How to Bring Beauty Back into the Church

This post is inspired by a lecture recently given by Barbara Nicolosi titled "Why Hollywood Matters" in which she discusses the problems in modern Christian and Catholic art, especially film, and ways to counteract these problems. To put it plainly, if one takes a look at the art, storytelling, and music that is in use in most Christian and Catholic churches and subcultures today, in the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, "We have to conclude that the people of God are afflicted with the cult of the banal." (quote is taken from P. Benedict XVI's The Spirit of the Liturgy)

The Catholic Church used to be known as one of the chief patrons of the arts, leading to the creation of some of the most beautiful art and music that the world has ever seen. Nowadays, Catholic/Christian art is something pagans sneer at, and with good reason. Say what you want about Hollywood and the atheists and the pagans, but they appreciate the beautiful and they know it when they see it (and when they don't). Why else is it that beautiful stories like Brideshead Revisited, Anna Karenina, The Lord of the Rings, and Crime and Punishment are just as admired by pagans as they are by Catholics? Why does the majesty of St. Peter's Basilica continue to take people's breath away, regardless of their nationality or belief?

Maybe Catholics have the message right (hopefully), but if we take a look at the craftsmanship of the majority of recent Catholic/Christian stories, films, music, and art, and compare it to that being produced by the pagans, it's little wonder that people don't take us seriously when it comes to art and storytelling.

So how do we fix this? According to Barbara Nicolosi, here are a few ways to bring beauty back into our lives and into our churches:

1. Learn about art -- learn how to do it. Learn how to evaluate it.

Take a class in sculpting or painting. Go to a poetry workshop. Read books on creative writing. Read the Church documents on sacred music and sacred art, e.g. Pope Pius XII's encyclical Musica Sacra or St. John Paul II's Letter to Artists. Take lessons in piano or voice. Read about art history or music history. If you find a composer, writer, or artist that you especially like, find out more about that person! You don't have to become a pro -- unless you discover you do have a talent for something, and with that talent may come responsibility to hone that talent and become an artist!

2. Say "No" to banal art and music. No more lame, cheap, ugly, embarrassing art. 

Entrance to the Village of Vetheuil in Winter, Monet. 1879

Night Before Christmas, Thomas Kinkade

This comes from learning how to evaluate art: learning how to distinguish between beauty and cheapness, politics, or propaganda : learning what makes Monet better than Thomas Kinkade, why Maurice Duruflé's Ubi Caritas is more compelling than David Haas' You Are Mine; why Michelangelo's Pietà is more beautiful than the political-agenda-inspired multiracial/multicultural/unisex Our Lady of the Angels' statue outside the Los Angeles Cathedral. Beauty doesn't have an agenda. It is just there; it tells the truth without trying. It isn't forced down your throat. It awakens but it does not violate.

 Saying "No" to bad art also means acknowledging that just because something is labelled Catholic/Christian or is made by Catholics/Christians does not necessarily make it good. There are many books, movies, and songs written by Christian artists that circulate with ease in our little subcultures but are an embarrassment in public/pagan circles. We are not going to gain converts by circulating poorly crafted, cheap novels and films in our own churches and friend groups -- this is just talking amongst ourselves. We win converts by going out into the world and infusing our art with our faith, not as propaganda but as truth and beauty that is meant for all people.


3. Figure out whether you are an artist or a praiser, and then do that with commitment.

Being an artist requires two things: talent and hard work. Not everyone has a talent for music or for painting, and that's okay. Just because someone doesn't have a talent for art, it doesn't mean he/she can't appreciate it, or do it for his/her own enjoyment. Does that mean that we should let them decorate our churches or make music for our liturgies? No. Sacred art is not for everyone to make. It requires a lot of talent, and it requires a lot more hard work and dedication.
But the good news is that artists need support just as much as the rest of the world needs artists. Artists need us to employ them, to challenge them, and to give them commissions. Not only do they need help financially, but they also need moral/spiritual support, someone to appreciate their efforts -- their hours of isolation, painting or practicing or both; their obsession with perfecting their art, often resulting in being emotionally and/or pyschologically unstable. They need us to remind them what it means to be human beings that need to eat, sleep, have friends, take care of themselves physically and emotionally, and get outside of their isolation just as much as we need them to remind us what beauty is. Why do we (humanity) need artists? To misquote John Keating from The Dead Poets' Society, "We make art because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering -- these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, movies, stories, music, art, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
So if you are an artist, make great art. Work hard at honing your craft. Practice, practice, practice, read, study, eat, sleep, make friends, have a life outside of your art, and so forth.
If you are a praiser, learn about art and what distinguishes good art from bad art (not everything is subjective), and then find the good artists and commission them to make something beautiful. Artists need to be embraced by a loving Church that supports them through their issues of borderline addiction, insanity, depression, to name a few. Find these people and support them!

Barbara Nicolosi: Evangelization through Art

Barbara Nicolosi, Founder of Act One, Inc.
and executive director of the Galileo Studio
at Azusa Pacific University.

