Does the Church Accept or Reject Modern Art?

In response to the many inquiries regarding my previous article on modern art, I have written this article to clarify what the Church officially teaches in regards to “modern art.” While the Church does not condemn specific art movements as heretical, she does give sound guidelines that provide a person with the tools necessary to make individual judgements.

[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Vincent van Gogh, Pietà[/featured-image]

Before we get started, let’s first pause and consider what is “art” and what is an “artist.”To answer this question, let us turn to St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Artists:”

The opening page of the Bible presents God as a kind of exemplar of everyone who produces a work: the human craftsman mirrors the image of God as Creator. This relationship is particularly clear in the Polish language because of the lexical link between the words stwórca (creator) and twórca (craftsman). What is the difference between “creator” and “craftsman”? The one who creates bestows being itself, he brings something out of nothing—ex nihilo sui et subiecti, as the Latin puts it—and this, in the strict sense, is a mode of operation which belongs to the Almighty alone. The craftsman, by contrast, uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaning.

…With loving regard, the divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power. Obviously, this is a sharing which leaves intact the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature, as Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa made clear: “Creative art, which it is the soul’s good fortune to entertain, is not to be identified with that essential art which is God himself, but is only a communication of it and a share in it”. (Letter to Artists, 1, emphasis added)

All artists then are “images” of God the Divine Artist and the art they create mirrors the creative act of God. J.R.R. Tolkien would declare that artists are “sub-creators,” leaving the true act of creation to God Himself. It is in this context that we see all art is meant to reflect the divine in some way, whether deliberate or not and all artists are to see themselves as “craftsmen” instead of “creators.”

Who Decides What is Beautiful?

The Church, throughout the centuries, has been a patron of the arts and has commissioned some of the most beautiful artistic works of all time. With a wealth of knowledge and divine inspiration behind her, the Church stands as a judge of what is beautiful, primarily in reference to works of art used in Divine Worship, but by extension the Church offers her voice to the world in judgements of secular art. The principles she offers are useful in both realms as art impacts the development of the human person and what is unsuitable for the House of God is likely unsuitable for anyone’s house.

In the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium, we see this fundamental right to judge art:

122. Holy Mother Church has therefore always been the friend of the fine arts and has ever sought their noble help, with the special aim that all things set apart for use in divine worship should be truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful, signs and symbols of the supernatural world, and for this purpose she has trained artists. In fact, the Church has, with good reason, always reserved to herself the right to pass judgment upon the arts, deciding which of the works of artists are in accordance with faith, piety, and cherished traditional laws, and thereby fitted for sacred use. (emphasis added)

What Does the Church Say About “Modern Art?”

From the very beginnings of the modern art movement, the Church has been skeptical of it, but has accepted that art which is connected to truth, beauty and goodness.

Pope Pius XII directly referenced “modern art” in his encyclical Mediator Dei in 1947. He wrote:

Recent works of art which lend themselves to the materials of modern composition, should not be universally despised and rejected through prejudice. Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive “symbolism,” and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist. Thus modern art will be able to join its voice to that wonderful choir of praise to which have contributed, in honor of the Catholic faith, the greatest artists throughout the centuries. Nevertheless, in keeping with the duty of Our office, We cannot help deploring and condemning those works of art, recently introduced by some, which seem to be a distortion and perversion of true art and which at times openly shock Christian taste, modesty and devotion, and shamefully offend the true religious sense. These must be entirely excluded and banished from our churches, like “anything else that is not in keeping with the sanctity of the place.” (195, emphasis added)

The Church reaffirmed Pius XII when writing Sacrosanctum Concilium,

Wherefore it has pleased the Fathers to issue the following decrees on these matters.

124. Let bishops carefully remove from the house of God and from other sacred places those works of artists which are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety, and which offend true religious sense either by depraved forms or by lack of artistic worth, mediocrity and pretense.

Pope Paul VI also commented on this same topic in his Address to Artists,

May these hands be pure and disinterested. Remember that you are the guardians of beauty in the world. May that suffice to free you from tastes which are passing and have no genuine value, to free you from the search after strange or unbecoming expressions. (emphasis added)

Pope Benedict XVI renewed this appeal to artists in his own Address to Artists,

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. (emphasis added)

Another useful set of principles can be found in Pope Pius X’s encyclical against Modernism. He outlines what is harmful about modernism and explains why we must reject such doctrine. As many modern art movements found their genesis in the philosophy of modernism, it is important to look to the roots of each movement and reject those art movements that are contrary to the Faith.

In summary, “modern art” has been given “free scope” in the Catholic Church, insofar as it remains grafted on to truth, beauty and goodness. The Church, in her wisdom, outlines these guidelines:

[Maintains a] Correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive “symbolism” (Pope Pius XII)
[Should not be a] distortion and perversion of true art and which at times openly shock Christian taste, modesty and devotion, and shamefully offend the true religious sense (Pope Pius XII)
[Should not be] works of artists which are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety, and which offend true religious sense either by depraved forms or by lack of artistic worth, mediocrity and pretense. (Sacrosanctum Concilium)
[Should not be] from tastes which are passing and have no genuine value, to free you from the search after strange or unbecoming expressions. (Pope Paul VI)
[Should not be] 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. (Pope Benedict XVI)
Should not abide by “modernist” doctrines (Pope Pius X)
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. (Pope Benedict XVI)

In the end, we need art and artists, as Pope Paul VI proclaimed at the end of the Second Vatican Council,

This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration. And all of this is through your hands.

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