In reading this book, i must say that i was able to experience the full spectrum of both completely agreeing with Schaeffer and also at the same time thinking he was a total idiot. First of all, i think the concept of this book as far as juxtaposing art and the philosophical/religious outlooks of these civilizations was fairly predictable yet at the same time quite convincing. I personally felt that the first few chapters seemed like they were a little rushed in cramming in such a rich time both artistically and socially. i think this may be partly due to the fact that i am not an expert on the reformation, enlightenment or the renaissance.
I still feel like he didn't really lay a solid foundation concerning the arts and i can see how "worldview" will definitely effect art but i think that some of his other arguments weaken this viewpoint. follow me here...Schaeffer makes a pretty major point of stating that there are things that are naturally right and wrong based upon precepts given to us by God. He also states that God has not created us as machines and that we are all completely individuals. So by that same rational, isn't it possible that the whole idea of art and freedom in art was given to us by God to more fully understand his nature. Schaeffer talks about how Bach would write music that would contain very strange portions but that there was always a resolution and that this reflected the worldview of the time which was strongly Christian. I believe that Schaeffer writes off the shear nature of God (who he has claimed to be creator and artist of this world) by stating that the predictability of music as a reference to our understanding of God is a good thing. I personally feel that this music that doesn't follow a pattern is just as strong of a metaphor for God who is the ultimate artist.
Secondly, i feel that the strength of his arguments could be bulked up by looking perhaps at the arts in societies that aren't Christian based societies, yet operate on the same basic set of moral principles.
I also wanted to state that i feel like this book was strongly influenced by the Cold War.
Time to sleep now.
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Great point about music. If Schaeffer looked at the songs of the Bible, he'd see that many times, if not most of the time, the psalms end in places, at least lyrically, that are anything but resolved. On the topic of music, I also thought it really strange that he lumped the Beatles circa "Revolver" as the same worldview as Bob Dylan circa "Blonde on Blonde". Looking at the music and work of the two artists, they really are not anything alike as far as how they looked at the world. Although they definitely influenced each other musically, the Beatles' work is extremely humanist in content, while Bob Dylan actually wrote quite predominately about his questions, or you could say his relationship, with God, as flawed as he himself would admit that it was. Even though he wrote about drug use and such, he also wrote things like "There are not truths outside the Gates of Eden." Heck, "All Along the Watchtower" is based on Isaiah, a scripture closely related to the passage in Ezekiel that inspired Schaeffer's book. But apparently because Dylan's religion wasn't as easily resolved or packaged as Schaeffer's, he becomes a humanist by default...interesting.
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