Famous Religious Fundamentalist Artists

[ruggerson]

um.

Wait, I'm sure I can think of one.

Then again.

Maybe not.

[Fenris]

1. Thomas Kinkade of course.

If you want to call that "art."

[The Magistrate]

2. A Question Of Definition, Sir

Is Thomas Kincaide an artist?

[Fenris]

3. Great minds, Sir.

:D

[ruggerson]

4. Is he the guy who mass produces his paintings

and paints the same thing over and over

[bling bling]

8. Yes. And he doesn't even paint them himself personally.

He hires others to do the work and he adds little highlights here and there and calls them his own.

[tuvor]

12. You're thinking Warhol, too.

[bling bling]

14. This is what I was thinking of.

The Studio Proof canvas lithograph is created with a textured brushstroke process that recreates the artist's actual brushwork. It is then hand-highlighted by one of Kinkade’s master apprentices. Each unique canvas is created under the artist's close supervision. Upon satisfactory completion, Thomas Kinkade applies final highlights himself and hand signs the front of the canvas in metallic ink.

http://www.artontheweb.com/editions.htm

[tuvor]

18. I'll bet Andy wishes he were still alive.

He'd be doing exactly the same thing.

I don't dislike Kinkade for his methods. I dislike him because everything's so damned sentimental for a time and place that never existed.

[DBoon]

27. Andy was a devout Catholic

never missed a day of mass

[Dorian Gray]

41. Really?

I did not know that, DBoon. That's interesting. But, is that the same thing as fundamentalism?

[DBoon]

43. Of course it's not the same

I doubt Andy was all that dogmatic, and he was likely practing the faith he was raised in.

For all the weirdness in The Factory, Andy Warhol had a pretty straight life.

I dropped by a Catholic bookshop once, and they had a religious book of artwork by Andy Warhol. His rendition of stations of the cross or something

[Dorian Gray]

39. Yes, I agree...

I'm not a fan of schmaltzy sentimentality. A little gritty reality goes a long way with me. (Why I'm a fan of Realism and Naturalism in American lit!)

[FreedomAngel82]

13. I'm not surprised

Go figure.

[jdj]

28. NOOOOO!!

my idol hath fallen.

Just kidding.

those are the most fucking ridiculous paintings, someone has a lightbulb fetish.

everthing about them looks so beautiful and pre-thomas edison and then he goes all crazy with the electricity, it's weird.

[The Magistrate]

9. 'The Painter Of Light', Sir

I believe his marketting people have dubbed him. Mostly cozy little cottages with candle-lit windows, and such: forgive the imprecision, the memories are painful, and mercifully blurred....

[tuvor]

10. No, you're thinking of Andy Warhol.

[asthmaticeog]

17. There've been *many* others who've worked that way since Warhol.

Robert Longo and Mark Kostabi, to cite some especially famous examples.

[tuvor]

19. And I don't believe Warhol was the first, either.

Aren't there examples much older than him?

[asthmaticeog]

22. Probably/sorta.

A lot of old master types going back to before the Renaissance had staffs of underlings and students who would do a lot of the grunt work, but Warhol really did bring that kind of process to the fore as an integral conceptual aspect of the work, rather than just as an expedient. So yeah, there are numerous precedents, but at the same time, depending on how you look at it, there kind of aren't.

[mopinko]

45. artists have always, always

done mass production in various forms and formats. andy did nothing even remotely new. he just went back to the day before the cult of the artist/genius became everyone's preception of normal and the way is always was.

[Warpy]

29. He cranks out prints

of his sentimental and over saturated paintings, then daubs a few bits of paint over them and calls them originals.

It's quite a scam, one only a witless overpaid Rethug could love.

An antidote is at: http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=1918

I find it impossible to choose a favorite: the Klan meeting or the barrels of sludge in the sweet little creek or maybe the erupting volcano or the glue factory... So much there to choose from.

