For most of my life, I have been exposed to modern art beginning in the 1960’s and in elementary school. I don’t like modern art but “experts” say it is art and thus art and artist’s works should not be destroyed unless the act of destroying art is considered art.
I hate that the 1960’s and ‘70’s iconoclasm of great altars and art took place in our Catholic Churches and what replaced it was kitsch or stuff out of liturgical catalogues and mass marketed.
One or two parishes in my diocese have removed stained glass windows, created by artists and paid for by patrons, as well as modern liturgical furnishings, again considered actual art, commissioned by the parish and paid for by patrons, in order to use something else that wasn’t considered modern. I think that is unfortunate and there should be restrictions placed upon pastors or parishes when it comes to the removal of art. Is it art? Does it have historical merit? Is offense given to patrons who sponsored and paid for the art?
The Knights of Columbus in Washington, DC are going to place curtains over Fr. Rupnik’s art and may well plaster over the art eventually. While I don’t like how Fr. Rupnik depicts people (saints or the Lord) in his art, it isn’t horrible. These are mosaics and while Fr. Rupnik designed the look, I presume, others put the mosaics together into the art these are. The colors are brilliant. The main thing I don’t like is the shape of faces, the darkened eyes; the darkened eyes more unbecoming than the long faces. But, it’s art.
So I am going out on a limb and will now go on record as saying Fr. Rupnik’s art should not be removed from Catholics churches and shrines, but certainly, no one should commission new artwork from him in the Catholic Church.
We know clergy, bishops, priests and deacons, have sexually abused minors and vulnerable adults. Do we put curtains over all clergy because victims of some priests are offended by seeing even innocent priests? Art is innocent even though the artist might be guilty.
As it concerns Catholic clergy, perhaps to appease victims of certain priests, all clergy should face ad orientem during liturgies. That might be a good compromise.
HERE IS THE PILLAR’S ARTICLE ON THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS PLAN TO REMOVE RUPNICK’S ART:
6 comments:
Have you actually read what Rupnik did to the women in his care? And then have no problem with those blank black dead deer eyed mosaics reflecting the predatory emptiness of that man's soul? Or thought of all the sexually abused people who would go to the church for solace and find THAT? For someone who obsesses over candle count as heightening "spirituality" of a mass, I find you laissez faire attitude about that monster's art to be impenetrable.
And the sight of every priest harms victims of grotesque sexual of the specific priest who abused them. So cancel them all as well as the words and actions of the liturgy they used.
The "art" is bad art, if it is even art at all. It also is not iconography in the Eastern Christian tradition, as Hilary White argues; at best, it bowdlerizes/bastardizes that tradition.
The "art" is a fruit of Rupnik's assaults on and abuse of nuns. Among other reasons for this, he sexually assaulted religious sisters literally on scaffolding where such mosaics were being constructed. His artistic skills were honed on the forms of women he abused. Fr. AJM, some of the ones you mention as the "others [who] put the mosaics together" were being groped and groomed by Rupnik as they did so.
"Do we put curtains over all clergy because victims of some priests are offended by seeing even innocent priests?" No, but no one is proposing that we cover up mosaics by Roberto Ferruzzi because of Rupnik.
The Council teaches that bishops are to "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." Rupnik's works merit removal under this standard for either of the reasons stated above, and doubly so because both are present in this case. To have the fruits of rape and sexual assault sitting in the Church's sacred spaces meant to be aids to prayer is galling and nauseating. To compare the destruction of the 1960s and 1970s to removing rape-art from churches simply doesn't hold up.
I have never met a single layperson aware of Rupnik's crimes who thinks his art should be retained. Not one. The fact that there are so many priests and Vatican officials who think to the contrary both shows the failure of synodality and baffles me--does the instinct for institutional blindness and self-preservation really go that far? If so, how ironic that such attempts at self-preservation just add to the damage.
Nick
To demonstrate some of my points, a Pillar commenter stated (emphases added):
"Though I wish to rejoice in this great news, it still pains me. It feels too much like an allegory for what happens to those who’ve been hurt by the Church. “Lets just cover it up, so youre not reminded of the pain” like “we’ll send him away so you wont see him and be reminded of the pain”. Like no. Thats not truth. Thats not how family *should* treat eachother.
If my brother sexually assaulted me WHILE making a painting, I wouldn’t rejoice if my father was like “dont worry sweetie, I’ll cover it up.” Like seeing a covered painting at the dinner table wouldn’t still hurt. No! I’d want him to smash it to pieces! In full fury! Mercy shown to people yes, BUT A PAINTING?!
And thanks be to God they are ugly!! So there should be no hesitation in its destruction. It should’ve been swift. It should’ve been easy."
Honestly, Rupnik’s “artwork” looks like something a second-grader would come up with (no offense to second-grade artists 🙂). I wish they would take them all down regardless of his se*ual sins. They’re just ugly.
One commentator opines that Rupnik's art imitates children's scribbles, that it is only vaguely representational, and that those who think otherwise don't have "normal minds."
Now, it's one thing not to be a fan. But to suggest that those who do not share your opinion are abnormal is rather a bizarre stretch.
I don't share the commentator's views. Art can be - and is - entirely representational in a variety of ways. John Singer Sargent's "White Ox at Siena" is representational, though in a less than hyper-realistic way. The same is true of Wassily Kandinsky's "The Blue Rider." Monet's sublime "Houses of Parliament" series are dissimilar to the paintings of Caravaggio, but representational nonetheless.
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