Hans Rookmaaker

There is an interesting piece on Hans Rookmaaker in Jan/ Feb 2006 Books and Culture . William Edgar writes:

During his lifetime, Hans Rookmaaker guided a great host of students into a strategy for understanding their times and working within their society with courage and creativity. His best-selling Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (IVP, 1970) was nothing short of a ground-breaking study of the surrounding culture, both in its threats and its promises. He dared to make sense of the steps to modern art by noting the general trend from a theocentric world to an absurd universe that lay behind the pictures. Malcolm Muggeridge, himself a returned prodigal, gave it a ringing endorsement on the pages of Esquire. Following in the tradition of the historian Groen van Prinsterer, the theologian-statesman Abraham Kuyper, and the philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd, Rookmaaker believed there was a spiritual background to Western painting which was the key to unlocking its meaning. However, unlike amateur attempts to reduce art to philosophy, Rookmaaker led the reader on a visit to hundreds of paintings, writings, and musical numbers, pausing to scrutinize their composition and motifs.

In another article Richard Russell has written:

Dooyeweerd's ideas profoundly influenced Hans Rookmaaker, playing a crucial role in his conversion, explicitly shaping his academic works like Synthetist Art Theories and implicit in his more popular writings like Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. In turn, Rookmaaker introduced Francis Schaeffer to some of Dooyeweerd's themes---a dependency that Schaeffer rarely, if ever, acknowledged.

Also on Rookmaaker:
Tapes available:
http://www.englishlabri.org/christianityandthearts.htm
http://www.englishlabri.org/thechristianlife.htm
http://www.soundword.com/l-abri-rookmaaker--hans.html

Biography

Linette Martin Hans Rookmaaker: A Biography (Hodders, 1979)

Laurel Gasque Hans Rookmaaker: An Open Life

A brief bio and description of the Rookmaaker archives held at Wheaton college here.


On Rookmaker

The importance of Hans Rookmaaker

Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker (editor) The Complete Works of Hans R. Rookmaaker (Piquant, 2002/3)

details
reviews


Art needs no justification (IVP, 1978) on-line version

Update: thanks to Gregory Baus the links have been updated and should work now.