Barbara Nicolosi is the founder of the Christian writer and executive training program Act One, Inc. and the executive director of the Galileo Studio at Azusa Pacific University. She recently came to Franciscan University where she gave a lecture on beauty and story telling. The lecture has been posted on the Franciscan University youtube Channel and is here for your perusal. She makes many excellent points regarding the need for beautiful art for the purpose of evangelization. I hope you will watch the whole thing at some point as your daily dose of edification on beauty. But just to give you a hint of what she is talking about, I am posting a snippet of the opening of her lecture for your perusal. 

“I want to start here. Once the church was the patron of the arts. I use this expression with my students at Los Angeles film studies center. I just threw off the words “patron of the arts” and one girl in the front row raised her hand and she said, “Who is that?” 

And I said, “Well what do you mean?” 

“Who is the patron of the arts?”

“Well, who do you think it is?”

And they kind of shrugged and one of the kids said, “The Bravo Channel?”

Somebody else said, “The Sun Dance Institute?”

That’s pathetic. Pathetic that we could no longer make the claim that the Church is the patron of the arts with any credibility at all. And even if we say it to ourselves in a kind of smug way, the world would laugh at us. The Catholic Church is no longer the place where people go to see work like this: the most brilliant, beautiful art that is being produced. The question is was it a good thing or a bad thing that the Church was the patron of the arts? Let me cut right to the quick: Does anybody want to say that it was a bad thing? Okay. Where are we today? Pope Benedict says the two greatest signs that the Church is true are the lives of the saints and the works of art that the people of God produce. Where are we today? How did we get here? ... This is the first page of Handel’s Messiah and this is “Our God is an Awesome God,” all evidence to the contrary."   

I think she makes some great points within her introduction, especially the point that the Church used to be the patron of the arts and it is no longer recognized as such. I am hoping and praying that I will live long enough to see the Church reclaim this status within the next hundred years. 

As you watch the video, she shows a series of slides comparing the art of yesteryear and the art of today. The comparisons are rather striking, to put it mildly. Here are some examples:

vs. 

St. Eustache Church, Paris, France

vs. 

Los Angeles Cathedral, California

Agnus Dei from the Missa Papae Marcelli by Palestrina

vs. 

Suzanne Toolan's "I am the Bread of Life"

Nicolosi continues:

"But just look at the difference. One of the measures of beauty is complexity, that something can be beautiful and simple, but something can be more beautiful if it becomes more complex and as it grows in complexity it becomes more beautiful. So just look at the complexity. And there’s nothing wrong with simplicity. It’s perfect for the Barney Show. 

The truth is that the art made by Christians today is not only not beautiful but tends to be among the ugliest art that mankind is producing." 

She proceeds to turn to her specific field, the field of writing and story telling.

Depiction of Dante's The Divine Comedy

"What is our legacy as Catholic story tellers? The Divine Comedy, Crime and Punishment, Brideshead Revisited, The Lord of the Rings, The Man Who Was Thursday, Flannery O’Conner, Till We have Faces, etc. ... These are the kinds of stories that Catholics or Christians put out there in the literary sphere in the past. This is our legacy. Where are we today in stories? These have lasted. And in 500 years people will still be reading them." 

Nicolosi then points out several characteristics of the great books she has just listed:

1. Great books were generally written for the mainstream; they speak to everyone (on different levels). 

2. Great books have high craft in writing and storytelling. They actually show talent.

3. Great books deal with high stakes evil and sin; they are generally upsetting (i.e. Prophetic). ... Great art should strike you as if you have been awakened -- not violated, but awakened. And if you encounter art and it doesn't shake you up, then it is bad art. 

4. Great books would never be confused with propaganda.

5. Great books are not embarrassing when you are with pagans.

6. Great books are profound but often not pious.

She points out that while films like "Facing the Giants," "Courageous," and "October Baby," are well and good, they speak only to a specific audience: a Christian one. These films are not likely to reach to a broader audience which is more in need of evangelization than the Christian one. These films are catechetical, not evangelical. There is a need for great art and great stories that speak to atheists as well as Catholics. This can happen in music, art, architecture, literature, and film. There is good Catholic music out there, such as Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, which moves an atheist just as much if not more so than a Christian. The Sistine Chapel is awe inspiring for both the casual tourist as well as the pious pilgrim, though in different ways. These are examples of good Catholic art reaching to a broader audience, that display the characteristics Nicolosi mentions above though in a different genre of art.

Nicolosi later qualifies what she has just said by saying that sub-par art and media may be subsidized in beginning efforts and according to cultural norms.  Beginner efforts, such as young children attempting to draw the Nativity, are important and necessary and ought to be encouraged. However, she further qualifies this statement: 

"But let me put to you another case: Supposing I, a forty-five year old woman, brought my mother a picture that looked like it had been drawn by a four year old, my mother would say, 'What the heck is this?' and not put it on the refrigerator. And I think that is the situation in the Church today. If I really believed that what we are doing to ourselves in the arts in the Church was the best we could do - hey. But I don't."

I hope that you will hear Nicolosi's case, as I think she has an important message for Catholic artists of all kinds, whether you are an aspiring writer, artist, filmmaker, or musician. Peace and blessings!

Barbara Nicolosi @ FUS: "Beyond Just Beautiful Movies"