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In this five-week course we will be reflecting upon the motives, influences, and attitudes that have emerged and developed through encountering the sacred through the beauty of the arts.
How do images make their meaning known? What role does beauty play in theological aesthetics? How do you express spiritual experience on a canvas? How can paint ever depict the state of someone’s soul? These are just some of the questions that we will grapple with during this introductory course on encountering the sacred through the beauty of the arts.
Inevitably a framework for the interpretation of Christian art draws upon art history for its context, namely visual rhetoric, the cultural historical method of ‘seeing things their way’ and its counterpart in art history ‘the period eye’. Yet it cannot be restricted to its methods and content because of the consistency in which it fails to notice the theological significance of images. Therefore, a framework for the interpretation of Christian art necessarily includes a theological aesthetic thread.
Inspired by Hans Urs von Balthasar’s project of returning beauty to the main artery of Christian thought, we will consider how people of faith encounter the sacred through the beauty of the arts utilising a theological aesthetic framework, namely, what I call the site of its beholding - the moment when the viewer encounters a sacred image in the light of faith.
The meaning and purpose of sacred images has long been of interest to both the faithful and the art world alike. To aid your contemplation of encountering the sacred through the beauty of the arts, you will receive a recorded podcast, which you will be able to listen to at a time of your choosing. Alongside that, each week, there is also assigned readings, images and questions to guide your reflection and research.
There will be a brief introduction at the beginning of each session. Then we will contemplate works of art that are depict the given subject matter. After which there will be time to discuss what we have seen and heard.
Week 1 – Reinstating beauty into the main artery of Christian theological thought
Week 2 –Contemplating the Way of Beauty through the arts
Week 3 – The Annunciation: Mary as Model of Faith and Holiness
Week 4 – The Assumption: as depicted in Early Renaissance art
Week 5 – The Nativity of the Lord: from Bruegel to Bansky
Historically speaking, from as early as the second century, the arts have been an invaluable, if somewhat under used theological aesthetic resource for the praise of God and the edification and sanctification of the faithful. Along side this, sacred and devotional works of art have played a significant role in the development of the History of Art in the Western world.
However, the historical relationship between the ecclesial world and the arts has been at times somewhat turbulent. Just call to mind the iconoclastic episodes in the 8th, 9th and 16th centuries. All of which added to the ‘on — off’ relationship between the arts and the Church.
Moreover, since the Enlightenment the estrangement between the arts and the Church intensified and continued into the modern era. The Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar argued that the major reason for this was the abandonment of a metaphysical understanding of beauty.
In the first session of the course, we will consider why and how Hans Urs von Balthasar sought to reinstate beauty into main artery of Christian theological thought. To aid our contemplation
we will consider various depictions of the Flammarion Engraving: A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the Heavens and the Earth meet.
Questions for reflection
1. How can beauty lead us to an encounter with the divine?
2. Is it an absurdity to seek the place or the moment when the finite meets the infinite?
3. Where else may a pilgrim encounter a sacred space where heaven and earth join?
Please listen to the podcast and look at the readings below if you have time.
Readings
Hans Urs von Balthasar (1982) The Glory of the Lord, A Theological Aesthetics (Volume 1: Seeing the Form), T& T Clark Limited, pp. 34-45.
John O’Donnell SJ (1992) Hans Urs von Balthasar, Geoffrey Chapman, pp. 18-34.
Further readings
Aidan Nichols (2011) A Key to Understanding Balthasar, Baker Academic.
Karen Kilby (2012)Balthasar: A (Very) Critical Introduction, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Travis LeCouter (2021) Balthasar and Prayer, T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology.
Images: The Flammarion Engraving: Variations on a Theme
The Flammarion Engraving (c. unknown) by an unknown artist
The Flammarion Engraving(c.1970) by Roberta Weir
Spiritual Pilgrim (c.1978)By David Oxtoby
The Flammarion Engraving(c. 2000) by an unknown artist
The Flammarion Engraving(c. 2003) by Rachel Ann Davies
How do images make their meaning known? Alongside Scripture, Tradition, experience, reason and creation the Catholic Church state that beauty isa key source for coming to theological conclusions. That is, the beauty of the arts helps us to explore the great mysteries of human experience in relation to the divine.
In this session participant will discover how the beauty of the arts has the potential to express and echo the ineffable aspects of the mystery of God. Utilising the site of its beholding - the moment when the viewer aesthetically encounters the image in the light of faith as a framework, we will consider several images which express the humanity and the divinity of the beauty of Christ, model and prototype of all Christian holiness.
Reading
The Via Pulchritudinis, Privileged Pathway for Evangelisation and Dialogue, 2006, available at:
Images
The Mond Crucifixion(c.1502-3) by Raphael
The Isenheim Altarpiece of the Crucifixion(c.1515) by Matthias Grünewald
Nolime Tangere (c.1514) by Titian
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c.1602) by Caravaggio (Ecclesial version)
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c.1603) by Caravaggio (Secular version)
Questions for reflection
1. How does beauty transcend the aesthetic experience?
2. If beauty provokes emotions in the beholder is that not just a sentimental encounter characteristic of a kitsch culture?
