Dear reader, when you look at the above images what comes to mind? Are any emotions invoked? Think of any other image- be it painting, sculpture, architecture or any other visual medium- and ask yourself if anything within you is touched? Art is more than simply some pretty thing to look at. It is a language. It often bypasses the filter of the mind and goes to the deeper part of man. It speaks to us without speaking. Art often teaches and conveys knowledge and understanding without even saying a word.
Again look at the Pieta. Jesus lifeless body resting in the arms of mary. Look at her eyes burdened with sorrow. Even the words I am using does not express fully what is being presented to our eyes, mind, and heart. Art can be very easily overlooked as unimportant, useless, or not a big deal. In reality, Art holds one of the highest places in man's experience of life. It is through art that we can reach higher plans of understanding and knowledge. It is easy to say "Mary is sad" it is another to SEE her in the throws of sorrow as her son is removed from the cross and handed to her. Art engages the whole human person.
"Paintings and sculptures act on one's thoughts and feelings through the use of one's eyes' in the efforts to govern one's reactions to the work, artists use a pictorial language just as writers use a verbal one. Writers arrange sequences of words to evoke emotion and atmosphere, define character, and seek to achieve a flow of sentences that have rhythm, variety, unity, and balance, so artists use their visual language to express the content of their ideas in works of art."
-Art and Human Experience
The Commonwealth and International Library: Liberal Studies Division
1967, Pages 6-18 ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080121369500096 )
"On the other hand, in Rome especially, we find the position of holy images explained soberly and reasonably. They are the books of the ignorant."- St. Gregory the Great (d. 604).
In the earliest times of the Church Art has often been how the ignorant was taught the faith. Stained glass windows are a good example of art being used as a tool to teach. The images depicted therein would often be from the Bible. The Visitation, The baptism in the jorden, and the crucifixion are all images depicted in such a way. Just this past Sunday my daughter upon getting out of the car saw a cross and pointed and said excitedly "Look! there are Jesus and Mary! Hi Jesus and Mary!" Instantly my 3yrd recognized Jesus as being present; For her, that was indeed Jesus and his mother. My 2yrd will often look at a cross and say "bobo. Je-Je Bo BO" referring to the wounds of Jesus.
Sacred Art is, in a sense, an incarnation of holy things. Thos Holy Events or ideas are made present to us through the use of creative hands; they are "symbols" of the divine. It is important to remember a symbol participates in what it is pointing to. A sign, for example, a stop sign, do not participate in the act of stopping. it is simply telling you to act: to stop. Yet a symbol is what it is pointing to, or rather participates in it. Going back to my daughter, that cross was Jesus. It was more than simply pointing to the crucifixion, that IS Jesus on the cross. So a symbol and art is symbolic, is more than a sign or as I said a pretty picture. there is so much more it is a participation in what is being depicted. (keep this in mind next movie you go to, or art show)
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"And the bishops shall carefully teach this,-that, by means of the histories of the mysteries of our Redemption, portrayed by paintings or other representations, the people are instructed and confirmed in (the habit of) remembering, and continually revolving in mind the articles of faith; as also that great profit is derived from all sacred images, not only because the people are thereby admonished of the benefits and gifts bestowed upon them by Christ, but also because the miracles which God has performed by means of the saints, and their salutary examples, are set before the eyes of the faithful; that so they may give God thanks for those things; may order their own lives and manners in imitation of the saints; and maybe excited to adore and love God, and to cultivate piety. But if anyone shall teach, or entertain sentiments, contrary to these decrees; let him be anathema." -The Council of Trent
The Twenty-Fifth Session "ON THE INVOCATION, VENERATION, AND RELICS, OF SAlNTS, AND ON SACRED IMAGES."
Evil Art:
At the Vatican, there has been some controversy over certain pagan idols and rightly so. If holy Art brings with it a sense of the Sacred and participation in what is being depicted then it follows is when pagan idols or other evil artistic images are honored then we participate in that evil; put simply it is indeed a "big deal".
Now a side note: I am not speaking of simply preservation of cultural art for historical reasons. Such art is not honored and uplifted. such art is not being used in places of worship or conflated with Sacred Art. Pagan cultural pieces are not being raised to equal standing with Sacred art if anything it is used as a warning to not regress into past evils, if not simply a means of remembering the past.
It is when such art is placed in our Churches or placed on equal footing as Sacred art that we then are participating in evil. "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me" Just as SAcred art makes the divine present or "incarnate" so does evil art. Art that is pagan or depicts some evil also makes that evil present. It stains the Holy ground it rests upon. What we say of holy things applies also to evil things and such art allows the "smoke of Satan" into the Church.
The importance of art in all of the human experience of an undeniable fact. All I need do is take some image that is held in high esteem and profane it, then it becomes clear, all of a sudden, that art matters, and how it sends a message. For example, the pagan art that was thrown into the Tiber where it belongs. Soon we will see just how important those images where to people as they begin to be outraged at its new proper storage location.
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