Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture Volume 11 No. 1

VOLUME 11 NUMBER 1 2015

A SENSE OF WONDER IN ART AND FAITH: AN INTERVIEW WITH MAKOTO FUJIMURA Paul Louis Metzger

Makoto Fujimura is an eminent contemporary artist trained in the United States and Japan. He is a graduate of Bucknell University and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and holds four honorary doctorates. His art appears regularly in numerous exhibits and as part of permanent collections around the world. Some of his most well-known works are Splendor of the Medium, Soliloquies, Images of Grace, and Golden Sea. He was commissioned by Crossway Publishing to illuminate the Four Holy Gospels in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the King James Bible. He is the founder of the International Arts Movement in 1991, was appointed by President Bush to the National Council on the Arts in 2003, and was the recipient of its Chairman’s Medal in 2009. He is also the recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Religion and the Arts award, and was recently appointed as the director of Brehm Center at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. The author and illustrator of several books, his forthcoming volume with InterVarsity Press in the U.S. and Sho Publishing in Japan is titled Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering. It will be released with the Martin Scorsese movie Silence next autumn. For more on the artist and his work, please refer to his website: www.makotofujimura.com.

Paul Louis Metzger: In my reflections on what you have said in interviews and conversations, I have been taken by your claim that art is a form of theological inquiry. How so? How does your faith inform your art? How does your art inform your faith?

Makoto Fujimura: I never thought to use the word “visual theology” until a theologian friend came over to look at my work during the Four Holy Gospels process of illuminating and said, “You are doing visual theology.”

Then, I really had to think about it!

If “all truth is God’s Truth,” then there is no endeavor of human activity that cannot have theological import. Despite the unease of Protestant communities toward visual art, we must begin to journey into visual theology.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11630/1550-4891.11.01.103 103

VOLUME 11, NUMBER 1 A JOURNAL FOR THE THEOLOGY OF CULTURE

First, God is a visual artist. God is, of course, more than that, but God created the universe with intricate design and profound mystery that the visual arts pursue.

Second, for an artist, their studio is a sacred place of creativity. Many times, this reality is twisted into an idol of sorts (a temple of self-expression), but nevertheless, artists have always connected the act of making with the spiritual.

A friend of mine is a preacher here in Princeton, New Jersey, and I heard him preach on the book of Ezekiel. He mentioned, in opening a series, that many people start to read Ezekiel and have no idea what the prophet is trying to say. I went up to him afterwards and shared that when I read Ezekiel for the first time, it made total sense to me! Ezekiel’s vision, John’s vision, Joseph’s “reading” of dreams, Jesus’s parables, make intuitive sense to an artist.

Here’s where an artist/theologian can lead to pave the way for even nonartists to appreciate a grand Artist (God).

PLM: I have heard you reflect on the importance of innovation and the need for viewing life in an open way, as well as the need to guard against reductionism. Could you speak to these values and concerns?

MF: Reductionism, as a mathematical term, is important, so I do not want to mislead in saying that all reductionism is problematic. But there is a type of “no-sum-game” reductionism to which modernist assumptions have taken us.

In my father’s acoustics research (I was born in Boston because my father was doing his post-doctoral work with Noam Chomsky), he refers to this reductionism as a “segmentalist” approach. He fought against segmentalism as an acoustics scientist at Bell Labs for many years. This approach is to take human speech, and take segmental data, and reconstruct speech patterns. I liken this to cutting up a frog, and stitching it back together, and expecting it to jump again. This type of segmental reductionism desires to reduce human experience into bits and pieces of data that can be manipulated, controlled, and ultimately marketed.

I have taken Ezra Pound’s adage that “artists are the canary of the coal mine of culture” to add, “. . . and they smell the tainted air and sing.” Artists are instinctively uncomfortable in a fragmented, segmented reality. I always also say, “Art is completely useless; therefore art is essential.” Art is essential for the thriving of humanity.

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I speak about this in my Culture Care1 book, but we have to remember that God does not need us or the creation. God created out of gratuitous love.

Artists are a species that still retain this essential character trait of God. PLM: In viewing the Golden Sea documentary (which can be found at the homepage of Makoto Fujimura’s website referenced earlier), I was struck by how the beauty of brushes and pigments moves you. Your subject matter moves you. Life moves you. There is a very real sense in which you never put down your brush. It is as if you are always observing, always painting, even as you engage in conversations with people, whoever they may be.

Where does your curiosity come from? How important is curiosity and a sense of wonder to art and to life itself?

MF: In every artist, there is a spark of her “first love.” It’s that moment of magic when you drew something and it came alive, or played a piece on the piano and it sank deep within your soul. Curiosity comes from the gratuitous love of God; God made us curious beings as part of God’s essential character, as part of God’s outward love. Matthew chapter 6 depicts Jesus as a curiosity-filled teacher of God’s law.

PLM: You have spoken of how good art keeps us from commodifying people. How so? How does this relate to your emphases on innovation and the need to guard against reductionism, instead viewing life in an open way?

Your art evokes a sense that infinite possibilities emerge from the canvas and life. How might this sense help us guard against commodifying faith and attempting to commodify God? MF: Materialistic reductionism leads to idolatry. Therefore to worship, we must all become an “artist” of faith.

PLM: I believe that Claude Monet saw his art as a bridging of East and West, as in his work Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies and garden in Giverny. In what ways do you see your art as a fusion of East and West?

MF: My art may be a “fusion,” but I resist that category/label, as well. I hope my art transcends/embraces both traditions that I love.

PLM: I have heard you speak of Simone Weil, Emily Dickinson, Georges Rouault, and your father as key influences on your life. How have they influenced you? Are there other influences you would like to mention?

1. Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care (Fujimura Institute and International Arts Movement, 2014).

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MF: William Blake, T. S. Eliot, Dante, Vincent van Gogh, Jacques Maritain, Fra Angelico, St. Francis, J. S. Bach, and now Shusaku Endo. All of these “saints” have taught me how to live and love.

PLM: What are your current projects and aspirations for your art? Please tell us about your forthcoming book titled Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering and its relation to your recent Silence series.

MF: I will be bringing our collaborative project Qu4rtets to Hiroshima in November for their seventieth anniversary of the bombing. As I have written and advised on Scorsese’s film Silence and written a book on Shusaku Endo’s work, I have been painting a series on Silence and Beauty as well.

Endo’s work (as well as Scorsese’s film) will be of enormous value to Christians. We are entering an era of persecution, an era in which our children will have to deal with complex battles that a “culture wars” mindset will not help (actually, a “culture wars” mindset will make it worse). My book is ultimately about finding generative life even in the midst of despair and a lack of hope. Endo “hid” these secrets toward human thriving in his books. Many give up without finishing the book, as the torture of the faithful proves too difficult to handle. My advice is to read to the very end, including the appendix, to see if your faith, though challenged by the book, may grow.

PLM: What closing words would you like to leave with our readers?

MF: Art reveals the mysteries of our souls and ultimately God’s love for us.

Of course, we twist these good gifts into idols to control, manipulate, or market. We suffer from what my friend Bruce Herman stated as our “lust for certainty.” Art is the antidote to that, providing a generative path.

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