteristic of some of the best artists (though none of the best critics) who are forced to innovate and stretch art in 'their' direction in reaction to the other directions and modalities that have been tried.

Much of the book enacts the critical eye's take on art, in vignette form, and under topics (rather than chronologically, as in Gombrich's superlative History of Art). The critical eye is that which seeks to understand the art against its historical context, the varying purposes of different sorts of art, and in the light of certain important things that art should always be doing - Ballo seems to suggest that good art always has 'rhythm', for example. Like much art and music crit. it struggles with words, and is not always successful in being really substantial in its particular comments and analyses. Nevertheless, in opening up to the reader various ways of understanding appreciating that art that seems foreign and difficult, it is invaluable.

Great piccies, too!