| Pilgrims on a shared journey towards infinite
Beautry
On Saturday morning, 21 November [2009], beneath Michelangelo's Last
Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, the Holy Father addressed about 250
artists from across the world, believers and non-believers. The aim of
the Meeting with painters, sculptors, architects, writers, poets,
musicians, composers, singers, dancers, cinema and theatre directors and
actors was to renew the age-old friendship and dialogue between the
Church and artists and to encourage new opportunities for collaboration.
The Meeting also paid tribute to the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul
II's "Letter to Artists" (4 April 1999) and to the 45th anniversary of
Paul VI's meeting with artists (7 May 1964). Archbishop Gianfranco
Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, opened the
meeting. The following is a translation of the Pope's Discourse, which
was given in Italian.
Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests, Distinguished Artists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so
rich in art and in history. I cordially greet each and every one of you
and I thank you for accepting my invitation. At this gathering I wish to
express and renew the Church's friendship with the world of art, a
friendship that has been strengthened over time; indeed Christianity
from its earliest days has recognized the value of the arts and has made
wise use of their varied language to express her unvarying message of
salvation.
This friendship must be continually promoted and
supported so that it may be authentic and fruitful, adapted to different
historical periods and attentive to social and cultural variations.
Indeed, this is the reason for our meeting here today. I am deeply
grateful to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical
Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural
Patrimony of the Church, and likewise to his officials, for promoting
and organizing this meeting, and I thank him for the words he has just
addressed to me. I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests and the
various distinguished personalities present.
I also thank the Sistine Chapel Choir for their
contribution to this gathering. Today's event is focused on you, dear
and illustrious artists, from different countries, cultures and
religions, some of you perhaps remote from the practice of religion, but
interested nevertheless in maintaining communication with the Catholic
Church, in not reducing the horizons of existence to mere material
realities, to a reductive and trivializing vision. You represent the
varied world of the arts and so, through you, I would like to convey to
all artists my invitation to friendship, dialogue and cooperation.
Some significant anniversaries occur around this time.
It is ten years since the Letter to Artists by my venerable
Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II. For the first time,
on the eve of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Pope, who was an
artist himself, wrote a Letter to artists, combining the
solemnity of a pontifical document with the friendly tone of a
conversation among all who, as we read in the initial salutation, "are
passionately dedicated to the search for new 'epiphanies' of beauty".
Twenty-five years ago the same Pope proclaimed Blessed
Fra Angelico the patron of artists, presenting him as a model of perfect
harmony between faith and art. I also recall how on 7 May 1964, 45 years
ago, in this very place, an historic event took place, at the express
wish of Pope Paul VI to confirm the friendship between the Church and
the arts. The words that he spoke on that occasion resound once more
today under the vault of the Sistine Chapel and touch our hearts and our
minds.
"We need you", he said. "We need your collaboration in
order to carry out our ministry, which consists, as you know, in
preaching and rendering accessible and comprehensible to the minds and
hearts of our people the things of the spirit, the invisible, the
ineffable, the things of God himself. And in this activity... you are
masters. It is your task, your mission, and your art consists in
grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing
them in words, colours, forms
—
making them accessible".
So great was Paul VI's esteem for artists that he was
moved to use daring expressions. "And if we were deprived of your
assistance", he added, "our ministry would become faltering and
uncertain, and a special effort would be needed, one might say, to make
it artistic, even prophetic. In order to scale the heights of lyrical
expression of intuitive beauty, priesthood would have to coincide with
art".
On that occasion Paul VI made a commitment to
"re-establish the friendship between the Church and artists", and he
invited artists to make a similar, shared commitment, analyzing
seriously and objectively the factors that disturbed this relationship,
and assuming individual responsibility, courageously and passionately,
for a newer and deeper journey in mutual acquaintance and dialogue in
order to arrive at an authentic "renaissance" of art in the context of a
new humanism.
That historic encounter, as
I mentioned, took place here in this sanctuary of faith and human
creativity. So it is not by chance that we come together in this place,
esteemed for its architecture and its symbolism, and above all for the
frescoes that make it unique, from the masterpieces of Perugino and
Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others,
to the Genesis scenes and the Last Judgement of Michelangelo Buonarroti,
who has given us here one of the most extraordinary creations in the
entire history of art.
The universal language of
music has often been heard here, thanks to the genius of great musicians
who have placed their art at the service of the liturgy, assisting the
spirit in its ascent towards God. At the same time, the Sistine Chapel
is remarkably vibrant with history, since it is the solemn and austere
setting of events that mark the history of the Church and of mankind.
Here as you know, the College of Cardinals elects the Pope; here it was
that I myself, with trepidation but also with absolute trust in the
Lord, experienced the privileged moment of my election as Successor of
the Apostle Peter.
Dear friends, let us allow
these frescoes to speak to us today, drawing us towards the ultimate
goal of human history. The Last Judgement, which you see behind me,
reminds us that human history is movement and ascent, a continuing
tension towards fullness, towards human happiness, towards a horizon
that always transcends the present moment even as the two coincide.
