Does the Vatican want to re-establish its role as supporter
of great spiritual art? Pope Benedict XVI recently convened an extraordinary
gathering of creative people from many disciplines--and religious
traditions--to discuss his beliefs about the place of the spiritual in art. But
first, a little background is in order.
The link between art and spirituality may seem obvious, but
it has fallen out of favor in recent years. Spiritual themes have been
apparent in the mythic art of the Goddess era going back 40,000 years or more,
and in the work of tribal artists for millennia, but also in medieval painting,
sculpture, weaving, and manuscript illumination from Europe to Asia. The
expression of profound spiritual insights connected to Nature was a major
element in the first concentrated movement of art in the U.S., the Hudson River
School that flourished from 1825 through the end of the 19th
century. Great painters including Thomas Cole, Frederic Church (that's his
painting above, Twilight in the Wilderness),
Asher B. Durand, George Inness and Ralph Albert Blakelock were informed by
impassioned spiritual teachings ranging from Calvinism to Swedenborgianism.
The creators of abstract art in early 20th-century Europe, including
Kandinsky, Mondrian,
Klee, and Malevich, were influenced by the
writings of Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and
other Theosophical authors. And many American Abstract Expressionists,
such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Agnes Martin, spoke openly of
the spiritual underpinnings of their art, although few secular critics
have acknowledged this. (For a more detailed discussion of the topic, please
consult my archived essay.)
The Catholic church has long since ceded its pivotal role in patronizing great art, but apparently the current Pope would like to change that. Without commenting on other statements by Pope Benedict, many of which are politically problematical, I would like to acknowledge what seems to be a genuine attempt on his part to re-establish a connection between art and the spiritual. Recently, he invited artists from around the world to gather in the Sistine Chapel and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, charging that contemporary beauty was often "illusory and deceitful." I'm not sure what he means by that--whether he is referring to the work of multimillionaire artists such as Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons, much of whose work I find, if not specifically deceitful, at least boring and vastly overrated.
But according to a news release by Reuters, the Pope invited some 500 artists to the event, and more than 250 accepted--artists, musicians, directors, writers and composers from around the world and from many different spiritual backgrounds. Although most were from Italy, including film directors Nanni Moretti and Matteo Garrone, singer Andrea Bocelli and famed film composer Ennio Morricone, they were joined by Estonian composer Arvo Part, whose work is decidedly spiritual, Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor and Greek epic artist Jannis Kounellis.
The New York Times points out that "between the early 1500s, when Raphael painted his famous portrait of Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and 1999, when Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan produced The Ninth Hour, a wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite," the Vatican lost its connection with great art.
Cattelan didn't attend, but architect Daniel Libeskind called the event an "amazing step," for the pope "to speak of art and ugliness and what connects art to culture. It's not an everyday thing." Bill Viola, an American video artist whose work often re-interprets Christian themes, agreed with Benedict's premise that art becomes more important during turbulent times. He didn't feel that the Vatican was trying to co-opt artists simply to improve its image. Italian artist Mimmo Paladino said it was now up to the Vatican to turn the dialogue into a reality, perhaps by commissioning art.
Reuters reports that other guests included Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, whose Maxxi modern art museum has just opened in Rome, and F. Murray Abraham, who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in the 1985 Mozart film, Amadeus. The Pope told the gathering beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo, that he wanted to "renew the Church's friendship with the world of art."
"Beauty," he said, "can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God." Well, we knew that, but it helps to reinforce such a valuable message in a secular world in which art is increasingly viewed as an investment instead of a means of exploring our spiritual nature. The Pope said that in a world of increasing signs of aggression and despair, we need to return to spirituality in art.
The event marked both the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's "Letter to Artists," in which he spoke of the Church's "need for art," and the 45th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's original meeting with artists in 1964. "After a number of spats between the Vatican and artists in recent years, including a controversy surrounding writer Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code," said Reuters, "the latest overture to the artistic world is being driven by the Vatican's new culture commissar, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi. In a sign of efforts at reconciliation, the Vatican has said it will participate in the 2011 Venice Biennale, one of the world's major art festivals held every two years.
One wonders what exactly they will contribute, and how the participating artists will be chosen. But it is significant that a religious institution noted for its political conservatism has reached out to the world's creative community, which tends to share viewpoints antithetical to Catholic dogma. I hope the offer is sincere and will lead to more substantial dialogue.
