JPII; Sistine Chapel and TOB

I've been pretty lax about blogging lately as lots has been going on. Just so you all know I still have a pulse I'll post a section of something I was reading the other day that I found very interesting. JPII's words on the Sistine Chapel as they relate to TOB is surely a topic I could write about later but for now I'd like to share this excerpt, taken from this article:

Theology of the Body, written by Fr. Robert Streveler


Back in the 1990’s the beautiful Sistine Chapel (next to the Basilica of St. Peter’s in the Vatican) was restored. During the restoration Pope John Paul ordered the removal of several loincloths that previous popes had ordered to be placed over Michelangelo’s original work. During the homily rededicating the restored frescoes, Pope John Paul proclaimed the Sistine Chapel “the sanctuary of the theology of the human body.” In speaking about the difference between pornography and a proper portrayal of the human body, the pope spoke about how the pornographer seeks only to arouse lust while the true artist helps us see the whole personal mystery of man.

Some people responded to this idea by saying the naked body will always arouse lust in the heart of man. The pope responded with this beautiful declaration of redemption, “Of which man are we speaking? Of man dominated by lust or man redeemed by Christ? This is what is at stake: the reality of Christ’s redemption. Christ has redeemed us! This means he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has set our freedom from the domination of lust”. The pope says elsewhere, “Deep in the heart we learn to distinguish between what, on the one hand, composes the great riches of sexuality and sexual attraction, and what on the other hand, bears only the sign of lust.”

Fill These Hearts; Sacred and Secular Art

I cannot describe how much I am liking "Fill These Hearts", which is a tour put on by TOB evangelist Christopher West and others in which TOB is made accessible through art (visual art, music ect...). In reading the content of the website and watching this trailer there is a sense of "coming home" for me. Art and TOB baby!

Website

Watching this trailer and visiting this website stirred up my stuggle this summer to understand the distinctions and relationship between sacred and secular visual art and trying to figure out how my art fits in. This has been particularly challenging for me as the terms "sacred art" and "secular" can mean different things when used by different people and in different contexts.

For example in one article I read the writer listed religous art, sacred art, and liturgical art as being distinct terms. He didn't clearly define what constitued each of these categories but I inferred that he meant sacred art as being less encompassing than religous art and liturgical art being the most exclusive, narrowly defined category.

More commonly in material I have read, artists' webpages I have looked at, and in conversations I have had, two categories of art; sacred and secular, are expressed. Here "sacred art" is defned as being art with explicitly religious imagery, usually directly and unambiously illustrating a biblical narrative, church doctrine, story of a saint, portayal of Jesus, Mary or another saint, and gets us in touch with the divine through the subject represented. Also I have read in a few places the idea that sacred art as defined this way involves some stylistic limitations, e.g. not being overly naturalistic; idealizing figures to some degree. (This point perhaps I will explore more in depth and write a blog post about another time). Some people who define sacred art in this way are more "rigid" than others in their definition and others somewhat less so. Just to note I've read that Eastern Orthdox Christians define sacred art very narrowly as including only icons, but in this post I'm dealing with the Western tradition.

Still I have seen another, looser, defintion of sacred art as any art that is communcative of the sacred. This would define even, say, a more ordinary portrait of a person that is meant to draw out and communicate God's image and His glory in and through the person represented. Another example could be the painting of a landscape that is meant to communcate the grandure of God through His reflection of Himself in nature. So "sacred art" as such could have subject matter ranging from expicitly "religious" themes to more subtly communicating God.

I appreciate aspects of both the more "rigid" classifactions of sacred art and the"looser" attemps at defining it. I feel that both are onto something. I belive that I am seeking a more nuanced veiw to adopt myself.

On the one hand, I believe that distinctions and categories serve a purpose and can be helpful. For instance I belive that, generally, artwork that has more explictlly and unambiously religious themes is more appropriate for a lituragial setting.

On the other hand what I can appreciate about the "looser" or "less technically correct" defintion of sacred art is the attampt to bring together the sacred and everyday life by helping us to see the sacred in an through common human experience and drawing attention to the sacramentality of all things (how all things that God has created discloses something about Himself, sort of like how the work of an artist can be self-expressive).

Perhaps what I'd like to see is an exhange between sacred art (as defined as art with more explicitly religious themes) and secular art (secular here being defined as art which ideally would glorify God but may not meet the criteria for being classfied as sacred art per se). This would preserve appropriate distinctions without which an abusive "anything goes" attitute could develop which could threaten the integrity and rootedness of sacred art while at the same time avoiding the error of being overly rigid which would prevent cultural exchange; the mutually enriching interpenetration of the sacred and the secular.

