Art and Religion - a short essay

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Art exists as a reflection of nature, but it also reflects human culture. Religion has been a part of human culture since its inception.

For an artist to create work with a religious theme, be it 'Jesus Christ Superstar' or 'The Satanic Verses' is to take certain concepts and put them in a modern context. The purpose of these works are to explore the metaphors and symbols that permeate culture, such as Redemption, Forgiveness and Enlightenment, not to mock them.

To say an artist 'blasphemes' by including a religious figure or a symbol in their work is not only doing disservice to the artist, but the notion of freedom of expression.

It also is a disservice to deny oneself the opportunity, sight unseen or unheard, to find a new concept to agree with, or, to miss a chance to discuss a different point of view in a considerate, thoughtful way.

Every work of art should stand on its own merit, and succeed or fail as it deserves.

But, every musician, painter, composer, writer, and Gackt, is also a person who has the right to explore these themes, in fact, an artist should be lauded for tackling weighty metaphors and challenging their audience.

Comments

[kohaku-chuu.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!
That's a very good essay, general karadin -in fact it's so good that I can add nothing to it!^^
As I already said at the dears-community, in japanese pop-culture symbols like crosses, swastikas and uniforms are mainly used to transport certain feelings or values, like in a lot of manga or anime for example -it might just be a figurative thing to express a certain message and we should find out on our own, what the artist wants to tell us.

[littleflapper.livejournal.com]

:o) nice essay!

I already said that fact I see art and religion themes in my fandoms is simply amazing, since I am studying it at college and right now I am preparing material for tommorow religionistic lesson :) I am glad Gackt and another jrockers like those things and this makes my classes even more intersting and plus more encouragement :P

[saishi-gackt.livejournal.com]

I generally disagree with religion, but what I really disagree with how easily certain people/groups get so easily offended by other people's interpretation and presentation of their own thoughts. I'm glad that Gackt has the mentality and "balls" to express whatever concept he deems suitable for his artistry and music.

Thanks for the essay..good job!^^

[koshien.livejournal.com]

Jesus is a very popular name in the Hispanic community, he might be singing about a friend or an imaginary person who he has named Jesus in the song.

People have jumped straight into this one.

It's Gackt's problem if he causes controversy by being too close to the knuckle or offensive, ie burning bibles/crucifixes etc. People will be offended. Simple as that, that's obviously imflammatory and imo very far from anything that Gackt would probably attempt. Edgy yes, thoughtprovoking yes, but straight out offensive on purpose......I think not. He's not that kind of guy (from watching his career for ten years), what would it achieve? Why do people think the worst just because of a simple song title? How about Jesus could be a metaphor for goodness/kindness and the song lyrics are about helping people, being compassionate etc? Yeh kids just jump on the negative.

On the other hand people have a responsibility to accept that other people can express themselves, artistically or otherwise with whatever subject matter they choose. Not forgetting that most Japanese people have little idea of Christianity, (remember the crucified Santa in the shopping mall?) From talking to Japanese friends over time on the whole Jesus is seen as a nice dude on the same scale as any Japanese saint equivalent. (won't go into theological blah here, just getting a point across)

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I think about it much in the way that modern media appropriates many ancient religious symbols and uses them to tell a story (for example, an Anubis figure - ancient Egyptian deity - in Bounty Killer as stand in for a Christian devil) no one complains about this use of religious symbol (because there's very few around that still worship Anubis - maybe) yet the image of the jackal-headed god is buried in our collective unconscious, so it still pulls some sort of primal trigger.

Personally, having grown up being indoctrinated into a Christian church, and discarding it in adulthood, I know the Christ story, I never believed it as literal truth, but as a metaphor, it's still a really good story, and could and should be re-told.

Whether Gackt's taken this metaphor and done something thoughtful with it, or used it to shock will have to be seen (or heard) when the song and vid are released. But it's the dismissal of it before it's even seen or heard that bugs me the most, in the case, it's the close-minded who will lose out.

[koshien.livejournal.com]

But it's the dismissal of it before it's even seen or heard that bugs me the most Yes that's the whole argument really.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Gackt's had pictures of himself dressed as a Catholic priest, holding a crucifix splattered in white paint and wrote a song called 'Maria' from the Rebirth album, he could have called the new single Messiah or Christ, but it seems to be the name 'Jesus' that's a real trigger to some.

[koshien.livejournal.com]

It's a powerful word, I think Christ would be the ultimate provocation though (if it was meant to ever be one)

[pinkspiderchan.livejournal.com]

It's also a bit of a culture divide. In the West, this would be seen as incredibly edgy and even (as already pointed out) blasphemous by some. This is mainly because cultures in the Western world are predominantly Christian. And while Christianity does thrive in certain Eastern cultures, one generally won't find the level of zealousness that one would find in the Western world.

With that in mind, we need to consider the audience. While he does acknowledge that he has a fairly sizeable fanbase in the West, Gackt is an Asian artist. Those who buy his music are also predominantly Asian. Given this, I doubt he's going for shock because it simply wouldn't work on a large-scale basis. Most likely, he's playing on artistic concepts of sacrifice and devotion...using Christian imagery as a base. I mean, once you strip away the whole religion aspect from it, "Christianity" as an idea could be considered very poetic in many respects.

As he is a musician, I'm not surprised at all to see this from him. As he is a true artist, I expect this sort of perspective and depth from him. Admittedly, this is one of the reasons that I like him so much.

In any case, I do agree with the views on freedom of creative expression. If there are people who really have a problem with the fact that he is using this imagery, they might want to re-evaluate their position simply because it is rather silly to denounce someone for finding something aesthetic and worthy of becoming art within the confines of religion. It's closer to veneration than it is to sacrilege.

I'm done rambling.