3. Do you think beauty has the potential to play a key role in evangelising contemporary culture?
How do you express spiritual experience on a canvas? How can paint ever depict the state of someone’s soul? These are questions which artists and theologians have grappled with for centuries, but particularly in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period.
In the early Renaissance period, the Gospel accounts were supplemented with stories from sacred tradition. These were great sources of inspiration and creativity for both preacher and artist alike. One such preacher was Fra Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce whose account of the Annunciation in Sermones delaudibus sanctorum (Naples, 1489) reflects on the Mystery of the Angelic Colloquy as told in the Gospel of Luke.
This session will explore the five successive moments that Fra Roberto attributed to the Virgin Mary during the Annunciation. Seven centuries on, do these assertions still makes sense to us today?
Readings
Gospel of Luke 1: 26-38
Michael Baxandall (2ndEdition 1988) Painting & Experience in the Fifteenth-century Italy, Oxford Paperbacks, pp. 49-57.
JD Parry (1995) Narration and Quattrocento Annunciation Painting, available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1342&context=rmmra
Images
The Annunciation (c.1489) by Sandro Botticelli. Location: Uffizi Museum, Florence.
The Annunciation (c.1445-50) by Fra Carnevale. Location: The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
The Annunciation (c.1437-39) by Filippo Lippi. Location: Frick Collection, New York.
The Annunciation (c. 1440-41) by Fra Angelico. Location: Museum of San Marco, Florence.
Virgin Annunciate (c. 1450-55) by Fra Angelico. Location: Institute of Arts, Detroit.
Questions for reflection
1. What do you make of Fra Roberto’s emphasis on the five moments that took place within the Mystery of the Angelic Colloquy according to gospel of Luke?
2. Do you think that Mary’s five progressive responses in the Annunciation are helpful in aiding our own response to God’s call?
3. Do you think that a sequential reading of the moments within the Annunciation fragments the narrative as a whole? What stops the sequential form of the narrative from being segmented?
4. Do you think that reading the Annunciation in paint intensifies our understanding of St Luke’s Gospel narrative on the Annunciation?
In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued an apostolic constitution on defining the dogma of the Assumption. However, theologians, the faithful and the art world have long held to the belief in the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
In this session, we contemplate the legendary journey of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven as depicted in early Renaissance art.
Readings
Pope Pius XII (November 1st, 1950)Apostolic Constitution of Defining the Dogma of the Assumption, Munificentissimus Deus, available at:
Questions for reflection
1. Do you believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary died before being assumed body and soul into heaven?
Images
The Annunciation of the Virgin’s Death (c.1308-11) by Duccio di Buoninsegna
The Virgin’s Farewell to the Apostles (c.1308–1311) by Duccio di Buoninsegna
The Dormition/Death of The Virgin Mary (c.1431-1435) by Fra Angelico
The Funeral of the Virgin (c.1308–1311) by Duccio di Buoninsegna
Assumption of the Virgin with St. Thomas (Madonna della Cintola) (c.1475-1500) by the Master of the Lathrop Tondo
The Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico (c.1440 – 144)San Marco, Florence
The joy that Christmas brings, coupled with the anxieties of the day, have always been of interest to artists. Down through the ages, creatives in word, song and image have grappled with and attempted to interpret what the Christmas message is and what it means for their generation in their times.
In the final session of our course, the relationship between the arts, religion and politics. To do that we will explore the some of the hidden messages within Nativity art.
Images
The Census at Bethlehem (c.1566) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Nuit de Noel (Christmas Eve) (c.1952) lithograph byHenri Matisse
Joseph and Mary Can’t Make it to Bethlehem(c.2005) by Banksy
Nativity at Night (c.1490) by Geertgen totSint Jans
The Nativity (c. 2019) by Banksy
Questions for reflection
1. If art is considered good because it ‘enriches’ our understanding of the world in which we live, and if propaganda is considered bad because it ‘impoverishes’ our experience of society to a one-dimensionality, then how do we distinguish between art and propaganda? And does it matter?
We would really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to provide us with feedback on your experience with our course. Please complete an evaluation form here:
Evaluation form - Encountering the Sacred · ChurchSuite Forms
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this request.
Week 1
Sr. Dr. Carolyn Morrison is a sister of the Religious of the Assumption (r.a.). She gained her BA in Theology, and a MA in Pastoral Theology at Heythrop College. She completed her PhD in Visual Theology at St Mary’s Catholic University, Twickenham (2021). She works as a Chaplain at Newman House, Central Catholic Chaplaincy for London’s Universities. She was also a Chaplain to Heythrop College (2013-14). She gives retreats to university students, teachers and chaplains. She tutors on the module An Interdisciplinary Encounter with the Sacred at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. She reviews scholarly articles for publication in the journal of International Studies in Catholic Education for the Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Her research interests mainly concern the use of visual theology: in contemporary Catholic Education based upon the Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar.