What Christopher West said about finding that "sweet spot between the sacred and the secular" and not succumbing to "a kind of religiousity where there's often a very rigid line between the sacred and the secular" really resonates with all this. West said that "what we are really looking for is the universally human", which really resonates with me and what I strive for as an artist.

It has been made clearer to me, ever since studying Theology of the Body, that God's heart as revealed through His Catholic Church desires to bring back together what has been seperated. The faith is ALL about re-integration. This all hinges around reintegration of the human person, body and soul and the human person in his or her entirety partaking of the very inner life of the Holy Trinity, which is a communion of persons- an exchange of love. St. Ananasius' said it well in saying that "the Word was made man so that we might be made God". Of course this marriage of the human and divine is made explicitly clear in the person of Jesus Christ, and our partaking of Him- His full humanity and divinity through reception of Him in the Eucharist.

I believe that this same impulse toward reintegration is the driving force between authentic art, to bring back together what has been seperated or disintegrated. In the garden there was no distinction between "sacred" and "secular", neither will there be such a distinction in the eschaton. Today's gospel at Mass was where Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer. The line of the prayer "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is particularly relevent here, in this quest to reintegrate the sacred with culture at large. Although this reintegration, when the distinctions between sacred and secular will pass away, won't reach completion until that day, God havs given us real power to start living redemption NOW, bringing heaven to earth NOW.

Really what it's about is striving to be in touch with what is most real, a.k.a. God and ordering things accordingly. As Fr. Tom says mystics are the only ones really in touch with reality. A lot of the time people think the mystics are the ones that are out of touch with reality when just the opposite is true, they are in touch with what is for real. One line of reasoning I have heard for not embracing the faith, particularly along the lines of sexual morality, is that some people believe that it is out of touch with real life, actual human experience and is more or less a set of arbitrary rules disconnected from a person's experience. What has to happen, and what artists have a particular role in bringing about, is bridging this unnatural and irrational disconnect between so called "real life" and God.

So I guess to sum up this post I'll say that although I appreciate and affirm a degree of categorization and differention of sacred art as helpful and affirming that it serves a purpose to "historical man" (i.e. where we are at now- man fallen yet in the progress of being redeemed in Christ), I propose that this categorization shouldn't lend itself to a "cutting off" of or an overly severe and rigid divide from the secular (the culture at large) lest "sacred art" become irrelevent and inaccessible and the general culture becomes cut off from that which is "religious", that which is meant to call us higher. Because ultimately these distinctions will pass away in the Marriage of the Lamb when creation is wed intimately with it's Creator as it was meant to be. This is my take on these matters at least, they are open to tweaking so if you have any thoughts on the the subject your input is appreciated as always.

By the way if you haven't noticed I'm putting so many words in quotes because of the multiple connotations they have.

This blog post is pretty loaded so I'm sure I'll revisit some of the concepts I have explored here and further elaborate on and refine them as I (hopefully) gain some more insight. I'd say that in most of my art I'm drawn to reach that "sweet spot" between the sacred and the secular that West mentioned. More on how my art relates to all this later though lest I get carried away write too much for one post. I'm trying to make sense of all this myself, this is at least a start! Comments would be helpful, I could use some people to help me as I struggle through this question of the relationship between the sacred and secular in art (and life in general).

Ladies- Demand Your Dignity!

Fr. Robert Barron; Evangelizing Through Beauty

Listen to his lecture on evangelizing through beauty here.

Fr. Barron provides some very good insights in this talk. What struck me was how he said that it is showing people the beauty of the faith which is going to really draw people in. I appreciate how he integrates art into his evangelization style for this reason. I was watching some trailers for Fr. Barron's "Catholicism Project" series he is developing. The trailers along with this lecture are reassuring in that they are indicators of a movement I have noticed toward an increased interest in the role of art in the Church today.

Here are some trailers for the Catholicism Project. They are very high quality and you will see how Fr. Barron's interest in art is very apparent by watching them.



and



This series, which I believe is going to be available sometime in the fall on TV and DVD, brings to mind a quote from Fr. James Alberione, founder of one of the religious communities I'm considering. I don't remember the exact quote but it communicated the idea that the way the Gospel, the faith, is presented must be fitting in being of high quality. If you present the good news through means which are poor quality or cheesy they are not appropriate to the beauty and importance of the message. Fr. Barron really gets this. Here is my favorite thing that he said, in the first trailer I posted: "Catholicism is smart. Catholicism is beautiful. Catholicism is colorful. It's textured. It engages the mind and the heart and the body." YES! And he responds to this conviction with a commitment to providing highest quality means of communicating the faith. One reason why I am so offended by bad art, as I communicated in my post Emasculation of Jesus is that I wonder how many people have been turned away from the Catholic faith because of lame music, bad art, horrible architecture ect. I know I personally, if I didn't know that Heaven met Earth in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, wouldn't be drawn in by the beauty of the music (not saying that the person leading the music is necessarily a bad singer- though that could be the case). Same goes for the architecture in some modern Churches, some of these instead of drawing the mind and spirit to contemplate the beauty of God his Bride the Church instead are more evocative of a space station. (I have one particular church in mind when I say this). Something has gone wrong with the Church as is evident in the production of such poor art, there needs to be a spiritual-artistic renewal of Catholic Culture. Ok, yeah- so this is just a long way of me going about saying I like what I see in what Fr. Barron is doing! Later I'll write more about my feelings regarding the relationship between mediocrity of art and spiritual lukewarmness, I think I'm on to something there.