[evlbstrd]

5. Most "Outsider Artists" are fundamentalists.

And many of them are famous. I've read a lot about some of them and seen their work. I don't think you'd find them frightening or threatening.

[prairierose]

7. Please name some of these "Outsider Artists"...I would like to see

some of their art and attempt to understand what this school has to communicate.

[evlbstrd]

23. It's not a "school" in the sense you mean,

Outsider Artists are usually untrained and feel compelled to make their art, and often from found materials.
Our local PBS affiliate produces a series called Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations. They send two TV weasels and a put upon Camera Guy in a mini-van, and they wander the country's backroads searching out some of the most amazing people and their work.
Here's the web site:
http://www.kcpt.org/rare_visions/

For more background/depth, go here:
http://www.rawvision.com/outsiderart/whatisoa.html

Enjoy!

[Bridget Burke]

40. Check out the American Visionary Art Museum....

Located in the great city of Baltimore. Outsider Artists lack formal art training but are, otherwise, a diverse group. Some are poor minorities who could not afford education; others are more prosperous types whose family background forbade a career in the arts.

www.avam.org/

Quite a few are Fundamentalist in the sense that they follow Bible-based Christianity--but mostly interpreted by themselves, not preachers. These are the original guys (& women) who march to a different drummer.

Please distinguish Fundamentalists from those who want a Theocracy & use Conservative Christianity as a political tool.

[asthmaticeog]

6. Georges Rouault

Web images can't do him justice - IRL his paintings are astonishingly luminous, like backlit stained glass. Devastaingly beautiful work, and he was a devout Christian.

[ruggerson]

11. devout christian or devout fundamentalist christian?

big difference

[asthmaticeog]

15. Well, define and I'll tell you.

If you mean the contemporary captial-F meaning referring to a specific movement among ultra-strict Protestants, then no, he was already dead by the time that movement arose.

I still urge everyone to try to see his paintings in real life if at all possible, though. Fuckdamn, the things are incredible.

[Az]

16. Johan Sebastian Bach and Vivaldi leap to mind

Bach signed every work with a dedication to Jesus.

[bling bling]

21. Bach is one of my favorites. I love baroque classical music.

But I think the OP meant to distinguish between the religious and fundamentalists. There are thousands of wonderful religious artists.

[RevCheesehead]

24. Oh, please - Bach was no fundamentalist.

Please don't confuse devotion as fundamentalism. There are devout liberal Christians, too.

[hfojvt]

35. then we need to define "fundamentalism"

without all the pejoratives. Devotion does seem to be a characteristic of fundamentalists, but I suppose just because all fundies are devout does not mean that all devout people are fundies, but it also means that devout non-fundies do have some things in common with fundies.

[AllegroRondo]

38. I would consider Bach a fundamentalist

at least in his musical work. He claimed that everything he wrote was 'for the glory of God'.

[lukasahero]

44. Definition of "fundamentalism" from www.dictionary.com

fun·da·men·tal·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fnd-mntl-zm)
n.
A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture. Adherence to the theology of this movement.

I'm pretty sure Bach was dead by then. :eyes:

According to this definition, Fundamentalism is "in opposition to" the very "Protestant Liberalism" that Bach would have been a part of.

[RevCheesehead]

48. Well, I consider every sermon I preach to be "for the glory of God."

And I'm as liberal as they come in the Methodist Church.

Piety and devotion are NOT exclusive to fundamentalists!!!

[NAO]

20. Larry Flint - he got 'born again', and some consider his work to be 'art'

[alittlelark]

25. Jack Chick, of course....

http://www.chick.com/default.asp

uh, yeah.

[Mist]

26. Howard Finster

A reverend who lived in N. Georgia. Folk artist whose subject work was Biblical verses and illustrations of verses.

http://www.antonart.com/bio-fins.htm

[enigmatic]

32. I met Howard..

Great guy, and his stuff is beautiful...

