Art for faith’s sake

By John Cowan

Many people say that religious art needs some serious updating — and the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture agrees with them. Archbishop Gianfrancisco Ravosi claims that the marriage — “once made in heaven” — between art and the Church has long been “on the skids”.

Although today’s Church has kept pace in part with modern architecture and, as a result, has commissioned and erected a number of New Style architecture churches such as St Charles in Johannesburg, the same isn’t true when it comes to the world of figurative art. Instead, there remains almost unvarying repeats of what a lot of younger folk regard as “Rusty Old Medieval Madonnas”, quite out of keeping with the architecture that surrounds them.

But then, who can blame clerical imaginative hesitations when we look at what is sometimes being passed off as art today. Certainly there are a lot of people, both laity and clerical, who will decidedly choose to look the other way when confronted by the piece of “art” entitled “Nona Ora” in which the artist Maurizio Cattelan portrays Pope John Paul II lying crushed beneath a meteorite. Then there’s the piece of modern sculpture showing of a crucified green frog as well as a painting in which an artist depicts Jesus and the apostles in a gay relationship.

Nonetheless, all is not lost. Right now, the Church is reaching out to modern artists. Last November, in an effort to renew some friendship and dialogue between the Church and these artists, Pope Benedict met with several hundreds of them from all around the world and all disciplines of the arts. What’s more, he did this inside one of the world’s most fantastic art treasures, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

A whole crowd of artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, film directors and even a prima ballerina sat and listened as the pope told them that he wanted to be their pal. He genuinely wanted to renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art.

He told them that, in a world that’s lacking in hope and where there are ever-increasing signs of aggression and despair, there is now an even greater need for a return to spirituality in art.

The artists listened as he pointed out that faith takes nothing away from their creative genius or art.

Proof of what he was telling them is easy to find. Here’s an example. Not all that long ago that now famous 20th century painter Henri Matisse demonstrated how his far out “wild beast” artistic genius successfully went along with faith.

Around 1903/4, Matisse came across the Pointillist painting style of Paul Signac who was experimenting with juxtaposing dots of pure colour pigment to create the strongest possible visual vibrations of really intense colour. Matisse decided to adopt this technique and then modified it even further by using broad strokes of powerful way far out colours.

Then, in an exhibition alongside the works of André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, Matisse exhibited some of the boldest colour images he’d ever created in his paintings. As a result the art critics named him and the others in his group les fauves, “the wild beasts”, just because of their use of vivid colours, their distortion of shapes, and the extremes of emotionalism in which they seemed to have indulged. Matisse was regarded as the les fauve leader in this radicalism of the arts.

Then came the crunch. Later, in his old age and during his friendship with an artistic Dominican sister, he offered to design and build a chapel for the Dominicans of Vence. They commissioned him to design and decorate a small chapel, now known as the chapel of Sainte-Marie du Rosaire at Vence, near Cannes in France.

From 1948-51, Matisse drew up the plans for this building, with all the details of its decoration: stained glass windows, altar,ceramics, stalls, stoup, confessionals, priestly ornaments — the lot. This was the first time in history that a painter entirely designed every detail of such a monument, from its architecture to its furniture.

The first stone of the chapel of Sainte-Marie du Rosaire was laid in 1949 and the inauguration and consecration of the Notre Dame of Rosaire, took place in 1951, three years before Matisse’s death in 1954.

The Rosaire chapel remains a unique sacred art monument.

In the words of Matisse: “This work required me four years of an exclusive and entiring effort, and it is the fruit of my whole working life. In spite of all its imperfections I consider it as my masterpiece.”

Proof enough that faith takes nothing away from any artist’s genius or modern art style.

Cherry on top: the invitation of some of the artists who took part in the landmark meeting in November: “Ask and you shall receive. The art world is ready to collaborate with the Church in creating inspirational modern art. If the Church wants art to support its mission, all it has to do is ask.”

The Sistine Chapel is an artistic venue where many of the artists felt inspired by the pope’s message and his encouragement to focus their work on and be aware of the eternal truth that the Church stands for and the message of the Gospel.

That’s exactly what’s happening. Next year the Vatican is to exhibit its works of art in its own national arts pavilion at the world renowned Venice Biennale, in a move to counter what it sees as blasphemous and sacrilegious modern art, such as the portrayal of Pope John Paul II crushed beneath a meteorite.

Ah yes, John Paul II, the pope who loved art and saw the urgent need to encourage contemporary artists to reclaim their spiritual mission, just as the “wild beast” Henri Matisse did with the Sainte-Marie du Rosaire at Vence a mere six decades ago.