Artists and Theology of the Body

Below is an excerpt from an interview of Ann Slattery, of Stabat Mater Prayer Apostolate whose mission is to support artists primarily by praying for them. I came across this a while ago and since starting this blog have linked to this interview but I reread it recently and wanted to bring it to the forefront because of its importance.

(emphasis mine)

4. Part of your mission is to spread an understanding of the Theology of the Body through the arts. Why is the Theology of the Body important and relevant for artists? How can they incorporate and spread the principles and ideas outlined in TOB?

We live in a visual world. All of us are bombarded with hundreds, even thousands, of images on a daily basis. We process huge amounts of information through websites, email, television, and movies. The way we digest information has become so graphic. You want to know how to change out a flat tire? Look it up on YouTube. And, of course, we all know that many, many images rampant in our culture are trivial, demeaning to the true nature of human sexuality, and even blasphemous. That's why we think that Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body needs to be widely understood, especially by up-and-coming generations. And who better to communicate it to this image-saturated culture than artists? Artists who grasp this teaching are best equipped to spread it, because they can present it immediately and profoundly. It's a real challenge, and I am not sure how they will do it—I am not an artist—but I know that they can and will. It is not necessary to get a theology degree to realize the beauty of this teaching and the impact it is beginning to have on the world. In the Middle Ages, people learned the Faith primarily through the teachings presented in art (stained glass windows, statues, the cathedrals themselves). Today, we will see a turnabout in our culture, from one of death to one of life, when we begin to see (literally see) the revolutionary implication of the pope's teaching. He has so eloquently taught what it means to be human! Incidentally, we are offering this apostolate in thanksgiving for the life of John Paul II on earth and in anticipation of his eventual canonization.

For the entire interview go here.

Right there Ms. Slattery expresses exactly what has been compelling me ever since I first came across TOB, to communicate it through art. Another thing she touched upon which is also very much on my heart is for a generation of artists with a grasp of TOB to RISE UP and communicate the truth of the human person through their art. Artists have a critical role in bringing about a transformation in our culture, from a culture of death to a culture of life. A major reason I started this blog was so that others who have a call to communicate TOB through art can find me and we could mutually support each other-and I know there are others as I have come across some of them already. Who else does this resonate with? I want to hear from you, us TOB artists NEED each other. This is not to exclude those who are not artistically inclined, your contributions of exchange of ideas and prayer are indispensable. On this note Ann Slattery, who is not an artist herself, mentions that the invitation is extended to everyone to support and help bring about this artistic cultural renewal. If you want to learn more how to become a part of Stabat Mater Prayer Apostolate, go to the link. Ms. Slattery, in our one conversation thus far has been immensely helpful to me personally and I know she would be very encouraged to hear from others enthusiastic about what she's trying to get off the ground.

Emasculation of Jesus

About a week ago I was in Boston on a retreat for evangelization training. At the retreat center there were a few pieces of art that depicted Jesus, whether intentionally or not I'm not sure, in a very -feminine- way.

The first piece that rubbed me the wrong way was this huge bronze sculpture depicting the Risen Christ. It could have alternately been titled, Ballerina Jesus. Now, to any male ballerinas out there, don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong or emasculating about being a male ballerina per se. I wish I had a picture of the piece but it may be better because I don't want the artist to find this entry bashing the piece and get mad at me. I think it was the ballerina-like posture in combination with the feminine build of Jesus' body which communicated to me and others who were with me on this retreat an image of a feminine Jesus. I'm pretty sure, or at least I hope, that the artist didn't mean for such a message to be communicated, but that's what I, and others, got from the piece.

