(November 9, 2023 at 8:28 am)Belacqua Wrote:(November 9, 2023 at 8:10 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: 1) So you would argue that the best cultural works are religious?
No, as I said, I would argue that in the history we have, the majority of great works are religious.
If you want to say that the "best" are secular, then I guess that's a matter of taste. If you really want to make a list of painters that are greater than Giotto, Duccio, Cimabue, Masaccio, Masolino, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, van Eyck, Bosch, Breughel, Rembrandt, Rubens, the Pre-Raphaelites, Blake, and many etc., you might have a hard time selling it to historians.
Quote: We have no idea what these same geniuses would have done in a parallel secular world. They could have produce greater works, or nothing. We can say nothing other than the goods they produced were done within an atmosphere saturated by religion and that the works were good. But they were not religious texts. and that's the point.
Well sure. If we conjure up alternate timelines, then who knows.
I've seen people argue on this forum (or maybe one like it) that they enjoy religious art works from past by ignoring the meanings and enjoying the color and line. But to me, this is like listening to a poetry reading in a language you don't understand. And I think that works made by religious believers, in religious cultures, that are not explicitly on religious themes, nonetheless require us to have sympathy with their views of the world. A painting of autumn grass by an anonymous Japanese craftsman, for example, though it doesn't explicitly refer to a Buddhist sutra, is nonetheless a painting expressing a Buddhist worldview.
As for Scorcese, I know nothing about his movies. But one of his most recent ones was on an explicitly Christian theme, based on a novel by a Japanese Christian writer. So he may be thinking more about religion than it first appears.
1a) Then we agree that I am right to say that it is false to believe that the best cultural works are religious.
1b) I'm not sure I'd even go so far as to say the majority of great works are religious. I appreciate that many are, because of history, but the majority? I'm not convinced. The amount of art, film, music, literature produced the recent past is enormous.
1c) That list of painters is interesting. Firstly, I'm not restricting cultural works to just fine art. And secondly, I'm not sure that every work they did was explicitly religious. But yes, even if we limit ourselves to just art and then made a list of religious artworks on one side and non-explicitly-religious artworks on the other, I'd rather have my list than yours, though with art I think it would be your best chance at winning. With literature or film or music, I think my list dominates, lol
Shall we play the game? I'll start a thread where we simply name great cultural works in turn. You are restricted to only explicitly religious works, like the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the King James Bible, and Bach's StMatthew Passion, and I am restricted to everything but such, like The Raft of the Medusa, Hamlet, and Mozart's The Magic Flute etc. I think most people will greatly prefer to live the rest of their lives with only the contents of my list, but I may be surprised.
Of course, it's all rather subjective as to what constitutes a great cultural work. I think such low brow stuff as Chaplin and the Beatles would count. But if we agree it's all subjective, then that is just another way I become correct in saying it is false to state that all the best culture is religious.
