Caught up in the holiday weekend’s spirit of thankfulness, I want to reach back to last weekend and Pope Benedict’s meeting with artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel, which was covered by The New York Times’ Rachel Donadio:
Sitting before Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, after a choir sang music by Palestrina, Benedict urged them to embark on “a quest for beauty.” In what he called “a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal,” he told his guests to be “fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty.”
He said the aim of the event on Saturday was “to re-establish a dialogue” between the church and artists “that’s necessary and fertile for both.”
Donadio’s brief article told us who was there (composer Arvo Part) and who wasn’t (U2’s Bono), and it quoted artists who held two opposing perspectives on the gathering: those who seemed pleased (or even blessed) and those who remained suspicious of the pope’s motives (and considered the event a “facade.”
(You can see more about the event in a report by Catholic News Service.)
There are tons of articles and reports about religion that could be addressed here today, but I’m casting my lot with the one that addresses beauty. Happy Thanksgiving!
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Comments (5) |
November 27, 2009, at 12:43 pm
I’m curious where you’re reading this suspicious response, Steve. Has the article as it now appears on the NYT website been edited?
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November 27, 2009, at 2:28 pm
Doesn’t the NYT article more or less define the failure to “get religion”. A nice, probably not too significant bit of Church business is turned into a swamp of public relations and politics (the real business of life).
the Vatican’s relations with the art world had clearly gone astray.
Really? Because some artist depicted JPII struck down by a meteorite? That’s just weird. The NYT link didn’t take me to the sculpture in question, but here here it is, with a note on the ridicule it received.
Wouldn’t a more more interesting story include a contrast between the present event (Michaelangelo and Palestrina) with his predecessor artistic interests?
and perhaps put a gentler face on a contentious papacy
Contentious, I suppose to the NYT and it’s devotees. Some of us rather like the old guy and think it’s about time someone stood up (“at every turn”) to the nihilists and relativists.
About half of the 500 invited artists did not attend
Earlier she says “more than 250” were invited.
A good example of word power: about half the invited guests dropped their work and flew off to the Rome (at their own expense) to spend a few minutes with the pope and 250 of his closest friends. But it’s more fun to stress that half of the guest list had the good sense to snub this medieval tyrant and stay away.
in light of the fierce controversies that have made this papacy less than loved by the downtown art scene,
Any specifics behind this statement? I have to admit it’s fun to put specifics to “the downtown art scene”.
played down any notion that the Vatican was trying to co-opt artists like him into helping improve its image.
Is this the “suspicious response”? If so, someone is trying to make a relatively nice statement into a negative.
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November 27, 2009, at 3:01 pm
As someone with a master’s degree in Christianity and the arts, I’m fascinated by this meeting and wish more details were included in the brief report. I was a bit confused about this exchange, though:
Aren’t Catholic churches commissioning art on a constant basis all around the world? New churches being built, new altars, paintings, statues, new musical settings for masses… Arvo Pärt has written sacred music, but what about other artists?
Also, what is the religious background of the artists who were present? Via Wikipedia, I learned that Libeskind is Jewish. Hadid is “Iraqi-born,” but is she Muslim? Christian? None of the above? Is Viola’s “reinterpretation” done from a position of faith, skepticism, or both?
To me, the most basic part of not “getting religion” was the small amount of space devoted to the article. The leader of the world’s largest religious body meeting with 250 of the world’s leading cultural and artistic figures? Seems pretty important to me, considering the amount of space that the NY Times has devoted to these artists as individuals (I remember Hadid and Libeskind receiving lengthy profiles, and I’m sure Part, Morriconi, and others have as well.)
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November 27, 2009, at 3:34 pm
Anyone who has visited the Basilicas and Cathedrals (etc) in Italy can appreciate the beauty of the art adorning those structures.
But I was also struck by the same point Mike commented on about the Vatican commissioning art work. It seems to me that if the Vatican wants to see art of a certain kind, the way to do it is to pay for it. In fact, a few seconds with Google found http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/vatican-looks-to-modern-artists-for-divine-inspiration-842501.html so I wonder what happened in the past year.
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November 27, 2009, at 6:31 pm
From Chiesa, an Italian periodical that posts articles on-line about Papal doings, a journalist can learn that there were lots of artistic doings last week leading up to the meeting with artists on the 21st, wherein the Pope explains that he thinks people are drawn to God not only by reason but also by art and beauty.
Later that same Wednesday, there was a concert of sacred music at St John Lateran. Here is what Chiesa had to say about that.
Source: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1340985?eng=y
And here is “The complete text of the pope’s remarks on November 21, 2009, in the Sistine Chapel, to representatives of all the arts: painters, sculptors, architects, novelists, poets, musicians, singers, men of the cinema, theater, dance, photography”
The link has further links to John Paul II’s 1999 letter to artists and Paul Vi’s homily to artists in the Sistine Chapel.
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1341070?eng=y
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