Gregory Wolfe graduated from Hillsdale College in 1980 and went on to earn a M.A. in English Literature from Oxford University. From 1983-1990, he served as Publications Director of the Intercollegiate Sudies Institute, editing The Intercollegiate Review. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in such journals as National Review, Modern Age, Chronicles, and Crisis. In addition, Wolfe is the author of two books, Right Minds: A Sourcebook of American Conservative Thought and A New Dawn of Liberty: The Story of the American Founding. He is currently the editor and publisher of Image: A Journal of the Arts & Religion.
What happened between graduating from Hillsdale in 1980 and launching Image: A Journal of the Arts & Religion in 1989? Had you always planned on working full-time for the cause of art, or was this a time of personal transition?
A lot of things happened! There's no doubt that between 1980, when I graduated from Hillsdale, and 1989, when the first "pilot" issue of Image appeared, that I went through some important personal, intellectual, and spiritual transitions. However, I should point out that all of these transitions were really nothing more than extensions of what I learned during my Hillsdale years. In other words, it took me a while to unfold the implications of those years.
Take, for example, my attitude toward culture and politics. When I first arrived at Hillsdale, I was, like many young conservatives, very politicized, very naive about how much lasting change can be accomplished through merely political means. After studying under brilliant conservative scholars like Russell Kirk and Gerhart Niemeyer (who were then visiting professors), I came to understand that in the long run, politics is an epiphenomenon of culture --that the myths, symbols, and narratives of culture help to define the issues which then become part of the political process.
When this fully dawned on me I realized, with a certain amount of shock, that few of my fellow conservatives seemed to feel the same way. For many years conservatism has become more politicized and more Philistine -- hence, less interested in culture and art. Worse yet, conservatives by and large have simply given up on culture. They may point to the classics on the shelves, or the masterpieces from the past in the museums, but how many conservatives really believe that they have an obligation to participate in the culture of our own time? The fact is, many on the Right despair of our culture, assuming that it is the province of liberals and nihilists.
This struck me as a profoundly un-conservative attitude. Conservatism implies a sense of stewardship over one's culture, the need to keep the tradition alive. And the truth is that there are many brilliant writers and artists out there struggling to gain recognition for their work.
Since literature and art were my first loves, I concluded that my vocation was to nurture the tradition of art that wrestles with the big religious questions.
Please descibe your vision for Image--what it is and what you would like it to accomplish.
Image is a quarterly journal featuring original fiction, poetry, memoirs, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, and music. Image is ecumenical, though we come from a perspective of Christian orthodoxy. Our goal is to be one of the leading literary/arts journals in the country. We are already on newsstands and bookstores around the country, and our subscription list is larger than most of the established literary quarterlies in America.
Image is intended to remind the larger culture that religious questions and experiences have been at the heart of all great art and that the tradition is indeed alive. The secular mentality that has dominated most mainstream cultural elites is not as strong as it was twenty years ago. There is a new openness to religious vision in art. We want to be present in the "public square" as a witness to the revitalizing power of the religious imagination.
Could you elaborate on the relationship between art and religion?
The relationship between art and religion is complex but profoundly important. Of course, there are some people who wish to make art into religion and some who would prefer that religion have nothing to do with art. But art and religion ought to enrich one another. Both ask us to enter into a more contemplative frame of mind, to ponder creation, to agonize over the existence of evil, and to give thanks for beauty In a sense, poetry and prayer are cousins.
Faith without imagination becomes Pharisaical and lifeless. Jesus, it seems to me, was always asking his disciples to stop being literalistic and see into the deeper meaning of things. He taught by telling stories, not by issuing theological propositions.
Imagination without faith can be clever, perhaps, even virtuosic. But unless one believes that there is a human soul to save, then the drama and the pathos seem to go out of a work of art.
In most book stores and art galleries today, religious and secular works are neatly segregated. Is such a separation between internal conviction and external expression healthy? Is it even truly possible to separate one's art from one's beliefs?
The segregation you notice in the bookstore is a uniquely American phenomenon (that's a long story!) and it is extremely unhealthy. In this country we have developed a tradition of religious separatism that has led many in the church to withdraw from mainstream culture and create their own alternative world. That is why we have a religious book publishing industry that is almost completely separate from the "secular" trade publishing industry.
