from Books & Culture

In this week's podcast, Stan Guthrie and I discuss an extraordinary project from Crossway Books: The Four Holy Gospels, illuminated by Makoto Fujimura. (An iPad edition with additional commentary by the artist is also available.) Listening to one's recorded words can be a humbling experience, but apart from verbal imprecision and outright mistakes, I often find myself arguing with ... myself. In illuminating the gospels, Mako Fujimura drew on his mastery of nihonga, a labor-intensive style of traditional Japanese painting that involves pulverizing minerals to bring out their beauty. During my conversation with Stan, I remark that the technique itself, while certainly interesting, is not "important;" it could be used for many different purposes. True. (I had in the back of my mind the fetishism of materials and methods that is such a conspicuous feature of the contemporary art scene.) But in Mako's hands, the technique is very important, for it allows him to convey the palpable sense of God's splendor and prodigal generosity that we are inspired to feel when turning the pages of The Four Holy Gospels. Also true, wonderfully so.