Peter Occhiogrosso: November 2009 Archives

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 19^th 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.