Cecilia González-Andrieu's Bridge to Wonder
reviewed by Kimberly Vrudny
Kimberly Vrudny is an associate professor of systematic theology at the University of St. Thomas, and was recently named Senior Editor of ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies. Her current research into political theological aesthetics involves theological interpretation of protest and resistance art.
Cecilia González-Andrieu
Bridge to Wonder:
Art as a Gospel of Beauty
Baylor University Press, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60258-351-1
242 pages
$29.95 Hardcover/Kindle
In her book, Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty, Cecilia González-Andrieu offers the Golden Gate Bridge as a metaphor in thinking through matters of method in relation to theology and the arts. In each chapter, she helps us to see a bridge taking shape between the vast expanse exposed between the contemporary world of art that has largely lost an interest in beauty, and the contemporary world of theology that has largely focused on ideas and words to the exclusion or neglect of other modes of expression, especially artistic ones. Drawing on her Hispanic roots, including her own experiences and memories as an American in exile from her native Cuba, she speaks with wisdom and with deep awareness of both the advantages and the potential shortcomings of “bridge building” language. With compelling examples in each chapter, she demonstrates how various thinkers, from Aristotle to Elizondo, and how various artists, from those who did not sign their names to works to folks like contemporary painter Sergio Gómez, enable us to recognize the contours of a bridge coming into being in the discipline with which this journal concerns itself. In so doing, she provides us with a means by which to speak of a discipline of “theology and the arts” proper, in much the same way we speak of disciplines of biblical theology, historical theology, systematic or constructive theology, moral theology, and pastoral theology. In other words, she makes great strides in this book toward the idea that aesthetic theology deserves a place in theological curricula alongside these more established areas of specialization, precisely because such examination is integral to our understanding of theology, not a mere curiosity or a possible elective if time allows.
After stating in her introductory chapter that “[T]his book is about art” (7), González-Andrieu calls her second chapter, “This Book Is Not About Art,” and takes a step back to look at the function of theology as well as the function of art. She identifies, through the work of theologian Avery Dulles, that the theological discipline’s typical approach, either apologetic or dogmatic, produced a “methodological inability to grapple with paradox and symbol” (12) and, perhaps of greater concern, a related inability “to deal with the apparent plurality of revelation” (12). This conclusion is something of a reduction of contemporary theology, not all of which is either apologetic or dogmatic, but the observation does point to two trends within contemporary theology, to be sure—trends that take shape due to the current state of things regarding the question of God. If God does not exist, neither does God’s revelation; so one response has been to take a defensive posture, which has had both apologetic and dogmatic moments. Another, however, is, as Dulles suggests, “to embrace the depth and power of ‘the revelatory symbol’” (13). This enables González-Andrieu to assert that the theologian relies upon the artist, because “artists through the creation or extension of symbols witness to the existence of and participate actively in the work of mediating revelation. And . . . it is the mysterious task of symbols to convey humanity toward revelatory moments” (14). She goes on, “One of the tasks of art is to create bridges to revelatory wonder” (15). The work she most closely examines in this chapter is the movie, Inception, through which González-Andrieu critiques extreme subjectivity, individualism, and life devoid of meaning and community. The common search for ultimacy, then, within both art and theology, provides the architectural plan for the bridge, to use González-Andrieu’s metaphor.