This sort of division, I say, is unhealthy. Unfortunately, many Christians have preferred to have safe, approved books, as if one could put neat labels marked "religious" or "non-religious" on human experience. On the contrary, one's religious faith should be part of a seamless garment of experience and vision. We occasionally get people asking us why a particular story or poem or painting in Image isn't overtly religious. It takes a while to explain that one.
Yes, I'd like to discuss that. As a journal of religion, one might be surprised at the artwork and writing present in Image. There is no sunshine-flowery devotional poetry; rainbows and smiling angels are conspicuously absent. The artists in Image portray the world in an often harsh, sometimes shocking manner. How can this be?
There is a wonderful passage in Flannery O'Connor's letters where she recounts a woman who wrote to her, complaining that O'Connor's fiction did not "uplift her heart." O'Connor's reply was something to the effect that: "If your heart had been in the right place, it would have been uplifted."
I think our hearts have to be in the right place if we are going to be open to the full range of artistic and literary vision. Image does not contain art that is always beautiful because the world is not always beautiful, and the duty of art is to recreate the world for us so that we may better understand it. That means evil, sin, ugliness, betrayal, and tragedy are just as much a part of art and literature (from Homer to Solzhenitsyn) as are nobility, courage, love, etc.
In fact, it is impossible to show the good things without the effect of the shadows. Without the shadows, art becomes sentimentality. And while one of the functions of art is what might be called "escapism," the real purpose of this "escape" is to move us to a different setting so that we can see our own world more clearly. Even in a fantasy like Tolkien's Middle Earth the alternate world exists to give us a fresh understanding of our own world.
How do you feel about the renewed interest in didactic works--The Book of Virtues and its clones--and the idea that art should directly teach moral truths?
I am ambivalent about the recent surge of interest in didactic tales and the virtues. I couldn't agree more with William Bennett's diagnosis of our culture's moral collapse. But I'm just not sure that old-fashioned didactic stories and fables are the real answer. That seems to me to be merely falling off the other side of the horse.
In our anxious search for moral certainty we can very easily fall into a rather abstract and legalistic frame of mind. That's what got Ozzie and Harriet into so much trouble a couple generations ago. Life is full of ambiguities and the moral life develops when we learn the delicate business of applying fundamental principles to ambiguous circumstances.
I am not advocating liberal relativism here; I'm a firm believer in moral absolutes. But we have to understand that the drama of life arises out of the difficulty of applying moral principles to complex situations.
Bennett's Book of Virtues contains good stuff, but most of it is rather bland. We need to do our homework and find out who the really powerful modern authors who write well for children are, writers like Katherine Paterson, Cynthia Voigt, Lloyd Alexander, and Mildred Taylor.
In short, moral truth emerges most clearly out of well-wrought drama. Only then does it have the power to move us in our deepest hearts. Didactic or propagandistic work fails for the simple reason that it lacks the power to move us inwardly.
It seems to me that materialism and secularism must undermine any objective standard of Truth, Goodness, or Beauty, and that we see this reflected in the techniques of modern art (i.e. Cubism and Abstract Expressionism). Is it possible to salvage a sense of order while working within the forms of modernity?
Good question. One of the biggest mistakes most people make about art is the assumption that a vision of order must of necessity demand an artistic form that is highly ordered. This is a natural mistake, but it is simplistic and is a barrier for many people to a deeper understanding of the way art works.
The key revelation for me that this attitude was wrong came as I contemplated the work of T.S. Eliot. I knew for a fact that Eliot stood for moral, spiritual, and political order. So how could I explain poems like "The Waste Land" that seemed to use Modernist techniques of disorder, fragmentation, etc.? What I realized is that most works of art demand an act of collaboration with the reader or viewer. In other words, using irony and indirection, an artist can ask us to search out the true, hidden order behind the outward form.
Modern painting is a complex issue. But I believe the same principle applies: do not assume that an artwork that abstracts from "things as we see them" is automatically on the side of disorder, materialism, etc. By the way, have you ever noticed that people are willing to make huge, confident generalizations about art that they would be far too modest to make about such subjects as philosophy, or law, or cybernetics? Why do we think that we can pronounce so grandly on art without any serious study, whereas we would never dare to pronounce on those other subjects?