Yet the dramatic scene
portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man's
definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows
himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a
strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice. For
believers, though, the Risen Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
For his faithful followers, he is the Door through which we are brought
to that "face-to-face" vision of God from which limitless, full and
definitive happiness flows.
Thus Michelangelo presents
to our gaze the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of
history, and he invites us to walk the path of life with joy, courage
and hope. The dramatic beauty of Michelangelo's painting, its colours
and forms, becomes a proclamation of hope, an invitation to raise our
gaze to the ultimate horizon. The profound bond between beauty and hope
was the essential content of the evocative Message that Paul VI
addressed to artists at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council on 8 December 1965: "To all of you", he proclaimed solemnly,
"the Church of the Council declares through our lips: if you are friends
of true art, you are our friends!". And he added: "This world in which
we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like
truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which
resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them
to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands....
Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world".
Unfortunately, the present
time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic
sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence
in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of
resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the
risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions
which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its
resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the
marvels of nature.
What is capable of
restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit
to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a
life worthy of its vocation
—
if not beauty?
Dear friends, as artists
you know well that the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic,
not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or
secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience
of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to
a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it
from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.
Indeed, an essential
function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man
a healthy "shock", it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from
resignation and from being content with the humdrum
—
it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it
"reawakens" him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving
him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky's words that I am about to
quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection.
He says this: "Man can live
without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could
no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the
world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here".
The painter Georges Braque
echoes this sentiment: "Art is meant to disturb, science reassures".
Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final
destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us
the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for
beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the
irrational or into mere aestheticism.
Too often, though, the
beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and
blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of
himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him
aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him,
depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty
that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate
others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the
guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation.
Authentic beauty, however,
unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to
love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we
acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that
it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able
to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we
are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion
to engage with it every day.
In this regard, Pope John
Paul II, in his Letter to Artists, quotes the following verse
from a Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid: "Beauty is to enthuse us for work,
and work is to raise us up" (n. 3).
And later he adds: "In so
far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above
the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even
when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling
aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire
for redemption" (n. to). And in conclusion he states: "Beauty is a key
to the mystery and a call to transcendence" (n. 16).
These ideas impel us to
take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the
natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up
and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond
ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can
become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery,
towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the
great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life
its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a
path of profound inner reflection and spirituality.
This close proximity, this
harmony between the journey of faith and the artist's path is attested
by countless artworks that are based upon the personalities, the
stories, the symbols of that immense deposit of "figures"
—
in the broad sense
—
namely the Bible, the Sacred Scriptures. The great biblical narratives,
themes, images and parables have inspired innumerable masterpieces in
every sector of the arts, just as they have spoken to the hearts of
believers in every generation through the works of craftsmanship and
folk art, that are no less eloquent and evocative.
In this regard, one may
speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is
at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith,
of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his
great work entitled The Glory of the Lord
—
a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: "Beauty is
the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the
thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an
untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the
good and their inseparable relation to one another".
He then adds: "Beauty is
the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to
understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably
has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to
its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by
religion". And he concludes: "We can be sure that whoever sneers at her
name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past
—
whether he admits it or not
—
can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love".
The way of beauty leads us,
then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite,
God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: "In
all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty,
there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of
God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the
experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art
of the first order is, by its nature, religious".
Hermann Hesse makes the
point even more graphically: "Art means: revealing God in everything
that exists". Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope
John Paul II restated the Church's desire to renew dialogue and
cooperation with artists: "In order to communicate the message entrusted
to her by Christ, the Church needs art" (n. 12); but he immediately went
on to ask: "Does art need the Church?"
—
thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and
well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian
revelation and in the "great codex" that is the Bible.
Dear artists, as I draw to
a conclusion, I too would like to make a cordial, friendly and
impassioned appeal to you, as did my Predecessor. You are the custodians
of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to
the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities,
to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and
of human engagement.
Be grateful, then, for the
gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great
responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through
beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses
of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and
last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those
who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and
in history towards infinite Beauty!
Faith takes nothing away
from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and
nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to
contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive
goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present
moment and makes it beautiful.
St Augustine, who fell in
love with beauty and sang its praises, wrote these words as he reflected
on man's ultimate destiny, commenting almost ante litteram on the
Judgement scene before your eyes today: "Therefore we are to see a
certain vision, my brethren, that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor
the heart of man conceived: a vision surpassing all earthly beauty,
whether it be that of gold and silver, woods and fields, sea and sky,
sun and moon, or stars and angels. The reason is this: it is the source
of all other beauty" (In 1 Ioannis, 4:5).
My wish for all of you,
dear artists, is that you may carry this vision in your eyes, in your
hands, and in your heart, that it may bring you joy and continue to
inspire your fine works. From my heart I bless you and, like Paul VI, I
greet you with a single word:
arrivederci!
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