"I'm not convinced this is the best hermeneutic frame for appreciating the arts."

A series of links led me to this article from earlier this summer by philosopher Jamie Smith, "Show Me The World." The main topic is the poetry of Charles Wright, but along the way there is nice reflection on the arts and on the limitations of people of faith claiming that we should be "looking for God" in culture. Excerpt:

The result is too often a fixation on God-language in cultural artifacts or—worse—belaboured allegorical readings which see "Christ figures" everywhere. We should expect art to be more oblique. And instead of asking artists to show us God, we should want them to reveal the world—to expand the world, to make worlds that expand creation with their gifts of co- and sub-creative power.