Here at Hillsdale, we are well grounded in the Western tradition. The downside of this is that while being immersed in the classics, we can become isolated from what is going on today. Which contemporary writers and artists would you recommend we look into?
Grounding in the classics is essential. There's no doubt about that at all. And the college years are when that should take place, or at least begin. But I think that if college is supposed to prepare one to go out and face the world, then there should be an emphasis on the importance of being tuned into "what's happening now."
From what I've read of Hillsdale publications, I'd say that you've had many visiting writers in recent years who are among the most creative in this country--Doris Betts and Larry Woiwode stick in my mind.
There are few writers out there who have the philsophical vision of a Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy, but there are many writers who are genuinely searching for meaning and order (even if their politics are in some instances left-of-center). Here are some to look out for: Annie Dillard, Shusaku Endo, Andre Dubus, Tobias Wolff, Reynolds Price, Donald Hall, Geoffrey Hill, John Updike, Frederick Buechner, Edward Hirsch, Paul Mariani, Denise Levertov, Richard Wilbur, R.S. Thomas, Madison Smartt Bell, Mark Helprin, Ron Hansen, Muriel Spark.
Good contemporary visual artists are harder to find. I suggest that those who are seriously interested look to three journals to find out who is best: The New Criterion, Modern Painters, and Image.
What do you look for when considering writers and artists for Image?
That's a difficult question because there is no simple or even systematic answer to it. Certainly the first thing we look for is sheer quality, mastery of the art form, whether that be painting, writing, or whatever. Too many Christians have settled for second-best in the arts under the impression that piety makes up for lack of imagination. That is wrong. Christians will only be able to make a serious effort at renewing our culture if we maintain the highest standards in our work.
Beyond that, it is hard to say. Image has no editorial preferences when it comes to artistic styles: we are open to abstract art as well as representation art, magical realism as well as hyper-realistic fiction; tragedy and comedy.
Whatever the style, however, we are looking for art that grapples honestly with the human condition and its relationship to the transcendent realm. Honesty is important, since religion can often turn into mere sentiment and thus lose touch with the world.
Do you have any advice for the Hillsdale student who wants to make it as a writer or artist?
Pursue your craft doggedly. Be willing to throw work out and start again. Know when to work in isolation and when to share your stuff with a community of fellow artists to gain valuable feedback. Try not to worry about money; get a "day job" that isn't too demanding. Don't become pretentious or messianic, but at the same time don't let the pragmatic society around you make you feel guilty for pursuing your craft and your vision. Finally, pin the following statement by Flannery O'Connor on your wall:
"St. Thomas called art 'reason in making.' This is a very cold and very beautiful definition, and if it is unpopular today, this is because reason has lost ground among us. As grace and nature have been separated, so imagination and reason have been separated, and this always means an end to art. The artist uses his reason to discover an answering reason in everything he sees. For him, to be reasonable is to find, in the object, in the situation, in the sequence, the spirit which makes it itself. This is not an easy or simple thing to do. It is to intrude upon the timeless, and that is only done by the violence of a single-minded respect for the truth."
You have spoken with passion and conviction on the redemptive power of art, "the armed vision of the poets," as Russell Kirk called it. What do you see as the value of student produced art at Hillsdale? What potential power do we hold?
There is tremendous value in the art that students produce. No doubt much of what students do is little more than apprentice-work. But at the same time serious student artists are launching out on what one hopes will become a lifelong vocation (even if that craft becomes a hobby and not a livelihood).
It is a tautology to say that one must begin at the beginning, but how exciting beginnings can be! It is a time of experimentation, of trial and error. The young artist is constantly testing his work against that of the masters and trying not to get depressed!
The creative impulse is not always honored in our society, with its Puritan and pragmatic traditions. The student-artist has to overcome not only the challenges of finding his or her own creative voice, but also the indifference or hostility of a large sector of society. To devote oneself to the arts takes courage, fortitude, and a host of other virtues. The stereotype of the artist is of someone who is dissolute, but I think the reality, more often than not, is just the opposite! So, to student artists I say: keep at it, learn your craft, and pray for the heavenly muse to descend.