Monday, November 23, 2009
Art Pope Benedict XVI to Artists: "Why can't you just make nice, pretty things?"
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 4:10 PM
On Saturday Benedict wasn't apologetic, but instead outlined his global curatorial vision by telling the artists present to be mindful of their "great responsibility to communicate beauty." Benedict went on:
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?
So, I guess what he's saying is that we're still in the Renaissance. Artists: if you want to get into heaven, start painting landscapes with beautiful horizons and pretty clouds (angels and hands-of-god optional). (Artinfo)
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Ben,
If I've understood you correctly, you are using the words "pretty" and "beauty" as conceptually indistinct. I hope you do not think that beautiful works are only placidly pretty. I have no stake in defending or rejecting the pope's personal aesthetic sensibilities...
However, I do not think you have understood the aim of his gesture. He is challenging artists to create works of authentic beauty: art that shocks us, wrenches us, that makes us suffer, pierces us and awaken us. Judging from you final ironic comment, I think you and the pope share a common concern regarding the work of the artist.
Here is an excerpt from the same speech/letter that you cite in your blog post. Pope Benedict writes,
"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; [...] 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."
J Romero
Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics
University of Chicago
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