The second offending piece of art communicated even louder and more explicitly an effeminate Jesus. It looked like a print of a portrait of Jesus which someone went back over with GLITTER. It wasn't just the glitter which I took issue with, but it very clearly looked like this Jesus was wearing makeup. And not natural looking makeup either. I'm talking artificially pink, I believe coral to be more precise, lips. Jesus wore lipstick? And blush, and...eyeliner? Mascara...what?! Gaudy was the way to describe it. WHAT WAS THIS ARTIST THINKING? And why was it in the retreat house? I could point out many, even very popular images of Jesus, that present him as looking quite feminine, but this one was just ridiculous. The retreat leader, when we were discussing these pieces of art, which he wasn't fond of either, said that Scripture presents an image of Jesus wearing a robe of blood and with a sword coming out of his mouth and eyes like fire! Ha! I'll put the section of Scripture up where he was drawing from, just to illustrate a point.

His eyes were (like) a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven followed him, mounted on white horses and wearing clean white linen.
Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he himself will tread out in the wine press the wine of the fury and wrath of God the almighty. (Revelation 19: 12-15)

Make a picture of glitter Jesus after reading THAT.

If you want to know why in the first place I am upset about Jesus being feminized I'd suggest reading this article which expresses what I feel pretty accurately:


The Emasculation of God

When it comes down to it God, in Scripture, has expressed the desire to be referred to as "He" rather than "Her". Jesus taught us to pray to God as Our Father. God, in Jesus incarnated as male for a reason. This in and of itself is reason enough for me to believe that it's not right to be pushing an image of a feminine Jesus. I'll go on to explain some my limited understanding as to why God has revealed a desire to be referred to in masculine terms in this entry but I invite you to read the article which communicates the logic behind it well. Though I trust God in His revelation over and above my limited comprehension of Him, though it is of course necessary to press into such things and seek to understand them as well as you can.

Please understand that I'm not in any way trying to say that women are less than men or deny that women image God in a way that is complementary to how men do. Not to mention that it is this difference of the sexes that enables them in their relationship to image the exchange of love among the three *distinct* persons of the Trinity. I'm not going to pretend to know that I have it all figured out and I admit I do struggle with questions such as how to affirm and defend God's revelation of Himself in masculine terms while at the same time affirming that women image God just as much as men, though in a distinct way. It can be confusing! It is my hope to encourage exchange of thought regarding such matters, not to shut down dialogue and exploration, as long as this search is oriented toward seeking the truth about God and man. What I do know is that neutering Jesus, putting lipstick and mascara on Him doesn't serve or affirm the dignity of men 0r women. Any thoughts?

I can talk a little from my own experience as a woman relating to Jesus. Affirming Jesus as a man for me doesn't make me feel degraded but rather affirms me in my femininity. As a woman, I image the Church, Christ's bride, in a way a man cannot. This is inscribed in my body in its receptivity. Humans stand in a posture of receptivity before God, He is the initiator of the gift of Himself, everything we are and have comes from Him and is received by us. The female body communicates this in a particular way. Men on the other hand, although they are like the female in their receptivity before God, image in their bodies the fatherhood of God-they are called to initiate the gift of themselves and this is inscribed in their bodies. This is not to say that women only are only passive or that men are only active, just that women and men love differently as is revealed in our bodies, and I'd argue that men and women relate to God differently as well. So going back to reflecting on my own experience, affirming God's masculinity and that God incarnated as a male is affirming of my own femininity and how in my femininity I image, in a particular way,the Church and the whole human race in it's receptivity toward God, who has revealed himself as Bridegroom and the Church as His Bride. I am quite satisfied being and imaging in my body the beloved of God- who left heaven, incarnated, suffered and died so that He could be one with His beloved-His bride, the human race. Therefore putting lipstick and mascera on the Bridegroom, IMHO doesn't serve a woman's desire to be affirmed in her sexuality, her femininity which images the stance of receptivity of the human race towards God who is masculine in relation. Also, though I can't speak with the same authority about how an emasculated image of Jesus negatively affects men as I can speak about how a woman is affected, I have some thoughts on the matter. A Jesus with lipstick and mascara and glitter I don't believe would be very affirming for a man in his sexuality either. A man images Christ, the Bridegroom who initiates the gift of Himself by laying down His life on the behalf of His beloved, in a particular way so by extension an emasculation of Jesus has an emasculating affect on men in general.

Not to get off on a tangent but one of my big questions is how do men relate to Jesus as Bridegroom and not be emasculated-any input from guys on this would be very useful! I have some theories but It drives me CRAZY because I don't have it neatly figured out! :)

Well these are just some of my thoughts, your input would be appreciated and is encouraged as always.

Traditional and Modern Communications Meet

I find this very interesting. As an artist who works mainly in traditional mediums I'm very much interested in how traditional fine art fits in with our mass communications culture. If you don't believe me I made an entry about this previously here. I don't plan on going to this but I'm glad this dialouge is happening and am looking forward to finding out what I can about what transpires.