Christian values in modern art : from 1800 to the present

Abstract

Throughout the ages of its existence, the Christian Church has always been concerned with the arts. During the Paleo-Christian era, which was a period of harsh persecutions for the Church, Christian art was practised silently by means of frescoes and carvings on the hand-hewn walls of the catacombs. This early art of the Christian expressed sentiments of invocation, of good wishes and of prayer. Images included symbols of the divine, among which we find a very important Christian symbol, that of a ‘fish’ […] in which every letter of this Greek word formed the phrase "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour". Since the Edict by Emperor Constantine was issued in A. D. 313, the Church has patronized and promoted art for its evangelic and liturgical purposes with a constant urge and commitment for decades. Artists, namely painters, sculptors and also architects, both of Western as well as Eastern cultures have explored the unlimited possibilities of their arts for Christian understanding and devotion. In this way, Christianity has nourished art like no other philosophical or religious system. On the other hand, art has definitely helped the Church to translate the Divine Message, as her primary concern, while adorning her innumerable places of worship and enriching her liturgy. (1) "Indeed, the reality and the urgency of the Christian message impel some artists to communicate it to others, to express their faith through their art". (2) This fact led to a widening scope of non-commissioned art in Christian iconography throughout the world. On June 23, 1973, Pope Paul VI inaugurated a vast collection of Modern Religious Art. The collection, arranged in the rooms around the "Corti le del Pappagallo", in the Vatican Museums, contains hundreds of works of contemporary artists from all over the world. This significant event in the history of art and of the Church, was the result of the initiative which stemmed from Pope Paul VI himself and his historic address to artists in 1964. The importance of the event derives from the fact that it succeeded in the intention of giving a concrete and realistic reply to the question of whether religious art, particularly Christian, is at all possible now in this modern secularized age. With this in mind, Paul VI, while inaugurating the collection, in the Sistine Chapel, maintained in his speech that the collection is the most direct testimony of the "wonderful capacity for expressing over and above what is authentically human, what is religious, divine and Christian". In the Eschatological mission of the church, "as much as it is true that philosophy is worth serving theology, it is also true that art is worth serving religion".