THE FOUNDATION FOR SACRED ARTS presents

A New Way of Seeing: understanding Christian art April 25th, 2009 10:00am – 3:00 pm at Saint John Cantius Parish 825 North Carpenter Street, Chicago, Illinois 60642 ________________________________

Archbishop Burke, back in town for business and a quick holiday visit to family, opened the conference with great depth and simplicity by reminding us that we are all in statu viae. “Every pilgrimage is a return to the Source of beauty, truth and all love,” said the genius of canon law, speaking more like a mystic than an ecclesial supreme judge. He set the tone for the day, reminding us that–as I quoted a friend in a previous entry–the fine arts were born on the altar, and the renewal of sacred liturgy, spaces and ultimately, culture, will end and begin in Christ, our Eucharistic Love.

Denis McNamara is the Jonah Goldberg of Church Architecture. He’s every bit the architectural historian and bow tie sporting professor, but wields a wryness and common sensical dialect all-too-uncommon in churchy intellectuals. This makes him a great teacher and made him a fabulous key note speaker for the Art & Architecture Conference, and certainly good for a couple of laughs. The motivation in his grad studies wasn’t an ethereal encounter with an antique edifice, but simply people asking him at parties, “Why is my church so ugly?”

People have known intuitively for years that en vogue architecture–especially within ecclesial settings–wasn’t….well, quite right. In fact, they sensed it was just plain wrong. What has happened, McNamara says, is that architecture, which has a language, and can be read, has been misread for years, and it seems in contemporary architecture, that language has been forgotten altogether. In its place has emerged a sort of polished neanderthal grunting. In going “forward” with no reference to universal principals, we’ve regressed. Modern architecture is egotistical and centripetal, while classical architecture in a church is meant to be centrifugal, but not just pointing out, but pointing Up, an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

In short, we always go forward (Philippians 3:13), but we build upon transcendent truths, including architectural truths, giving our vote to the “democracy of the dead,” the wisdom of the past in all humility. I met an architect in the not too recent past, a proud creator of what Duncan Stroik calls “prayer barns,” and as he explained his multi-purpose church, he *actually* compared his innovation in design to that of Raphael and Michelangelo. While we are all artworks of the Creator in progress, I thought it tremendously  ironic that said architect should even utter so vain a thought. It is a privilege to build a temple for the Lord, and a calling, and any artist should give thanks for their gifts and avocation, laying their natural and supernatural gifts at the foot of the altar and before the wisdom of the masters in order to bear fruit. It’s only when we do this, whether literally or figuratively, that true beauty comes forth. Anything less is the mark of the unoriginality of sin, and an icon of evil.

There was really so much packed into his talk to fit in into one entry, and the other speakers were quite good as well. Stay tuned for a full article.

Finally, nothing can speak so well as participating in the Liturgy and praying a walk through the gorgeous shrine as well. You must go, and if you cannot go, visit the Shrine web site.

Happy Christmas, and all the lovely feasts of Christmastide!

JS

The parish of Our Savior Catholic Center at the University of Southern California is soliciting interest and artists’ portfolios for the numerous works of sacred art to be commissioned for the new church and student center. Interested artists are invited to visit the project website for information regarding the architectural project, the artistic vision, the scope of works to be commissioned, and the submission requirements.

Being as jaded about  California Liturgical Art as I am (I lived there), I hesitated before posting this. (See World’s Ugliest Buildings.) However, this following rendering was encouraging:

Slightly less encouraging is the removal of the tabernacle from the altar, and placing it in the apse. The apse is better than, say, a super hidden side chapel, but the tabernacle should be where all good Christians are: front and center and ready to take up one’s cross.

They are clearly not looking for anything ultra post-modern, but I am confused about this statement:

We are not looking for any dry, academic mimicry of historical styles. On the one hand, we are looking to renew the narrative figurative tradition, respectful of the Christian iconographic tradition of symbols and conventions which has expressed the Catholic faith across the millennia.

I wonder what (or who) they would consider “dry, academic mimicry of historical styles.” Mimicry is a strong word, and I wonder they would consider an architectural ventriloquist? Very confusing. What do you think?

The Schedule is as follows:

8:00        Registration

8:45        Archbishop Raymond L. Burke Welcome to the Shrine

9:00        Keynote Speaker: Denis McNamara Shadow, Image, and Reality: Church Architecture as Image of Heaven

10:30     Christopher Carstens: An overview of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’Guidelines on restoration and building of

sacred places

11:00     Holy Mass Main Celebrant: Archbishop Raymond L. Burke.

12:00     Lunch

1:00        Michael Swinghamer: Architectural Challenges in the Buildingf the Shrine Church

1:30        John Canning Bringing Ecclesiastical Beauty to the Shrine Church

2:00        Anthony Visco: The Art of Devotion

2:45        Walking tour of the Shrine Church Led by Anthony Visco, join artists and

architects for a  first hand look at the Shrine Church

4:00        Adjourn Program

What are your thoughts? I certainly agree the the Liverpool Cathedral (sadly, the Catholic one) looks like a spaceship, and that the Boston City Hall does look like a half abandoned and beat up hornet’s nest. If you’ve been to St. Paul’s in Madison, what might the caption of a portrait of the interior read?

Tired of wondering if you’re in the church cafeteria or the new worship space? Catholics, are you tired of searching for the sanctuary lamp? Do you wonder who (or what) is shining through that stained glass? Have you ever entered a church and thought it was a little too much like a liturgical Rorschach test?

Yes, faithful everywhere you can say it, that phrase which is anathema to (fill in your euphemism for post-Enlightenment unfaithfuls here) liturgical designers and artists everywhere: “THAT is ugly.” Yes, there’s such a thing as good art and bad art, good architecture and bad architecture, a beautiful church and a downright shameful one. Bad liturgical design, in fact, does make God weep.

For good and strikingly witty architectural commentary see the the Holy Whapping Crew. For a head start on what is good architecture, look here or here. I won’t dare link to that-which-makes-Him-weep. I don’t have the internet space or computer capability to hold it. Meanwhile, if you have a picture of a church/ chapel that makes God give a holy high five (high fifteen?), send em’ my way.