In her third chapter, called “In Search of Wonder,” González-Andrieu speaks of the encounter between the audience and a work of art as religious—even when religion is not in the interpretive framework of the one experiencing the work of art. This is a controversial point. Regardless of the nature of the one experiencing the work, González-Andrieu argues, the potential is in the work for producing wonder, and in the potential for wonder is the possibility for revelation. She speaks of four moments in such an encounter: first, the encounter itself, which is a pre-theological experience that, by seeing, has the power to awaken the imagination; next is a moment of wonder, or, in Spanish, asombro (which becomes for González-Andrieu a technical term that extends beyond wonder in the face of that which is merely pretty, enabling a more expansive understanding of beauty as that which challenges us prophetically to confront evil and to work for justice); third is reflection upon the encounter which involves insight, or apprehension of meaning; and last is a movement to compassion having encountered the holy, inspiring the capacity to hope, to imagine, to dream especially of just relations and the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. She puts flesh on these bones by sharing an experience of the play, La Pastorela, by Mexican American playwright Luis Valdéz, staged in the centuries-old mission church of San Juan Bautista amid an audience of farm workers and their children which was, for her “one of the best examples of the convergence of sacrality and artfulness” she has ever encountered (28)—an experience to which she returns throughout the book. In her experience of the play, she identifies the technical support or, in her words, the “common ground” for the bridge taking shape in her telling. “There is an interplay between seeing and the wakefulness brought by art’s complication of the world, and through it we can renew our love of creation and of ourselves. This renewed humility can sometimes reveal our need of salvation, by laying bare the depth of our longing or of our emptiness” (37). She hopes that the experience of the play will “move us to denounce a system that treats those who toil in the fields as lesser human beings, and to question . . . an economic structure that thrives on their poverty and marginality” (39).
Having indicated the architectural plan and the ground of support for a bridge connecting art and theology, González-Andrieu turns to a case study, an analysis of the exhibit Seeing Salvation (an exhibit that ran Feburary 26-May 7, 2000, at the National Gallery in London), as a means to explore the promises and pitfalls of engagement between theology and the arts. In chapter four, called “Seeing (as) Salvation, the Hope of Art and Religion,” González-Andrieu explores the promise of their engagement by comparing the reception of the National Gallery’s exhibition with the Royal Academy’s Apocalypse exhibition, which promised surprise and shock. González-Andrieu points out, “As reported by the BBC, attendance suggests that visitors preferred Seeing Salvation over Apocalypse by a ratio of five to one” (48). González-Andrieu draws on her metaphor of a bridge to speak to the Seeing Salvation exhibit as a true bridge: “[I]t went both ways,” she writes. “Religion clearly benefited, as one visitor explained, ‘Art drew people to God once—perhaps it can do so again.’ But art benefited as well, as another visitor explained, ‘I came to this exhibition as a Christian, but now I wish to visit the Gallery as an art lover (in training)’” (49). Finally, she concluded the chapter on the promise of theology and the arts by saying, “The insight about contemporary society that the National Gallery made evident was that the loss of literacy about Christianity would also mean that some of the greatest works of art in history would become irrelevant mute ciphers,” and that the exhibit spoke “to the church about the thirst in the culture for the healing and wholeness so many reported experiencing as they visited the exhibition” (61).
But there are also fissures in the bridge that the exhibit Seeing Salvation brought to light, and to which González-Andrieu turns in chapter five. In “Beautiful Differences,” the first challenge she identifies is that which she calls “The Problem of Art and Truth.” This problem was embodied in the gallery director’s need to steer clear of any perception of his own or the gallery’s religious commitment, thereby treating the subject of the exhibit—Christ’s life and death—as historical curiosities and as notions in Western civilization rather than beliefs held as sacred by a considerable number of those who attended the exhibit. The second challenge González-Andrieu identifies is again by reference to the gallery director, who “preemptively argues that there cannot be any expectation that Seeing Salvation will delve into ‘the theological intricacies of the Incarnation’” (72); yet, González-Andrieu points out, “the exhibition does precisely this” (72). She explains, “the art in the exhibition was not passively transmitting information but was arising out of a tradition reaching deep and wrestling with ‘theological intricacies’ as living theology” (72). Finally, González-Andrieu points to a third problem when the National Gallery said the works of art “‘were made to strengthen’ the faith of believing Christians” (75). Because Christian art cannot be reduced to illustrative or didactic functions, because such art is not exclusively or even primarily to serve ecclesial concerns, and because the art with which most of González-Andrieu’s book is concerned has a prophetic function, she notes that it is problematic for the Gallery to present the reductionistic perspective that religious art has merely a didactic role. These points of tension indicate areas for potentially fruitful dialogue between the world of art and the world of theology.