If you're interested in exploring the relationship of art and spirituality in modern times, I can strongly recommend a couple of works by leading art historians. Robert Rosenblum's Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko (Harper & Row, 1975) brilliantly traces the arc of the spiritual within Western art of the last two centuries. The late historian and critic covers a wide swath of our most visionary artists in ways that are revelatory, linking the work of Caspar David Friedrich, William Blake, Samuel Palmer, Emil Nolde, and Max Ernst with Van Gogh, Marc, Kandinsky, Klee, and Mondrian. In a more rarefied vein, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, one of the few living art historians writing on spiritual themes, examines the Hudson River School in The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-Century America Art (American Academy of Religion, 1995). I am indebted to both of them for many of the insights in my online essay.
The Catholic church has long since ceded its pivotal role in patronizing great art, but apparently the current Pope would like to change that. Without commenting on other statements by Pope Benedict, many of which are politically problematical, I would like to acknowledge what seems to be a genuine attempt on his part to re-establish a connection between art and the spiritual. Recently, he invited artists from around the world to gather in the Sistine Chapel and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, charging that contemporary beauty was often "illusory and deceitful." I'm not sure what he means by that--whether he is referring to the work of multimillionaire artists such as Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons, much of whose work I find, if not specifically deceitful, at least boring and vastly overrated.
But according to a news release by Reuters, the Pope invited some 500 artists to the event, and more than 250 accepted--artists, musicians, directors, writers and composers from around the world and from many different spiritual backgrounds. Although most were from Italy, including film directors Nanni Moretti and Matteo Garrone, singer Andrea Bocelli and famed film composer Ennio Morricone, they were joined by Estonian composer Arvo Part, whose work is decidedly spiritual, Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor and Greek epic artist Jannis Kounellis.
The New York Times points out that "between the early 1500s, when Raphael painted his famous portrait of Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and 1999, when Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan produced The Ninth Hour, a wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite," the Vatican lost its connection with great art.
Cattelan didn't attend, but architect Daniel Libeskind called the event an "amazing step," for the pope "to speak of art and ugliness and what connects art to culture. It's not an everyday thing." Bill Viola, an American video artist whose work often re-interprets Christian themes, agreed with Benedict's premise that art becomes more important during turbulent times. He didn't feel that the Vatican was trying to co-opt artists simply to improve its image. Italian artist Mimmo Paladino said it was now up to the Vatican to turn the dialogue into a reality, perhaps by commissioning art.
Reuters reports that other guests included Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, whose Maxxi modern art museum has just opened in Rome, and F. Murray Abraham, who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in the 1985 Mozart film, Amadeus. The Pope told the gathering beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo, that he wanted to "renew the Church's friendship with the world of art."
"Beauty," he said, "can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God." Well, we knew that, but it helps to reinforce such a valuable message in a secular world in which art is increasingly viewed as an investment instead of a means of exploring our spiritual nature. The Pope said that in a world of increasing signs of aggression and despair, we need to return to spirituality in art.
The event marked both the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's "Letter to Artists," in which he spoke of the Church's "need for art," and the 45th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's original meeting with artists in 1964. "After a number of spats between the Vatican and artists in recent years, including a controversy surrounding writer Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code," said Reuters, "the latest overture to the artistic world is being driven by the Vatican's new culture commissar, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi. In a sign of efforts at reconciliation, the Vatican has said it will participate in the 2011 Venice Biennale, one of the world's major art festivals held every two years.
One wonders what exactly they will contribute, and how the participating artists will be chosen. But it is significant that a religious institution noted for its political conservatism has reached out to the world's creative community, which tends to share viewpoints antithetical to Catholic dogma. I hope the offer is sincere and will lead to more substantial dialogue.
If you're interested in exploring the relationship of art and spirituality in modern times, I can strongly recommend a couple of works by leading art historians. Robert Rosenblum's Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko (Harper & Row, 1975) brilliantly traces the arc of the spiritual within Western art of the last two centuries. The late historian and critic covers a wide swath of our most visionary artists in ways that are revelatory, linking the work of Caspar David Friedrich, William Blake, Samuel Palmer, Emil Nolde, and Max Ernst with Van Gogh, Marc, Kandinsky, Klee, and Mondrian. In a more rarefied vein, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, one of the few living art historians writing on spiritual themes, examines the Hudson River School in The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-Century America Art (American Academy of Religion, 1995). I am indebted to both of them for many of the insights in my online essay.
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