Art Artists and Gauguin

<p>Why is the publication of these writings so important? What does</p><p>Rookmaaker's legacy have to offer us in the new millennium?</p><p>First his books and essays stand as a monument to the importance of</p><p>rigorous Christian art-historical scholarship. For many years Professor of</p><p>Art History at the Free University of Amsterdam Rookmaaker was a</p><p>fastidious scholar. Today when a postmodern fascination with all things</p><p>'aesthetic' and 'spiritual' can easily engender scholarly carelessness and</p><p>an ignorance of specific artworks Roomaaker reminds us that Christian</p><p>commitment must never be used to avoid the kind of precise</p><p>intellectual engagement which is so evident in his written words a</p><p>painstaking attentiveness to the details of particular pieces of art and to</p><p>the particularities of society and culture in which they are embedded.</p><p>Second we are reminded of the importance of breadth as well as depth.</p><p>Rookmaaker's interests ranged far beyond the visual arts. He had a</p><p>fascinated interest for instance in music (especially the spirituals</p><p>and jazz) and in broader cultural concerns (youth culture scientific</p><p>discovery and much more). In an age of increasing specialization and</p><p>blinkered vision Rookmaaker shows us that it is quite possible to be a</p><p>specialist and to be alert to the links between these specialisms and</p><p>much wider issues. Third Rookmaaker sets the arts in the midst of a rich</p><p>and full-blooded Christian world view. For him it was not good enough</p><p>to claim that the arts are important for the Christian and then justify</p><p>this with a few verses carelessly plucked from Scripture. We need to</p><p>demonstrate carefully what place the arts have in the grand and sweeping</p><p>purposes of God for history and it was to Rookmaaker's immense</p><p>credit that for thousands he made this breathtakingly clear. In a climate</p><p>when the contribution of a distinctively Christian perspective on the arts</p><p>is so often ruthlessly marginalized often to the point of extinction</p><p>Rookmaaker's voice is one we sorely need to hear. Fourth nourished by</p><p>the Dutch Neo-Calvinist philosophy of Dooyeweerd and his followers</p><p>Rookmaaker provides a vision of the arts that does justice both to their</p><p>irreducible integrity and to their interrelatedness with other aspects of</p><p>God's world. Western post modernity relishes in the 'aestheticization' of</p><p>culture sometimes to the point that the aesthetic threatens to swallow</p><p>up everything else in a wash of images. In his own day Rookmaaker</p><p>saw that a proper refusal to isolate or downplay the arts must not be</p><p>countered by a Neo-Romantic exaltation of the aesthetic. He knew there</p><p>was another much more fruitful option implicit in the Christian faith.</p><p>We need to find it and celebrate it more than ever today.</p><p>It is a wonderful thought that this man's rare wisdom which so</p><p>radically changed the lives of those who knew him can now find its way</p><p>to a wider audience in the pages that follow. Rookmaaker's is a timely</p><p>wisdom and it will inspire thousands for decades to come.</p>