In chapter six, called “Beyond Boundaries and Unknowable Otherness,” González-Andrieu develops a method for understanding how the arts work religiously and how the religious works aesthetically by proposing “interlacing” as counter to “intersection,” a term which she finds problematic. She writes, “In an intersection what is different inexorably continues to move apart, severely reducing the opportunities for contact. On the other hand, a braid—the geometric representation of interlacing—incorporates difference as beautiful” (88). Rather than thinking about this method in terms of critique or analysis, González-Andrieu calls this undertaking by the Spanish word, acercamiento, a noun naming a movement from far to near. She grounds her method in this chapter on Federico García Lorca’s theatrical production of Mariana Pineda, about a woman from Granada who was executed as a liberal conspirator in 1831 after refusing sexual favors to the mayor. González-Andrieu discusses various “planes” of the play, including one reading in which Mariana is a type of Christ whose selfless love was shared even unto her death. González-Andrieu points to how “the work to be done to appreciate the joint work of the arts and theology cannot be accomplished exclusively through critical theory or theological method. . . . Rather, the cables built for an acercamiento must interlace these discrete disciplines with the aid of aesthetics” (99-100).
In chapter seven, called “The Impossible Definition,” González-Andrieu tackles the impossible—defining “art.” She notes that artists “routinely take the commonplace and defamiliarize it” (102). She recognizes too the potential for art “to subversively counter totalizing tendencies” (103). Art can “enlighten and arguably even prevent terrible events from coming to fruition in a community’s daily life, or at the very least allow a society to grieve openly and thus release its shared pain” (105). Countering Kandinsky’s taxonomy, González-Andrieu attempts to speak to the power of art through examples drawn from José Ortega y Gasset, Chagall, Virgilio Elizondo, and Federico García Lorca. She speaks to how these figures add to the world of the real, chronicle pain and joy, and give the community quality. Finally, she writes that art might be described “as a work of human making that complicates the natural and as a gift that speaks to a community because it captures the spirit of that community; this work critiques and energizes, bringing newness and clarity” (111).
In chapter eight, called “Beauty in Turmoil,” González-Andrieu writes the tale of two Christmas trees, analyzing descriptions of an episode through the eyes first of Alejandro García-Rivera, who was a Roman Catholic Hispanic American scholar and previously a physicist and also a Lutheran pastor, and second of Frank Burch Brown, a Protestant Anglo-American scholar, composer, and choral director. Their divergent interpretations of a single church building housing two religious communities and each community’s distinct judgments surrounding the embellishment of their own Christmas trees unveils the complexities in navigating the religious, cultural, and aesthetic questions that concern us here—an exercise in which Frank Burch Brown does not fare well in González-Andrieu’s judgment.
Finally, in chapter nine, called “The Bridge to Wonder is Ours to Build,” González-Andrieu discusses an episode when the the world of art and the world of theology collided, resulting in something of a bridge collapse. The particular episode she chose (and there have been many) is Marie-Alain Couturier’s invitation to contemporary artists to contribute their talents to the consecration of Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce in Le Plateau d’Assy, France. Germaine Richier was commissioned to create a crucifix for the main altar, and it was this work that drew a line between those who thought the piece had artistic merit, and those who said its departure from the tradition was too severe to merit installation. Thus, the collision between theology and art causes the bridge between them to collapse. First, she writes that art is an effective and affective carrier of a religious tradition. Second, she writes that art is a source of theology. And third, she writes that art is a bridge to the glory of God. In all three ways, she argues the Richier crucifix fails, thereby indicating areas that require additional attention as we move forward in this field.
