The Creative Gift, Dürer, Dada and Desolation Row, PB (vol3)

Art and Entertainment; The Creative Gift; Articles on history, faith and culture, lifestyle, scholarship, and the Westminster discussions

Through his early work, Art and Entertainment (1962), made available in English for the first time in this volume, and through The Creative Gift, a collection of essays put together shortly before his death in 1977, Rookmaaker speaks with a clear voice of expertise, faith and wisdom as he shepherds the reader through the bewildering jungle of art and popular culture. As a cultural analyst Rookmaaker anticipated the postmodern erasure of the split between high and low culture and pointed out guidelines for a meaningful involvement in both. The additional articles and discussions in this volume address the Christian calling to engage in a fruitful and wise way in the culture of the present day - focusing especially on the media, science and art history.

Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker is editor-in-chief of ArtWay, www.artway.eu, an online service and resource in Dutch and English about the visual arts and faith for individuals and congregations. She did her studies in musicology at the University of Amsterdam, complemented with minors in art history and liturgical studies at the Free University in Amsterdam. For many years she has worked as a freelance editor, translator and writer. She edited the Complete Works of her father, art historian Hans Rookmaaker, contributed to books, and wrote articles about popular music, liturgy, and the visual arts. She was editor of a Dutch book of visual meditations for Lent (2012) and co-authored a Dutch handbook for art in the church (2015). In 2019 she co-curated the Art Stations of the cross in Amsterdam. She lives in Langbroek in the Netherlands.