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Lay Thoughts Upon Religious Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2024

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The condition of contemporary religious art is by no means satisfactory. Periodically the question is raised in the local Catholic Press and discussed from various angles and points of view; letters pour in defending or attacking a certain aspect of modern ecclesiastical art; for a time the correspondence waxes hot, then gradually fizzes out; and all remains as it was, to the apathetic indifference of the great majority of Catholics and the intense disgust of an artistically-minded minority.

It is the limit of presumption for one who is neither an artist, nor a writer, nor a thinker, to broach a subject which has been so ably and exhaustively discussed by competent authorities, therefore this paper is offered with apologies for what it is—the thoughts of an average lay-woman interested in art upon this acutely controversial matter.

It would seem that besides the too obvious truism that ‘a work of religious art has to be religious,’ some principle must form the basis of religious art. We imagine that M. Maritain (Quelques réfléxions sur l'Art Religieux. Art et Scolastique, p. 216) expresses this essential principle when he says:

‘. . .it (religious art) is primarily intended for the instruction of the people, it is a theology in images, and an art which is illegible, obscure’ ; that is, not understood by the people, ‘is as senseless as a house without a staircase or a cathedral without a portal.’

Mediaeval frescoes and statues were the Bible of the illiterate, and their object was not only decorative but instructive.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1932 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers