The latest screen version of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 thriller novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley. is the Netflix series, Ripley. In an early episode the devious con artist Tom Ripley learns about the troubled Renaissance painter, Caravaggio, and claims that he would like to see his various works throughout Italy.
Caravaggio was a boozer with a violent temper, a murderer who had to flee the authorities of his day. He has fascinated me since my art history undergrad days. as he does Ripley. Tom travels to various churches where his dramatic biblical paintings are displayed, a sort of foreshadowing of his own tangled web of deceit and violence.
Supper at Emmaus -- Caravaggio
Yesterday was Unesco World Art Day, which has only been around for a decade or so. The April 15th date is supposedly the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci and the theme this years was "A GARDEN OF EXPRESSION: Cultivating Community Through Art." I like that there is a day to acknowledge art in its various facets including visual art, music, literature, and architecture.
Art is often profoundly spiritual, even when it's secular, sacred although sometimes produced by those who are profane. What is sometimes labelled as Christian art can be maudlin propaganda of the worst kind and yet some of the greatest art has been commissioned for places of worship.
I've written about my love for the relatively modern space of St. Andrew's UC in Sudbury, a congregation I served for eleven years. The sand-cast doors and art pieces, along with the design itself spoke to me every time I entered. I also served two congregations with large traditional sanctuaries I would describe as holy spaces.
Of course, music can be sublime and worship is enhanced beyond measure by what occurs musically, including hymn singing. I love the work of great writers such as Marilynne Robinson who create fine novels with powerful and subtle religious themes.
Art gives intimations of the divine. Come, Holy Spirit, Come.
St. Andrew's United Church Sudbury -- one of three Jordi Bonet doors
Da Vinci designed staircase
3 comments:
That staircase is beautiful.
I love the design of St. Andrew's too with the wider, rather than deep, seating arrangement where no one is too far from the dais. KB
The staircase brings to mind the interior of a nautilus shell, Laurie.
The St. A's sanctuary is so versatile, Kathy, and well suited to a time when the congregation is not as large as it once was. The beauty hasn't diminished and the trees visible from the windows have grown!
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