Having offered this description of her work, there are two critical points I would like to make. First, González-Andrieu’s perspective is distinctly Catholic. While she is concerned with issues of pluralism, this pertains primarily to cultural pluralism, not religious pluralism. Indeed, there is little in the book that bridges Catholic approaches to theology, aesthetics, and the arts with Protestant ones, on the one hand, or with approaches from other religions, on the other. While I’m confident González-Andrieu is sympathetic to the need for such a voice, readers will have to look elsewhere to find it. Indeed, two “stars” on the Protestant side of the conversation in theological aesthetics receive a harsh critique in her pages (Paul Tillich and Frank Burch Brown), and interreligious dialogue is simply absent here, so tied is González-Andrieu to the Catholic analogical imagination. And second, there were times I remained unconvinced by the arguments unfolding before me. For example, I view the movie Inceptionfrom a different angle, and I would defend the artistic and even religious merit of Richier’s crucifix which opens an avenue for renewed dialogue. Finally, I regretted her application of motive to Frank Burch Brown’s aesthetic judgment. But these are minor points and may, in the end, be matters of taste (which, while of great consequence in matters of theological aesthetics, offer us rich material for a conversation soon over coffee, and so I look forward to discussing these issues with the scholar when we are again face to face). To be sure, we will turn to these finer points only after I extend my admiration for her scholarly contribution to a conversation that has occupied both of us for many years.
Indeed, Bridge to Wonder is a significant contribution to the field of theological aesthetics, as it thinks through important questions of method, and proposes helpful ways to do the work before us. The way in which González-Andrieu helps readers to see a bridge taking shape between theology and the arts, particularly in the way that both fields are concerned with questions of ultimate meaning, is instructive, for she gives us an imaginative and insightful image. González-Andrieu’s concepts of interlacing, asombro, and acercamiento are astute and original, and will provide a baseline for this conversation well into the future. González-Andrieu stakes a rightful claim as one of the most significant voices working in theological aesthetics today, and continues the important work of her mentor, Alejandro García-Rivera, in ways that are, I believe, most pleasing to him.
Kimberly Vrudny is an associate professor of systematic theology at the University of St. Thomas, and was recently named Senior Editor of ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies. Her current research into political theological aesthetics involves theological interpretation of protest and resistance art.
Cecilia González-Andrieu
Bridge to Wonder:
Art as a Gospel of Beauty
Baylor University Press, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60258-351-1
242 pages
$29.95 Hardcover/Kindle
In her book, Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty, Cecilia González-Andrieu offers the Golden Gate Bridge as a metaphor in thinking through matters of method in relation to theology and the arts. In each chapter, she helps us to see a bridge taking shape between the vast expanse exposed between the contemporary world of art that has largely lost an interest in beauty, and the contemporary world of theology that has largely focused on ideas and words to the exclusion or neglect of other modes of expression, especially artistic ones. Drawing on her Hispanic roots, including her own experiences and memories as an American in exile from her native Cuba, she speaks with wisdom and with deep awareness of both the advantages and the potential shortcomings of “bridge building” language. With compelling examples in each chapter, she demonstrates how various thinkers, from Aristotle to Elizondo, and how various artists, from those who did not sign their names to works to folks like contemporary painter Sergio Gómez, enable us to recognize the contours of a bridge coming into being in the discipline with which this journal concerns itself. In so doing, she provides us with a means by which to speak of a discipline of “theology and the arts” proper, in much the same way we speak of disciplines of biblical theology, historical theology, systematic or constructive theology, moral theology, and pastoral theology. In other words, she makes great strides in this book toward the idea that aesthetic theology deserves a place in theological curricula alongside these more established areas of specialization, precisely because such examination is integral to our understanding of theology, not a mere curiosity or a possible elective if time allows.
