Zenit has news of a new master's program in architecture, sacred arts and liturgy at the European University of Rome of which Fr Uwe Michael Lang is one of the directors. (Cf.
Master's Program Aims to Halt Art Crisis). Fr Lang commented on the crisis in sacred art:
... a crisis of the deepest roots, a crisis that has swept away, even before art, beauty itself, of which it should be the bearer. The very concept of 'fine arts,' of which the conciliar Constitution on Sacred Liturgy speaks, is debated.
Following Hans Urs von Balthasar, he also stressed that
Together with the loss of the beautiful, the good and the true have also been lost.
Zenit has news of a new master's program in architecture, sacred arts and liturgy at the European University of Rome of which Fr Uwe Michael Lang is one of the directors. (Cf. Master's Program Aims to Halt Art Crisis). Fr Lang commented on the crisis in sacred art:
2 comments:
I couldn't agree more with the words of Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, when he says : "The cult of the ugly does no less damage to the Catholic faith than false beauty."
Exactly !
But where in the modern world can you find contemporary art which speaks to the soul ? Today, there is no ars sacra. And any attempt in art or architecture which turns to the tried and tested forms of the past for inspiration is immediately condemned as "pastiche".
In the Middle Ages, the age of Christendom, there was the ars sacra : in fact, there was little secular art, to speak of. But the medieval world gave way to the Renaissance, when Man became the measure of all things. And look what happened to the Maniera and the Baroque. It deteriorated into the Rococco, which is nice to look at, but which merely plays (very cleverly) with ornamentation : in itself it communicates almost nothing. The inspiration which was channelled into the art of earlier periods had vanished into the ether. After the so called Enlightenment, art became an intellectual pursuit. And thus was born the art historian. (A very worthy pursuit, but there was by now very little left to study except the history of art.) Oh, good painting continued for a long time. Look at the pre-impressionists. Look at the en plein air tradition. But the last chapter had been written. What followed ? Impressionism. Abstract art. Cubism. Surrealism.
This is degenerate art. In fact, it could be said it is not art at all. And the same thing happened to architecture.
Hence, Chesterton's famous dictum, which is more or less correct.
Art for God's sake. Art for man's sake. Art for art's sake. And then ? No art, for God's sake.
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Marvelous! Pope Benedict writes in "The Spirit and the Liturgy" that the West needs to facilitate a fuller reception of the theological teaching of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. I pray that such an effort helps to contribute to a fuller reception and assimilation of the teachings of this Council in the heart and minds of the West.
May God bless this programme in Sacred Art!
In ICXC,
Father Deacon Daniel (formerly "Gordo the Byzantine")
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