Friday, August 31, 2007

Atonement and Depictions of Christ

I have finally decided on a Thesis topic for my final year at Denver Seminary. I even submitted the official proposal, and it was passed this week. I am so thankful. This will be the title of my thesis research: "Two Views of the Atonement in Contemporary Depictions of Christ in Art." The two views of atonement that I will focus on are the Christus Victor and the penal substitutionary view. For some great introductory reading on these two atonement models I highly recommend the book Four Views of the Atonement, by Beilby and Eddy, eds.

I have also limited my research to only six depictions of Christ, which I have selected because they are contemporary (created within the last 20 years), they have been displayed very prominently before large diverse audiences, all art works have inspired critical writing in major publications, and each one I feel is unique in imagery and background. I hope to get images for my blog so you can know what work I am talking about without going on a wild google chase (that's google chase, not goose chase).

1. Alexander Kosopalov, born in Moscow, 1943

This is My Body, and also his work This is My Blood

2. Mark Wallinger, born in Chigwell Essex, 1959

Ecce Homo

3. Kent Twitchell, born in Lansing, Michigan, 1942

The Word

4. Cosimo Cavallaro, born in Montreal, 1961

My Sweet Lord

5. Gottfried Helnwein, born in Austria, 1948

Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi)

2 comments:

Hannah said...

Congrats on finally getting the thesis nailed down.

Jacob Haynes said...

Hi there. I randomly stumbled across your blog and have been thoroughly encouraged to see a Christian engaging the current art world in an intelligent way.

I am very curious in how your thesis turns out. Due to a little impatience I went on my own wild google chase for the artists you mentioned. I found a good Twitchell site here:
http://www.grconnect.com/murals/html/p6190017.html