After stating in her introductory chapter that “[T]his book is about art” (7), González-Andrieu calls her second chapter, “This Book Is Not About Art,” and takes a step back to look at the function of theology as well as the function of art. She identifies, through the work of theologian Avery Dulles, that the theological discipline’s typical approach, either apologetic or dogmatic, produced a “methodological inability to grapple with paradox and symbol” (12) and, perhaps of greater concern, a related inability “to deal with the apparent plurality of revelation” (12). This conclusion is something of a reduction of contemporary theology, not all of which is either apologetic or dogmatic, but the observation does point to two trends within contemporary theology, to be sure—trends that take shape due to the current state of things regarding the question of God. If God does not exist, neither does God’s revelation; so one response has been to take a defensive posture, which has had both apologetic and dogmatic moments. Another, however, is, as Dulles suggests, “to embrace the depth and power of ‘the revelatory symbol’” (13). This enables González-Andrieu to assert that the theologian relies upon the artist, because “artists through the creation or extension of symbols witness to the existence of and participate actively in the work of mediating revelation. And . . . it is the mysterious task of symbols to convey humanity toward revelatory moments” (14). She goes on, “One of the tasks of art is to create bridges to revelatory wonder” (15). The work she most closely examines in this chapter is the movie, Inception, through which González-Andrieu critiques extreme subjectivity, individualism, and life devoid of meaning and community. The common search for ultimacy, then, within both art and theology, provides the architectural plan for the bridge, to use González-Andrieu’s metaphor.
In her third chapter, called “In Search of Wonder,” González-Andrieu speaks of the encounter between the audience and a work of art as religious—even when religion is not in the interpretive framework of the one experiencing the work of art. This is a controversial point. Regardless of the nature of the one experiencing the work, González-Andrieu argues, the potential is in the work for producing wonder, and in the potential for wonder is the possibility for revelation. She speaks of four moments in such an encounter: first, the encounter itself, which is a pre-theological experience that, by seeing, has the power to awaken the imagination; next is a moment of wonder, or, in Spanish, asombro (which becomes for González-Andrieu a technical term that extends beyond wonder in the face of that which is merely pretty, enabling a more expansive understanding of beauty as that which challenges us prophetically to confront evil and to work for justice); third is reflection upon the encounter which involves insight, or apprehension of meaning; and last is a movement to compassion having encountered the holy, inspiring the capacity to hope, to imagine, to dream especially of just relations and the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. She puts flesh on these bones by sharing an experience of the play, La Pastorela, by Mexican American playwright Luis Valdéz, staged in the centuries-old mission church of San Juan Bautista amid an audience of farm workers and their children which was, for her “one of the best examples of the convergence of sacrality and artfulness” she has ever encountered (28)—an experience to which she returns throughout the book. In her experience of the play, she identifies the technical support or, in her words, the “common ground” for the bridge taking shape in her telling. “There is an interplay between seeing and the wakefulness brought by art’s complication of the world, and through it we can renew our love of creation and of ourselves. This renewed humility can sometimes reveal our need of salvation, by laying bare the depth of our longing or of our emptiness” (37). She hopes that the experience of the play will “move us to denounce a system that treats those who toil in the fields as lesser human beings, and to question . . . an economic structure that thrives on their poverty and marginality” (39).
Having indicated the architectural plan and the ground of support for a bridge connecting art and theology, González-Andrieu turns to a case study, an analysis of the exhibit Seeing Salvation (an exhibit that ran Feburary 26-May 7, 2000, at the National Gallery in London), as a means to explore the promises and pitfalls of engagement between theology and the arts. In chapter four, called “Seeing (as) Salvation, the Hope of Art and Religion,” González-Andrieu explores the promise of their engagement by comparing the reception of the National Gallery’s exhibition with the Royal Academy’s Apocalypse exhibition, which promised surprise and shock. González-Andrieu points out, “As reported by the BBC, attendance suggests that visitors preferred Seeing Salvation over Apocalypse by a ratio of five to one” (48). González-Andrieu draws on her metaphor of a bridge to speak to the Seeing Salvation exhibit as a true bridge: “[I]t went both ways,” she writes. “Religion clearly benefited, as one visitor explained, ‘Art drew people to God once—perhaps it can do so again.’ But art benefited as well, as another visitor explained, ‘I came to this exhibition as a Christian, but now I wish to visit the Gallery as an art lover (in training)’” (49). Finally, she concluded the chapter on the promise of theology and the arts by saying, “The insight about contemporary society that the National Gallery made evident was that the loss of literacy about Christianity would also mean that some of the greatest works of art in history would become irrelevant mute ciphers,” and that the exhibit spoke “to the church about the thirst in the culture for the healing and wholeness so many reported experiencing as they visited the exhibition” (61).
