A piece that has puzzled and cajoled people for decades, The Scream seems to exemplify the alienation that so often characterizes the inhabitants of the West. Overwhelmed by a world that offers them everything but meaning, countless people in the developing world cry out for help, some help in making sense of what seems to be a pointless reality. Affluence reigns, yes, but without any foundation other than the assumption that life is worth it, and this only because those who decide this have nowhere else to go. If the world is a closed system and we are therefore born only to die, then life, however wonderful it may be, ends before it begins. So we scream: why must this be?
Advent, in contrast, says that the world is far from closed. It is in fact entirely transparent and open, open and streaming into a web of reality vastly larger than we can imagine, a web grounded in a transcendence that has spoken, a transcendence that has made itself known. Life is more than itself. And we are more than who we are. Love is present, ascendant and true.
So we scream not why must this be, but rather how can this--such wonder--be?
This scream painting connects to the western worldview of the enlightenment in the ways that like you mention, life is pointless. The enlightenment involved walking away from the church and exploring new ideas without God. In the same way this painting shows the scream that we all end up crying in a pointless life. Without a God there is no real point to life.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more, and I apologize for the delay in responding. If there is no God, there may well be life, but in an accidental cosmos what does it mean?
DeleteThe Scream is easily connected to western enlightenment in that, when philosophy and science began to break away from the church, death became a terrifying prospect. No God meant no afterlife, and that made earthly existence infinitely more finite.This realization would surely be horrifying, maybe even to the point of an audible scream!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yes, indeed, the horror of annihilation, the ebbing away into the darkness. Finitude can be very frightening. Apologies for the tardy reply, too; things got away from me.
DeleteThe same way that the inhabitants of the West are left with a reality deprived of meaning and left with only an assumption that life is worth it, the people of Western Europe during the Enlightenment were separating themselves from the notion of "other-worldliness," leaving them with a meaningless existence.
ReplyDeleteYes, while otherworldliness may have removed the possibility of enjoyment in this life, ending it altogether eliminated a larger vision for existence. Thanks. Apologies for the delayed reply; things got away from me.
DeleteThe scream shows the fear of also not knowing, or trying to know something different than what religion offered in the western worldview. Going away from God would put more of a complex or unknown purpose for us, something we could never truely know.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insight--and apologies for the delay; things got away from me. Some might say that the absence of God indeed makes life more complex as people look for meaning within themselves or an often confusing world. And yes, unlike the certainty of purpose that religion offers, those without it may never find it, living as they are in a universe they may never fully understand--but as others have said, therein is the challenge of finite existence, the braver choice, despite its unknowns, for that is the point.
Delete