beer, art, & God

well this post is going to be disappointing because there are no threats on my life or fictitious love affairs... and no photography. but it is quite relevant to my current state of life and thus photography.

there is only one beer out there that has ever made me want to create a blog post. it's called Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale. it is one of the best tasting beers i've ever had... actually it is the best. i won't bore you with why but one of it's highlights is it's label. you can't find this beer just anywhere in fact whenever i get together with my friend Brave we go on a scavenger hunt...it's seems Fresh Market & Diplomat Deli are the safest bets. anyway the reason we first tried this beer was because of it's label. that's right it's a clothed bird eating a naked human with birds flying out of it's booty. about as weird and hedonistic as one could imagine.

the story behind is that this brewery opened in an abandoned abbey. this artist, Hieronymus Bosch, apparently lived in the area when he painted his masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights around 1504.

if you look closely in the lower right hand corner you can see the Tilburg logo (sorry if it won't open... sometimes blogger bites... do an image search for it if it won't open... it's worth it). so what's the point?

point is that i was made aware of a historic masterpiece because of something as trivial as my pursuit of a better tasting beer. this painting is quite imaginative and somewhat uncomfortable due to the uninhibited nature of the creatures depicted in it. i think it's fascinatingly sick. furthermore the real point of this painting was to depict the extreme nature of a fallen world... creative imagery of the garden of eden post fall... anything goes. my understanding is that Bosch's point was not to be humorous but rather to provoke thought and some real emotions about the severity of mankind's situation as a result of sin and brokenness. who want's to live in a world where giant birds eat humans who apparently eat birds who pass them as they are about to be passed by a bird. really this is an amazingly creative and Truthful piece of work.

there's a new documentary movie coming out from ben stein... you know "bueller, bueller, anyone... bueller". his objective is to show how creationist are being "Expelled" in academia because they don't fit in with modern science and evolution. he makes a great point that science is divorcing itself from God (and i'll say vice versa too... the church and science) which is giving an incomplete view of the world, science, and nature. his point which i think is excellent is that life/matter/gas must have started somewhere by something thus making God & science married or joined together. evolution was a great 19th century simple solution to some issues but it does not do a good scientific job of filling in the gaps of the 21st century. we know way too much now about the complexity of cell structures to not demand more answers to the bigger questions. his greater point is that Einstein, Newton and even Darwin operated on the premise that there is a God and thus a creator.

it is historically substantiated to suggest that the majority of influential & timeless thought & art was based on the idea that there is a Creator and there is Truth in that paradigm of thought that all other things can safely be placed on. i know this to be true in my own life, with my own emotions, with my own world view etc. as an artist however i believe that i can make truer more significant art as i base my creation on the premise of this Truth that there is a Creator. i believe thought & art based on this Truth tells a much deeper story than that which is not. back to the beer....

my favorite beer uses a logo from a painting that debuted over 500 years ago... that author of that painting had a connection to the Creator and made a magnificent, imaginative, creative yet truthful piece of art because of his beliefs.... the product of that creation has been getting attention for a very long time. my point to all of this? i long for our art to have substantial significance and hope that we will always draw from this same source that has historically proven to provide a timelessness to thought & art.