M.A. (Fine Arts) / The end of this millennium presents the human race with feelings of anxiety, fear and even despair. With the rapidly growing scientific and technological development we may feel increasingly threatened as individuals. Both the value of life and it's mysterious essence are placed in question (e.g. issues of abortion and cloning). Without a spiritual dimension to our lives, we proceed into the future with uncertainty. Suzi Gablik (1991: 3) sets out the problem when she states: The question is no longer how did we get here, and why? but where can we possibly go, and how? We live in a society that has drastically narrowed our sensibility to moral and spiritual issues, the problem we face is how to deal with a belief structure that has blocked both psychological and spiritual development. This thesis will argue that the desire for a spiritual dimension to life is not redundant in the technological age to come, instead it becomes ever more important for our psychological and spiritual health in an age where "the head rules the heart". My work is a plea for us to return to matters ofthe heart, the primal things that makes man what he is - spirit, soul and body. These three elements are linked inextricably. Without the one the other cannot exist and we will be handicapped as human beings. I am also questioning the focus ofour society, which seems reduced to physical things (temporal), rather than spiritual things (eternal). In my plea for us to return to matters pertaining to the spirit, I claim that God is spirit (John 4:24) and that things ofthe spirit can be spiritually discerned and not solely via the mind. The question we may ask is: has the world of the spirit become inaccessible because the mind is given pre-eminence in our society? Have we then as a result arrived at a time of spiritual bankruptcy where the spirit of man has gone into some kind of dormancy or hibernation awaiting a better season in which to come forth? In this I associate myself with Anselm Kiefer. Mark Rosenthal (1987: 26) quotes Kiefer thus: I think a great deal about religion because science provides me with no answers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:11225 |
| Date | 29 May 2014 |
| Creators | Kruger, Marieke |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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