Word: art
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...presumable motive for the meeting—a discussion of how best to “communicate beauty”—masked an exercise in negative aesthetics. No tourist will ever mistake the Vatican for the MoMA; the church’s vision for a new art seems mostly to be an art that won’t offend said church...
Benedict certainly didn’t self-censor as he condemned contemporary artistic representations of beauty as “illusory and deceitful.” He went on to argue that such art “imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy.” (Tough words for those of us who didn’t know we were enslaved in the first place: could the papal library stock Weber and Nietzsche?) The spleen was perhaps only to be expected from a bishop who, prior to donning the mitre, frequently provoked...
...question of whether such a work exists at all is a valid one. If it does, the church has remained mum. As insistent as it is on passing judgment, the Vatican remains troublingly resistant to singling out any genuinely serious modern art or literature to criticize. Hand-waving vaguely at “contemporary representations of beauty,” or straw-manning Ron and Harry, is far easier than starting a real debate about what role religion can play in the arts. So far, the church’s reaction to complex—if provocative—creative...
Even if it had taken aim at any truly idea-rich art, the church would do well to be wary. Nearly every time the clergy has tried to peg something as “illusory and deceitful” in the past, it’s been forced to engage in copious backtracking—picking out “good art” is always something of a dice toss. For proof, the Pope would simply have had to look up. Michelangelo’s altar fresco “The Last Judgment,” a fundamental background...
...spirituality or beauty may be missing the point. Often, it’s actually the most “sacrilegious,” boundary-testing works that most stretch thinking—and ultimately strengthen belief. In some sense, Benedict’s get-together did acknowledge this; if art can “enslave” us, it can also save us. (The Pope even floated the idea of a booth at the Venice Biennale next year: one can only wonder the contents of the goody bags he’d pass out.) But it takes a startling lack...