Art to help future artistsMeetings for Catholic musicians and artists, and Catholic music festivals"She": The Virgin Mary in contemporary art.The audience took place in the Sistine Chapel, which hosted some 200 artists: painters, sculptors, architects, writers, poets, musicians, directors and actors. Among them were writers Javier Cercas (Premio Planeta 2019) and Cristina Morales, artist Gonzalo Borondo and guitarist Amigo Girol.
The Church and art
"Your presence makes me happy, because the Church has always had a relationship with artists that can be described as natural and special. It is a natural friendship, because the artist takes seriously the inexhaustible depth of existence, of life and of the world, even in its contradictions and tragic sides. This depth runs the risk of becoming invisible to the gaze of many specialized knowledges, which respond to immediate needs, but struggle to see life as a multifaceted reality.
The artist reminds us all that the dimension in which we move, even if we are not aware of it, is that of the Spirit. Your art is like a candle that is filled with the Spirit and keeps us moving. The Church's friendship with art is, therefore, something natural. But it is also a special friendship, especially if we think of the many stretches of history we have travelled together, which belong to the patrimony of all, believers or non-believers", the Pope said in his speech.
Francis also pointed out that the relationship that has always existed between the Church and art must also exist in our time.
The creativity of the artist
"The artist is a child -this should not sound like an insult-; it means that he moves first and foremost in the space of invention, of novelty, of creation, of bringing to the world something that has never been seen before. In so doing, it disproves the idea that man is a being for death. It is true that man must accept his mortality, but he is not a being for death, but for life. A great thinker like Hannah Arendt affirms that what is proper to the human being is to live in order to bring novelty to the world. This is the dimension of human fecundity. To bring novelty. Even in natural fecundity, each child is a novelty".
This same natural creativity is also experienced by artists, who contribute their own "originality": "In your works you always introduce yourselves as the unrepeatable beings that we all are, but with the intention of creating even more (...) you bring to light the unpublished, you enrich the world with a new reality (...) The creativity of the artist thus seems to participate in the generative passion of God, that passion with which God created. You are allies of God's dream! You are eyes that look and dream. It is not enough to look, we must also dream (...) We human beings long for a new world that we will not fully see with our own eyes. But we long for it, we seek it, we dream of it. Artists, then, have the capacity to dream new versions of the world".
Between reality and dream
In this sense, quoting Guardini, the Pope pointed out that artists are "prophets". Art goes beyond appearances and false beauty, of "make-up", since it acts "as a critical conscience of society". In this way, it "makes us think", "makes us alert", revealing reality with "its contradictions, in its aspects that it is more comfortable or convenient to keep hidden". Art, the Pope commented, has the ability to confront us with things that "sometimes disturb us, criticizing the false myths of today, the new idols, the trivial discourses, the traps of consumerism, the wiles of power". Therefore, artists have "the ability to go beyond, in tension between reality and dream".
Further on, the Pope established a relationship between art and faith: "One of the things that brings art closer to faith is that it disturbs a little. Art and faith cannot leave things as they are: they change them, transform them, move them. Art can never be an anesthetic; it gives peace, but it does not put consciences to sleep, it keeps them awake. Often you, the artists, also try to plumb the depths of the human condition, the abysses, the dark parts. We are not only light, and you remind us of that; but it is necessary to throw the light of hope in the darkness of the human being, of individualism and indifference".
Art and beauty
In this regard, the Pope asked artists to help us "glimpse the light, the beauty that saves."
Because, as Francis pointed out, "art has always been linked to the experience of beauty. Simone Weil wrote: 'Beauty seduces the flesh to obtain permission to pass into the soul' (L'ombra e la grazia, Bologna 2021, 193). Art touches the senses to animate the spirit and does so through beauty, which is the reflection of things when they are good, right, true. It is the sign that something has fullness: it is then that we spontaneously say: 'How beautiful!'. Beauty makes us feel that life is oriented towards fullness. In true beauty we begin to feel God's longing. Many expect art to return more to beauty".
The Pope recalled that it is true that there is a kind of beauty that is false and artificial. "True beauty, in fact, is a reflection of harmony. In theology - it is interesting - theologians describe the fatherhood of God, the sonship of Jesus Christ, but when it comes to describing the Holy Spirit: the Spirit is harmony. Ipse harmonia est. It is the Spirit who makes the harmony.
The harmony of the Spirit
Francisco went on to say that the artist also possesses something of that Spirit to create harmony. "Harmony is when there are several parts, different from each other, but which compose a unity, different from each of the parts and different from the sum of the parts. It is something difficult, that only the Spirit can make possible: that differences do not become conflicts, but diversities that integrate; and at the same time that unity is not uniformity, but that it welcomes the multiple. Harmony works these miracles, as at Pentecost".
This harmony is sometimes born, paradoxically, from a commotion: "It always strikes me to think of the Holy Spirit as the one who allows the greatest disturbances to take place - let us think of the morning of Pentecost - and then makes harmony. Which is not equilibrium, no, to make harmony you first need imbalance; harmony is a different thing from equilibrium." This message, the Pope continued, is very timely, since he pointed out that we live in a "globalizing globalization", which is the "danger of our time". The Pope warned that this standardization "can operate under a false pretense of unity".
The artists' mission
In this context, the role of the art is fundamental: "You artists can help us to make room for the Spirit. When we see the work of the Spirit, which is to create harmony out of differences, not to annihilate them, not to make them uniform, but to harmonize them, then we understand what beauty is."
The Pope encouraged the artists to continue to push their creativity and to "walk this path". Before taking his leave, the Holy Father asked them not to forget the poor, who also need art and beauty, even more than others, due to very hard circumstances in their lives. "They usually have no voice to make themselves heard. You can be the interpreters of their silent cry." He has also expressed his desire that his works of art "give glory to God, who is Father of all, and whom all seek, even through art."