But there are also fissures in the bridge that the exhibit Seeing Salvation brought to light, and to which González-Andrieu turns in chapter five. In “Beautiful Differences,” the first challenge she identifies is that which she calls “The Problem of Art and Truth.” This problem was embodied in the gallery director’s need to steer clear of any perception of his own or the gallery’s religious commitment, thereby treating the subject of the exhibit—Christ’s life and death—as historical curiosities and as notions in Western civilization rather than beliefs held as sacred by a considerable number of those who attended the exhibit. The second challenge González-Andrieu identifies is again by reference to the gallery director, who “preemptively argues that there cannot be any expectation that Seeing Salvation will delve into ‘the theological intricacies of the Incarnation’” (72); yet, González-Andrieu points out, “the exhibition does precisely this” (72). She explains, “the art in the exhibition was not passively transmitting information but was arising out of a tradition reaching deep and wrestling with ‘theological intricacies’ as living theology” (72). Finally, González-Andrieu points to a third problem when the National Gallery said the works of art “‘were made to strengthen’ the faith of believing Christians” (75). Because Christian art cannot be reduced to illustrative or didactic functions, because such art is not exclusively or even primarily to serve ecclesial concerns, and because the art with which most of González-Andrieu’s book is concerned has a prophetic function, she notes that it is problematic for the Gallery to present the reductionistic perspective that religious art has merely a didactic role. These points of tension indicate areas for potentially fruitful dialogue between the world of art and the world of theology.
In chapter six, called “Beyond Boundaries and Unknowable Otherness,” González-Andrieu develops a method for understanding how the arts work religiously and how the religious works aesthetically by proposing “interlacing” as counter to “intersection,” a term which she finds problematic. She writes, “In an intersection what is different inexorably continues to move apart, severely reducing the opportunities for contact. On the other hand, a braid—the geometric representation of interlacing—incorporates difference as beautiful” (88). Rather than thinking about this method in terms of critique or analysis, González-Andrieu calls this undertaking by the Spanish word, acercamiento, a noun naming a movement from far to near. She grounds her method in this chapter on Federico García Lorca’s theatrical production of Mariana Pineda, about a woman from Granada who was executed as a liberal conspirator in 1831 after refusing sexual favors to the mayor. González-Andrieu discusses various “planes” of the play, including one reading in which Mariana is a type of Christ whose selfless love was shared even unto her death. González-Andrieu points to how “the work to be done to appreciate the joint work of the arts and theology cannot be accomplished exclusively through critical theory or theological method. . . . Rather, the cables built for an acercamiento must interlace these discrete disciplines with the aid of aesthetics” (99-100).
In chapter seven, called “The Impossible Definition,” González-Andrieu tackles the impossible—defining “art.” She notes that artists “routinely take the commonplace and defamiliarize it” (102). She recognizes too the potential for art “to subversively counter totalizing tendencies” (103). Art can “enlighten and arguably even prevent terrible events from coming to fruition in a community’s daily life, or at the very least allow a society to grieve openly and thus release its shared pain” (105). Countering Kandinsky’s taxonomy, González-Andrieu attempts to speak to the power of art through examples drawn from José Ortega y Gasset, Chagall, Virgilio Elizondo, and Federico García Lorca. She speaks to how these figures add to the world of the real, chronicle pain and joy, and give the community quality. Finally, she writes that art might be described “as a work of human making that complicates the natural and as a gift that speaks to a community because it captures the spirit of that community; this work critiques and energizes, bringing newness and clarity” (111).
