Modern Art and the Death of a Culture

Front Cover
Crossway, 1994 - Art - 256 pages

This disturbing but illuminating classic is a brilliant perspective on the cultural turmoil of the radical sixties and its impact on today's world, especially as reflected in the art of the time. Rookmaaker's enduring analysis looks at modern art in a broad historical, social, and philosophical context, laying bare the despair and nihilism that pervade our era. He also shows the role Christian artists can play in proclaiming truth through their work.

Rookmaaker's brilliant articulation of faith and scholarship is insightful and inspiring. The book moves freely and with a sense of urgency between the worlds of high culture, popular art and music, and Christian faith.

This reissue makes his foundational work available to a new generation.

"A landmark book in the story of contemporary Christians in the arts." --Os Guinness, author of The American Hour

From inside the book

Contents

The message in the medium
11
The roots of contemporary culture
29
the first step to modern art
50
The second step to modern art
82
The last steps to modern art
102
Into the new era
131
Modern art and the twentiethcentury revolt
160
Protest revolution and the Christian response
191
Faith and art
225
Bibliography
253
Index
255
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 9 - Because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?

About the author (1994)

H. R. ROOKMAAKER (1922-1977) grew up in the Dutch East Indies. As a young man in wartime Holland, he was interned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets and became a Christian during that time. In 1948 a lifelong friendship with Francis Schaeffer began. In 1959 Rookmaaker published his doctoral thesis on the artist Gauguin, and in 1965 he was invited to the Chair of Art History at the Free University of Amsterdam. Rookmaaker was also highly respected as a jazz critic.

Bibliographic information