Hans Rookmaaker Quotes

What is Christian in art does not lie in the theme but in the spirit of it, in its wisdom and the understanding of reality it reflects.

Jesus didn't come to make us Christian. Jesus came to make us fully human.

Art is a form of play rejoicing before the face of God.

Art tries, literally, to picture the things which philosophy tries to put into carefully thought-out words.

Our world has changed for better or for worse. It is for us to find truth and beauty for today, constantly re-applying the truth of God's word to our own time and our contemporary situation.

Modern art did not just happen. It came as a result of a deep reversal of spiritual values in the Age of Reason, a movement that in the course of a little more than two centuries changed the world.

Art cannot be used to show the validity of Christianity; it should rather be the reverse.

By means of the iconic, artists express their view of reality and show their understanding of the structure of reality. They see what they know and bring this into their paintings. ... They always give us more than the facts, more than the eye can see.

We may appreciate the efforts, and even the greatness of the men who have tried to find the universal, the general 'behind' appearances; yet at the same time their quest was doomed to fail, for all universals break down as soon as the Creator, He who made man in His image, is denied or left out of account.

We are at home here. Alienation is unnecessary. Contact with reality at a deep level is part of the Christian's life. He enters into reality, rather than escaping from it. The flight from reality is a mark of Eastern and classical mysticism, not of Christianity.

We do not know what we see, but we see what we know.

How can you say that modern art is ugly,when you worship the Lord in a building painted like this?