Religion as Art: An Interpretation by Thomas R. Martland (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 183 Religion as Art: An Interpretation. By THOMAS R. MARTLAND. State University of New York Press, 1981. Pp. 221. $14.95. Among the more extraordinary of William Blake's many extraordinary claims is the assertion, in his engraving of Laocoon, that " Christianity is Art." ("Jesus & his Apostles & Disciples," he tells us, "were all Artists.") That something of the Romantic apotheosis of art and the artist survives today is evident in the religious aura that attends much of the language we use to talk about art. We like to think of the artist as an " inspired being," a " priest of the imagination " who has his "vocation" and produces "transcendent " works of art that furnish us with equally "transcendent" aesthetic experiences or "epiphanies." This attitude is perhaps most strikingly embodied in that characteristic modern phenomenon, the art museum. " Once a mere collection," notes Andre Malraux, " the art museum ... is becoming a sort of shrine.... From the Romantic period onward art became more and more the object of a cult." Not surprisingly, the exaltation of art goes hand in hand with an aestheticizing of religion. As art basks in the decaying afterglow of religious belief, so religion forfeits its claim to truth and becomes little more than another expression of man's "creative potential." Again, the museum-in Holderlin's phrase, an " aesthetic church "-aptly illustrates this. "Regarded as a temple," writes Hans Sedlmayr: the museum is not the temple of any particular God but a Pantheon of Art in which the creations of the most varied epochs and peoples are ranged next to one another with equal claims to our attention. For this to be possible, however, it was first necessary that the divinities for whom the works were created in the first place should themselves be undeified. Distinctions vanish as Christ and Hercules join hands and become brothers, their divinity accommodated to aesthetic criteria. " The museum," Sedlmayr continues, " resolves all religions into things of the past, absorbing them into a new pan-religion of art." Champions of this development will find eager support in Thomas Martland's Religion as Art. His thesis is nothing if not straightforward : "what art does, religion does." Both "present collectively created frames of perception or meaning by which men interpret their experiences and order their lives " (p. 1). No doubt there is something right in what Mr. Martland says. Art and religion can help us interpret our experiences, and religion, at least, has helped many order their lives. The problem is that the thesis as it stands is uncomfortably general. 134 BOOK REVIEWS It doesn't seem to have isolated the distinctive features of art and religion . Our fund of practical knowledge, for example, is not noticeably artistic or religious, and yet it is " collectively created " and undeniably helps us interpret our experiences and order our lives. And wou.d we want to agree with Mr. Martland about art~ Art may be important to us for a number of reasons, but does it provide us with a means of ordering our lives~ .Should it~ Mr. Martland is obviously after big game here, but I'm afraid that his exposition is not entirely convincing. In arguing for the connectionindeed , for the virtual identity-of art and religion he develops a stable of concepts that, taken together, are designed to allow lJ;S to appreciate what is valuable about art and religion and at the same time, to enable us to distinguish them from their less worthy counterparts, " craft and magic." His central idea is that art and religion liberate us from " old understandings, old ways of seeing things" (p. 18) and create new ones, while " craft and magic" are content to rest with the already known (cf. p. 73). Art and religion serve the future, craft and magic the past; art and religion seek new understanding (a good thing), craft and magic want power and control (bad things). Unfortunately, the loose generality that undermines the book's overa11 thesis also undermines its supporting arguments. Consider, for example, Mr. Martland's discussion of the notion of " truth-to," introduced in an attempt to arrive at criteria for deciding whether something really is " art or religion." " Those activities...