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Exquisite Violence: Imagery, Embodiment and Transformation in MacMillan

This chapter problematizes the relationship between meaning and expression in MacMillan's works, and it asks how MacMillan's music can function as a theological symbol through absolute music. This paradox becomes a starting point for a comparison between MacMillan's aesthetic and Oliver Davis's 'transformation theology', in which the presence of Christ is embodied in the physical and secular reality of everyday life. Sholl discusses the violence and embodiment in MacMillan’s discourse with reference to the Caravaggio’s paintings to reveal way sin which MacMillan attempts to instantiate religious presence.