Yiyi Chen: Contemporary Christian Arts in China

What was Old is New Again. A Meeting of Art and Scholarship |
Conference


Fri, 21.11.2008 – Sun, 23.11.2008


Modern day Chinese, believers or not, derive their "picture" of
Christianity from copies of Medieval and Renaissance
ecclesiastical paintings inserted in books on the Bible as
illustrations. These artworks constitute a vital medium for
introducing Christianity to China.


Every religion, political ideology, philosophy, and scientific
theory embodies a set of structured beliefs. These belief systems
maintain a symbiotic liaison with the arts. Throughout history,
communal beliefs have relied on music, theater, painting, and
dance in order to propagate accepted doctrines, and the arts in
turn have shaped the articles of faith.
The conference brings together artists and scholars in an unusual
forum. The arts addressed deal primarily with media, the major
art form that has only come to the fore in recent decades. The
scholarship concerns antique matters, such as Sumerian music,
early Egyptian medicine, and the omens, codes of law, and
creation myths of Mesopotamia. The divergent perspectives of the
participants augur well for innovative ideas emerging from this
close encounter between scholarship, the arts, and the belief
systems of early and modern times.