The CHS Adult Christian Education summer offering begins this Thursday, July 14, with an exciting program called "Art and Faith: A course in the Visual Arts and the Church."
Presented by the Rev. Dr. Judith Davis, rector of Christ Church in Harwich Port., the course will be held Thursdays from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a short break during the sessions. The programs include lectures and discussions with slides and handouts as well as suggestions for how you might apply the ideas of biblical art history to your own life.
Here's the program agenda:
July 14, 2011: Session I: Timeline of Biblical Art History and the use of Arts in the Church
Corporate worship [stained glass windows, paraments/vestments/worship items
(e.g., chalices, patens, etc.), paintings, stations of the cross, icons.]
Personal devotion (books, icons, paintings, frescoes in monastic cells, etc).
Education: Telling the Stories of Scripture in images instead of words
Ten great paintings that tell the Biblical stories
July 21, 2011: Session II: Art in the Eastern tradition: Icons
Art in the Western tradition: Illuminated manuscripts
Choir books for worship
Books of Hours
The contemporary St. John’s Bible
July 28, 2011: Session III Cultural differences in Biblical art
Modern Japanese Christian art by Sadao Watanabe and Sochi Watanabe
Haitian art incorporating Biblical stories with pagan Vodou
Hispanic Christian art of the American Southwest
August 4, 2011: Session IV: Use of the Arts in the Church of the future and the roles of artist and viewer.
Installations in huge churches/cathedrals
Digital images
Abstract impressionism, etc.
Local arts groups, e.g., The Episcopal Church and the Visual Arts
Illustrations in devotional books, etc.
Revival of icon writing
The Rev. Dr. Davis has served as Rector of Christ Church Harwich Port since 2008. Prior to that, she served as Rector of Christ Church on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for 12 years. She was a member of the Capitol Hill Art League and led workshops on art and faith for the Dioceses of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington. Since moving to Cape Cod, she has led workshops on “Images of the Passion in Art,” “Images of the Nativity in Art,” and “Art in Stations of the Cross” at Christ Church in Harwich Port and “East Asian Brush Painting and Thomas Merton’s Zen Thought” for Evensong Retreat Center.
Mother Judith is Secretary of the Guild of Harwich Artists and an artist member of the Episcopal Church and the Visual Arts (ECVA). She has been painting watercolors for twenty years and has recently begun painting with oils and in the East Asian brush painting style. While not an art history major, she has studied art history and theology in continuing professional education courses at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Virginia Theological Seminary, and Yale Divinity School /Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Worship and the Arts. She has two essays published in Visio Divina: A Reader in Faith and Visual Arts (ed. By Mel Ahlborn and Ken Arnold; Leeds, MA: Leader Resources,© 2009).
