“JESUS may or may not have existed” and “St Paul founded Christianity” were among the more debatable pronouncements made by Matthew Collings, which for some of us might undercut the reliability of his new series This Is Civilisation (Channel 4, last Saturday).
This exploration of the power of art, with the explicit aim of demonstrating what the study of art can do that history cannot, of using art to reveal insights of human apprehension and culture beyond the reach of political and economic events, bears the burden of comparison with Lord Clark’s groundbreaking 1969 series Civilisation.
I suspect that some of Collings’s mannerisms have been deliberately chosen to contrast: in place of the noble lord’s suave urbanity, we have a rather curious, halting delivery, intended to suggest that our guide is one of us, an ordinary bloke, making it up as he goes along. If you are prepared to ignore that irritating artifice — as condescending in its own way as Civilisation, because, of course, the programme is meticulously planned and rehearsed — there is a great deal of good stuff in it.
The first episode focused on religious art. Attic Greek art made the revolutionary move of depicting its gods not as human/animal hybrids, but as ordinary — if beautiful — people: the gods, they are saying, are just like us. Early Christianity rejected art along with every other pagan manifestation: bread, wine, and works of mercy were what counted.
The first depictions of Christ show a young, Apollo-like shepherd; only with Constantine’s adoption of Christianity does Christian art celebrate triumphant power.
By the Middle Ages, Grünewald’s Crucifixion shows a hideously twisted corpse: God in Christ enters into the worst depths of human suffering. This was getting interesting, and I eagerly prepared for Collings’s exposition of Islamic art; but, at this point, having been on duty at our Christmas bazaar all day, I fell asleep, waking only for the closing credits.
In line with ecclesial fashion, I constantly assure my congregation — and, indeed, everyone I meet — how special they all are. This might be a mistake, I began to realise while watching First Cut: In search of Mr Average (Channel 4, Friday of last week).
Intrigued by the constant media reports of studies that show “the average Briton drinks eight cups of tea a day/is 5’ 9” tall/has 2 children”, Tim Wardle set off on a quest to find the embodiment of every average. Would there be anyone who fulfils every qualification of averageness? Of course, when you think about it, an average is merely a mathematical construct — no one has to coincide with the mean, and the average in one field does not have to correlate with any other.
As the search narrowed, however, it was humbling to see that the people did not become more and more boring. In fact, those most prepared to consider themselves average seemed more and more admirable, and, above all, happy with themselves. It is the striving to be extraordinary, the touchstone of all contemporary education and religion, that breeds misery and discontent. How masochistic of us to seek to fill our churches with such people.
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