The Christian Imagination: G.K. Chesterton on the Arts

This book is essentially a piecing together of GK Chesterton's writings on art. Peters pulls together a fascinating series of concepts from Chesterton about the nature of art and art criticism. Chesterton is famous for turning concepts on their heads and helping you see things in a fresh and more generous light. He has a way of expanding your world and encouraging you to shed cynicism and modern paralysis. I read this book with a group of friends over a number of weeks and we had a tremendously good time. It was a true conversation starter. I'd also recommend it for Christian college courses where the discussion of the Christian's role in the arts is in play. It will get people thinking... and talking.

Any fan of G.K. Chesterton would enjoy Peters' synopsis of the Topsy Turvy Giant's thoughts on the arts. Peters provides an excellent synopsis of the subject. His most admirable quality in writing this book is allowing Chesterton to speak for himself.Peters hit the nail on the head in summarizing Chesterton's opinion of art and how it uniquely qualifies man as children of God. Chesterton argued that the arts show the difference between men and animals to be qualitative and not quantative. A man does not paint more than a monkey! He paints! Peters accurately states that "in Chesterton's view, the arts are the very essence of humanity, the very thing that differentiates the human from the nonhuman, in that sense the very breath of life from God."If you have never read Chesterton before, I recommend that you start with Orthodoxy, Everlasting Man or Heretics. Once you get one or more of these under your belt you will not only understand what Peters is getting at, but you will also have a greater desire to find out just what Chersterton had to say on the subject, why it is important to man, and what significance it has for the Christian.To that end, I recommend this as your second or third Chesterton book. Happy reading!

Thomas Peters does an excellent job of presenting G.K. Chesterton's thoughts and observations on imagination and the arts. This book is a wonderful and much needed antidote to today's cultural climate, in which the arts establishment seems to value ugliness and outrageousness above all. Here are a few of GKC's countercultural opinions: Fashionable nihilism and pessimism are among the greatest threats to the free and fruitful imagination; humility and wonder enhance creativity, while pride inhibits it; good poetry has rhyme and rhythm; there's nothing wrong with beauty in art; a play should be a treat for the audience, not a realistic slice-of-life; it is not a legitimate use of the arts to make people either bad or unhappy; the "higher frivolity" is better than the "higher criticism" and other pretensions. You'll find all this and more in this well-written book, which includes many quotations (and a few drawings) from GKC himself. And it's all at least as relevant today as it was in Chesterton's time.

Mr. Peters has done a great job at presenting the essence of the creative Chesterton in this short but fulfilling book. While much certainly has been written on Chesterton's brilliant reasoning or his political philosophies, at the root of his thinking was the simple idea that God saw creation as a pleasing thing, and so should we. Chesterton brought not only his firmly-rooted faith, but also a child-like wonder and a fantastic imagination to everything he wrote about, from sociology to satire. Peters' book is a satisfying primer on this idea, and it draws from a diversity of material. Each chapter gives a brief, but not abstract, summary of an aspect of Chesterton or his work. One, for instance, gives an overview of GKC's forays into songwriting, drama and illustration, while another outlines his views on art critics and "bohemians" -- people who Chesterton saw as possessing a distinct lack of imagination. The last chapter serves as an overview of Chesterton's writing career. The book is not exhaustive by any means, but it is complete. Artists and writers will appreciate this book, and I would especially recommend it to those relatively new to Chesterton, as you will find it to be a valuable and informative introduction, as well as an enjoyable read.