In chapter eight, called “Beauty in Turmoil,” González-Andrieu writes the tale of two Christmas trees, analyzing descriptions of an episode through the eyes first of Alejandro García-Rivera, who was a Roman Catholic Hispanic American scholar and previously a physicist and also a Lutheran pastor, and second of Frank Burch Brown, a Protestant Anglo-American scholar, composer, and choral director. Their divergent interpretations of a single church building housing two religious communities and each community’s distinct judgments surrounding the embellishment of their own Christmas trees unveils the complexities in navigating the religious, cultural, and aesthetic questions that concern us here—an exercise in which Frank Burch Brown does not fare well in González-Andrieu’s judgment.
Finally, in chapter nine, called “The Bridge to Wonder is Ours to Build,” González-Andrieu discusses an episode when the the world of art and the world of theology collided, resulting in something of a bridge collapse. The particular episode she chose (and there have been many) is Marie-Alain Couturier’s invitation to contemporary artists to contribute their talents to the consecration of Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce in Le Plateau d’Assy, France. Germaine Richier was commissioned to create a crucifix for the main altar, and it was this work that drew a line between those who thought the piece had artistic merit, and those who said its departure from the tradition was too severe to merit installation. Thus, the collision between theology and art causes the bridge between them to collapse. First, she writes that art is an effective and affective carrier of a religious tradition. Second, she writes that art is a source of theology. And third, she writes that art is a bridge to the glory of God. In all three ways, she argues the Richier crucifix fails, thereby indicating areas that require additional attention as we move forward in this field.
Having offered this description of her work, there are two critical points I would like to make. First, González-Andrieu’s perspective is distinctly Catholic. While she is concerned with issues of pluralism, this pertains primarily to cultural pluralism, not religious pluralism. Indeed, there is little in the book that bridges Catholic approaches to theology, aesthetics, and the arts with Protestant ones, on the one hand, or with approaches from other religions, on the other. While I’m confident González-Andrieu is sympathetic to the need for such a voice, readers will have to look elsewhere to find it. Indeed, two “stars” on the Protestant side of the conversation in theological aesthetics receive a harsh critique in her pages (Paul Tillich and Frank Burch Brown), and interreligious dialogue is simply absent here, so tied is González-Andrieu to the Catholic analogical imagination. And second, there were times I remained unconvinced by the arguments unfolding before me. For example, I view the movie Inceptionfrom a different angle, and I would defend the artistic and even religious merit of Richier’s crucifix which opens an avenue for renewed dialogue. Finally, I regretted her application of motive to Frank Burch Brown’s aesthetic judgment. But these are minor points and may, in the end, be matters of taste (which, while of great consequence in matters of theological aesthetics, offer us rich material for a conversation soon over coffee, and so I look forward to discussing these issues with the scholar when we are again face to face). To be sure, we will turn to these finer points only after I extend my admiration for her scholarly contribution to a conversation that has occupied both of us for many years.
Indeed, Bridge to Wonder is a significant contribution to the field of theological aesthetics, as it thinks through important questions of method, and proposes helpful ways to do the work before us. The way in which González-Andrieu helps readers to see a bridge taking shape between theology and the arts, particularly in the way that both fields are concerned with questions of ultimate meaning, is instructive, for she gives us an imaginative and insightful image. González-Andrieu’s concepts of interlacing, asombro, and acercamiento are astute and original, and will provide a baseline for this conversation well into the future. González-Andrieu stakes a rightful claim as one of the most significant voices working in theological aesthetics today, and continues the important work of her mentor, Alejandro García-Rivera, in ways that are, I believe, most pleasing to him.
