Redemptive Hiding: Visual and Verbal Poetics in Bruegel and Dostoevsky (Christina Eickenroht)

We welcomed guest speaker Christina Eickenroht to give an excellent and accessible lecture on this intriguing topic. Recommended! What have the cluttered landscapes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder to do with the complex plots of Fyodor Dostoevsky? In each, we find subtle allusions to the holy, hidden and tucked away in the least likely of places. Bruegel and Dostoevsky "bury the lede," so to speak, and thereby implicate us in overlooking or dismissing the presence of the holy—until we stumble over it in double-take recognition, and that hidden detail proves axiomatic. In this lecture, we will consider examples of this phenomenon in Bruegel's paintings and Dostoevsky's novel. Then, we will consider why Bruegel and Dostoevsky employ these compositional strategies. Why is the hiding of the holy so urgent? (Sorry we cannot include the slides. Bruegel's paintings - left unnamed during the talk - mentioned in the talk are as follows, in order: The Fall of Icarus; The Procession to Calvary; The Census at Bethlehem; The Adoration of the Kings) The Copyright for all material on the podcast is held by L'Abri Fellowship. We ask that you respect this by not publishing the material in full or in part in any format or post it on a website without seeking prior permission from L'Abri Fellowship. Also, note that not all views expressed in the lectures or in the discussion time necessarily represent the views of L'Abri Fellowship. © Canadian L'Abri 2020