[mopinko]

47. lots more like him out there

actually, i have a theory that religion cannot exist without art. without the ability to visualize the unseen, you can have no cloud beings, or whatever. art history is littered with religious zealots of all stripes. there are plenty more like howard finster, right now, today.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

30. I was thinking when I read your subject line

This should be a short article.

[Chomskyite]

31. Eh?

Giotto?

[hfojvt]

33. I think John Ruskin might disagree with you

He would probably be considered a fundy, at least as far as social policies goes - very religious and strict, but very economically left-wing. The pre-Raphaelites were supposed to be following his principles. As far as writers go, you would have Tolstoy and Tolkien on the list, and for poets Dante. In the music world, I believe that Bach was a fundy. I am sure there are others. Not to mention the famous quote by Jimi Hendrix when he claimed that fundy Phil Keaggy was the greatest guitarist alive.

[lukasahero]

36. Define fundamentalist?

I am familiar with Phil Keaggy and would never have considered him "fundamentalist". He is Christian, obviously, but his music, and his religion, is more inclusive and in many ways secular than what I consider the "fundamentalist" doctrine. Just because someone is devoutly religious, in my mind, doesn't necessarily mean they are fundamentalists.

Additionally, I would question your inclusion of Bach. Since "fundamentlist" wasn't really, as far as I know, a popular movement in his day, I'd be hard pressed to retrofit him with the title.

Tolkien also, not fundie, at least not in how I define it. Religious? Yes. Fundie? Debatable. I think you are taking noted Christians and applying the term fundie to all of them.

[Bridget Burke]

46. Your definition of "fundy" has nothing to do with Fundamentalism...

I've just had a flashback to Victorian Literature of England. Here's a discussion of Ruskin: Amid the theocentric aesthetic of Modern Painters, Volume II, man is considered primarily as a being related to his Maker; and therefore his spiritual aspects, those which ready him for a future existence with God, are most important. On the other hand, the final volume centers upon man and his relation, not to God, but to the needs of life in this world. In 1860 the knowledge most important to man no longer comes from the word of God in the Bible, but rather all knowledge, including that of God' is said to come from man's knowledge of himself. Once Ruskin placed man at the center of his views of the universe' his view of human nature, human needs, and human art underwent great change.

www.victorianweb.org/authors/ruskin/atheories/4.4.html

There's lots more at the site--including notes on Ruskin's slide into madness. Fundamentalism is bible-based Protestantism & Ruskin does not fit in. The pre-Raphaelites preferred myth & legend to Bible stories & some lived lives that gave the bluenoses of the day severe palpitations.

Johan Sebastian Bach was a good Lutheran but one of his greatest works was a Catholic mass--not nearly narrow-minded enough to be a Fundamentalist. Tolstoy was Russian Orthodox & Tolkien Roman Catholic--therefore, both disqualified from Fundamentalism.

Many of the Outsider Artists already discussed are old-time Fundamentalists--but they wish to express their faith, not force it on anyone else. Thomas Kinkaid is a fine example of the hypocritical Religious Right--not showing any real soul or feeling but ready to make a buck out of faking it.

[Montauk6]

34. If you include musical...

Jimmy Swaggart can tickle the ivories and warble.

Crisco Johnny is also something of a crooner; indeed, the biggest laugh I got out of this administration is when Ashcroft sang "Let the Eagle So-o-o-o-o-oar"

The late Dr. Gene Scott would occasionally entertain his flock with his God-awful honking on the tenor sax.

[msongs]

37. adolf hitler was an artist (water colors I believe)..and famous...and

christian too.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[Dorian Gray]

42. Hitler was Christian with trappings of the Occult.

I don't think that many fundamentalists (as we know them today) would claim his beliefs in line with their own, despite having some serious similarities.

I think we should define fundamentalists; we're getting our ideas crossed. There were many religious artists throughout history. Many of them greats!

I would personally define fundamentalists as an American and right-wing institution. Bible-belt Christians. Politically conservative Christians.