A broken beauty /

Simultaneous sensitivity to the brokenness and the beauty of the human condition characterized neither the production of contemporary art nor its interpretation through much of the 20th century. A Broken Beauty is a richly illustrated collection of essays that revisits a subject so central to the history of Western art. Focusing on the work of 15 North American artists, the essays and their subjects comment on the complexity and confusion of the present while drawing on the wisdom and depth of the Christian tradition. Resonance with the Christian past in this volume, however, is catholic, avoiding any dogmatic tone. Essays by Prescott, Timothy Verdon, and Lisa J. DeBoer frame the collection by raising both theological and historical questions about the place of beauty and brokenness in Western art. An essay by curator Gordon Fuglie organizes the work of these 15 artists into six categories: "After the Fall," "Presence Encountered," "The Terrors of History," "The Mystery of Being," "Sanctified," and "Ecce Homo." The result--a volume that finds in contemporary art the pain of the broken condition tempered by hope in things to come. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. L. P. Nelson University of Virginia