Easter, 1999 (Servant of God) Pope John Paul II issued a letter addressed “To all who are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty so that through their creative work as artists they may offer these as gifts to the world.”
Later in that same year, he re-dedicated the renovated Redemptoris Mater Chapel (pictured at left). Quoted from Cardinal Marini on the occasion of the dedication of the chapel: “The Chapel is also, implicitly, an invitation to take up a new dialogue between art, culture and faith, themes often echoed in the Pope’s thinking and an essential part of his call to the Church to ‘invent’ new paths for evangelization.“
A few observations:
It must be acknowledged to whom the Pope addressed his letter: the title is entirely ’secularized’ if you will. It makes no mention of the Christian faithful, or really any kind of religious or theistic reference. This seems to reflect John Paul’s desire to evangelize the whole world, certainly, but I think he must have seen, and the letter attests to this, that in order for art to be of real and creative service to the Church again, some reconciling is in order. John Paul seems to recognize that, as philosophy seems to no longer put itself at the service of theology (re: Fides et Ratio), likewise art no longer flourishes and develops within the heart of the Church. Rather, with the rise of the Enlightenment and Modernism, art explores its own ends… art for art’s sake, anyone?
But, of course, any believer will know ultimately what John Paul is referring to when he says “new epiphanies of beauty”. Indeed, at the end of the letter he defines ‘true beauty’ as a glimmer of the Spirit of God (16). This Spirit of God is that same inspiration, or epiphany, to which he refers in the address. Speaking about the “unbridgeable gap” between the inspiration and the artist’s actual work, he says that the artist is aware of how the finished work of art pales in comparison to that “splendor which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit” (6) and inspired them to create in the first place. In this sense, as John Paul states early on, drawing the comparison between the artist and the Creator, all artists participate to some degree in the divine act of creation. Because God’s creation was wholly a gift—none of it was necessary—the Pope seems to want to say the same about the artist: that, at the core of art, is gift.
Also interesting to note is that the Pope has captured well the sort of pathos and ethos of the artist: that constant struggle to bring to fruition the powerful ideas that are borne in the mind of the artist; the torment of “expressing the world of the ineffable” (13); the birthpangs of releasing an inspiration from the mind into created form; the artist’s fascination with the work of his hands; the need to work independently of constraint (the starving artist) and the notion of artistic “service” (4); and the ongoing battle between the desire for recognition and the hunger for freedom of thought (the fear of ’selling out’).
More on the question of beauty to come (considering that John Paul II says beauty is the vocation of the artist, it is going to be very important for us). In the meantime:
Reading John Paul II’s letter suggested some themes in reference to the ongoing subject of architecture in the Church:
1. art is expression of self & communication with others (need for recognition) — in contrast to unintelligible forms we often see in modern church art and architecture.
2. the starving artist — mark of ‘authentic’ artists.
3. art and the gospel of life — wonder at the sacredness of life & the human person/our lady of guadalupe, patroness of the unborn, tota pulchra; true beauty is a glimmer of the Spirit of God… each generation of art within the Church is a response to a particular need or struggle in the Church. What will the art of Evangelium vitae look like?
4. Sacramentality: the “unfathomable mystery which engulfs and inhabits the world”. — Dostoyevsky: “Beauty will save the world.”
5. Two goals of early Christian art: to express the faith, to distinguish it from other religions (perennial role of Christian art: to make the spirit world perceptible & attractive)
The icon is not venerated for its own sake, it points beyond to the realm of the spirit–if it cannot do this, it has failed. (See duck & decorated shed theories of Learning From Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form)
Art functions as a bridge to religious experience (10) [evangelization] (Ratzinger: only two effective arguments for Christianity: the beauty of the church’s art, and the beauty of the church’s saints)
6. Art gives witness to the universal desire for redemption — love songs, hero stories, etc.
[N.B. please note, again, these are my thoughts as I am in the process of developing them; so they are by no means conclusive.]
Next up, What is Beauty?Â
