Monday 23 November 2009

Vatican Tries To Woo Back The Art World


There's an interesting article on the BBC, about Pope Benedict sending out five hundred invitations to leading figures in the arts around the world. He plans to open a new dialogue between the Catholic Church and the arts, his mentor Pope John Paul wrote:
"The Church needs art, but can it also be said that art needs the Church?"
It's a strange situation given art was largely funded by the church throughout it's early history, as wealth became less elitist art expanded with it. On being given that freedom like society, it starting to look closer and in a different light at religion. Art doesn't financially need the church now, it does need something to comment upon, religion presents a prefect subject to do so. Some of the best art work I've see has been crafted with devotion or distaste.

Which does present a dilemma for the church, what would the Sistine Chapel be without the beautifully painted surrounding? The Church needs icons, it needs devotion and sacrifice expressed, what a prefect medium art is for that. Yet while everything has changed around the church, very little has changed within it, there is something quite poetic to me that they're artwork should reflect the time they stood still.





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