Recommended Reading
The following is a list of books I have read and recommend. Many of them have obviously influenced my thought and “helped” me. Books are works of art, after all. So, of course they can help.
Note on the order of the books: I have decided to create sections with various themes and then organize the books in order of accessibility. In light of this I will designate books that I think are of vital important with a 🜊 and a bit of a description of the book.
One more note. All links are affiliate links. If you click this link and make a purchase I will get a small percentage commission. Thanks!
Understanding Art
🜊“The Responsibility of the Poet,” What are People for? Wendell Berry
This is a very short essay from a wonderful book that I think applies not just to poetry but understanding all of art. The key idea is that art doesn’t do something but rather is a category of human made things that do many things.
🜊The Word Made Fresh, Abram Van Engen
Van Engen starts off with the reality that the longest book of the Bible is a book of poetry. On top of that, there are many more poems from the prophets to the prayers of Christ. In the most accessible book on art I have ever read, he opens wide the doors of appreciating poetry for all. Go buy it and read it with everyone at your church for Christ’s sake. Literally. He gave you a great poem called “The Lord’s Prayer” yet most of us have no idea why its a poem.
🜊Redeeming Vision, Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt
If you are schooled in art you can probably skip this one. It is an incredibly accessible intro to art and understanding how to look at art. It is a step up from my appreciating art depths series of posts. If you had a crappy Art History teacher/education this is the perfect book for you.
🜊A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders
This is such a great book for understanding how to read stories but, I think, the ideas Saunders puts forth are transferable to most art. His down and dirty way in which he describes the creative practice has greatly influence by writing and my three questions you should ask when you look at an artwork.
The Art World is rife with claims like, “Art grows empathy muscles.” Is that true? Winner is a psychologist who puts these notions to the test. Ultimately, the book points towards a phenomenological definition of what art is by showing how and why we respond to art the way we do, as far as the psychological sciences can tell.
🜊Seeing the Invisible, Michel Henry
I mention phenomenology quite a bit in my writing. This book is the major reason why (along with more of Henry’s work). Henry writes a phenomenological response to Kandinsky’s book The Spiritual In Art. By thinking through Kandinsky’s understanding of art Henry shows the phenomenological underpinning of all art. As I mentioned, I am trying to order these lists by degree of accessibility, this one is a doozy.
Making Art
🜊Makers by Nature, Bruce Herman
I wish I had Bruce Herman as an art professor. This book is a series of make believe letters Herman wrote to past and present students, colleagues, and peers. They are about how and why to be an artist. If you are interested in making art, pick this up and pick a section (you don’t have to read this book cover to cover, just start anywhere that strikes you).
🜊The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp
Creativity is not the product of genius. It is the product of disciplined habits. Tharp, a dancer and choreographer, is saliently attuned to this reality as dance is a medium that requires a greater degree of discipline with bodily consequences for those who fail to stay in shape. What habits do creatives need?
🜊Creative Practices for Visual Artists, Kenneth Steinbach
There is so much mystery surrounding how artists and creatives do the things they do. This book does not so much explain where the ideas come from, but what it is that artists actually do. Steinbach is a college professor who has taken up the task of trying to train creatives in all disciplines together! This book documents his work along with interviews of practicing artists who have achieved careers success in their fields.
Spiritual in Art
🜊Lifting the Veil, Malcolm Guite
There is a fundamental misunderstanding in our culture about what art is for. Guite gets at the truth of what art is for. Every Christian who is confused about art and why so much of it is weird should read this book. Every artist who has an inkling that art is more powerful than they first thought, should read this book and wonder if there isn’t more to the universe than material.
🜊Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle
Art is often connected with religion. L’Engle (of Wrinkle in Time fame) writes about the fact that making takes faith. It is like stepping out onto a stormy sea and finding that you aren’t sinking.
🜊The Divine Milieu, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Chardin argues that all of creation is in God. Revolutionary right? But he takes this very practically. If all things are in God, then God can be found in all things. This book is helpful in all walks of life, not just art.
🜊God in the Gallery, Daniel Siedell
Siedell makes and argument that God can be found even in the most bizarre of contemporary art galleries. He works from a similar premise as Chardin; that artists are making altars to the unknown god. Like the apostle Paul, we know who that unknown god is.
🜊Modern Art and the Life of a Culture, Jonathan A. Anderson and William A. Dyrness
Most Christian’s think that Modern art and all the weird art made today is crap at best and sacrilege at worst. Much of this stems from god fearing piety but it is woefully off base in many cases. This book should be taught as the core of any art history course relating to art made after 1870. It will change how you see abstract art. I am not saying you will suddenly love Jackson Pollock’s splatter paintings, but you will understand their significance and why Christian’s might find them a contemplative aid.
🜊The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art, Jonathan A. Anderson
Continuing where Modern Art and the Life of a Culture left off, Anderson furthers the arguement for searching for religious and spiritual meanings in art, this time with a focus on art since 1980. This is a more academic book but it is important enough that I moved it higher up the list. Anderson demonstrates how religious considerations were actively stripped from academic and public discourse in the second half of the 20th century. This was done by historians, critics, and curators but rarely by artists.
🜊The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers
This is a complex book but at its core it takes a philosophical approach to explaining why art is inherently spiritual. Sayers argues that every artwork reflects God’s trinitarian nature via three levels on which all art operates: Idea – Energy – Power. It is beyond this blurb to explain these notions but it is a powerful argument for why art is a unique aspect of how we can imitate our maker.
Theological Aesthetics: A Reader, Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen (Editor)
Theology, Modernity, and the Visual Arts, Ben Quash (editor)
Culture/Philosophy in Art
It is the namesake of this Substack! Robert Adam’s book is a huge inspiration for how art can catalyze new avenues of thought in us. Art is a confrontation that makes us see the world more clearly. It is mostly short paragraphs of Adams responding to artworks that have helped his life.
Flannery O’Connor: Writing a Theology of Disabled Humanity, Timothy J. Basselin
🜊The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist
Every academic should read this book. It is a mix of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy (specifically continental philosophy). The first half of the book is all sciency but super interesting. The second half are the cultural implications of his work. Even if you can’t handle all the science everyone should read the cultural implications.
🜊The Matter with Things, Iain McGilchrist
This book further develops the ideas of M&Em. It extends not only into the cultural implications of McGilchrist’s hemispheric theory but into how it is evidenced in art and religion.
Myth
Fiction as Art
Poetry as Art
Book Art