Fisher of Men

Girogio Vasari, Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew
Italian, no date (lived 1511 - 1574)
Vatican City, Apostolic Palace
Former Room of the Swiss Guard

As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.

He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matttew 4: 18-20)

In a few hours the Church will celebrate the inauguration of the Petrine Ministry of our new Pope, Francis, with a Mass in honor of St. Joseph, the patron of the universal church.

When a person attends a papal Mass or other ceremony at St. Peter’s you are given a small and rather beautiful booklet containing the liturgical prayers and readings and music, produced by the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff and printed by the Vatican Publishing House. It is simple, white paper with black and red ink in the printing with white covers, perfect bound (i.e., bound like a book, not stapled down the spine). What makes it beautiful is the cover. A work of art from the Vatican collection is printed on the cover, different works for each of the ceremonies.

Today’s booklet can be found online at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2013/20130319_inizio-ministero-petrino.pdf
However, one detail of the actual printed booklet is never available online -- the cover. The cover for the inauguration of the Roman Pontiff on March 19, 2013 features the painting above, the Calling of St. Peter by the late Mannerist painter Giorgio Vasari.  In the painting we see, as it were, two scenes from the same act.  In the upper background, Andrew points out the approaching Jesus to his brother, Simon.  The Sea of Galilee is seen in the background, along with buildings that represent the town of Capernaum, their home.  In the foreground we see the encounter of the two brothers with Jesus. as He tells them to follow him as He goes forward. 

Vasari was a prolific painter, responsible for much of the decorative painting in late 16th century Florence and Rome. His training and background comes out of the circle of the Tuscan artistic community and especially the greatest of its members, Michelangelo, who was still alive for most of Vasari’s own lifetime. He was also a highly regarded architect in his own time.

But his greatest influence in history, far beyond that of his own works of architecture or of painting, is his work in words. He is the author of the first attempt to create a history of how the painting of his own day came to be. Called Le Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) it continues to be a valuable source for us today. On account of this work he is regarded as the “Father of Art History”.

As the Church joyfully welcomes its new Shepherd we can see in the cover of this little liturgical booklet deep connections that unite the first century Peter, the first Pope, through the centuries during which the chants it includes were introduced under Peter’s 64th successor, Gregory the Great, the painting on the cover was done under one of the late 16th century Popes (the 224th through 226th successors) and the inauguration of, Francis, the 267th successor of the Rock (Petrus/Peter).

Around the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica is written in letters of gold the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew: “Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum.” (And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.) (Matthew 16:18-19)

These words will also be sung by the Sistine Chapel Choir several times, in different settings, during the ceremony and the following Mass. Welcome to the new “Rock” who comes to us, as he said himself, from “the ends of the earth”. As he receives the Fisherman’s Ring, may God grant him to be a great Fisher of Men.

Why Christian Art is Lame #3 (part of a series in which I try to answer the question "Why is Christian art so lame?")

Limestone Relief of Ahknaten, Nefertiti and Two Princesses Offering to the Aten
Egyptian, 18th Dynasty, c. 1353-1336 BC
Cairo, Egyptian Museum

There has been a disconnect between patron and artist. 

Art is and has always been an expensive proposition. It is not one of the necessities of life. On the contrary, it is a product of leisure and thought. This is true even for cave art. The cave dwellers needed to have gained enough food to provide them with the leisure to take the time to grind up their colors, plan their designs, practice making them and, finally, place the final designs on the walls of their caves.
From the beginning of art history the work of the artist has been intimately linked with the requirements of the patron. This was as true for the artists of Amarna, where the pharaoh, Ahkenaten, requested from them an entirely new iconography to serve the Aten, his new, single God (see above), as it was for the art the early High Renaissance when Michelangelo struggled with both the demands of his own muse and those of Pope Julius II in creating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (“Sacrifice of Noah” below). 

Up to the time of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution (with the exception, after the Reformation, of the independent Netherlands) the Church was one of the primary sources of patronage for religious art. The other primary source of patronage was European royalty and nobility. Frequently, the two sources of patronage were in agreement. The Church commissioned works for itself and royal and noble patrons also commissioned works for the Church. In both cases the religious works of artists were as important to their survival as their secular works.

Michelangelo Buonarotti, The Sacrifice of Noah
Italian, c. 1508-1512
Vatican City, Apostolic Palace, Sistine Chapel

This symbiotic relationship came to an end under the triple pressures of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. As a secular art market developed, with sales and commissions more and more frequently being handled by specialist art dealers, the importance of both the religious and "noble" art commission diminished. The style and subjects of art changed, with domestic scenes, landscapes and portraits taking a greater and greater share of artistic production. As the inheritance of the Revolution spread throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, fewer and fewer artists turned their thought to religious themes, while the forms of art went farther and farther from readable human forms suitable for the depiction of Christian themes.

At the same time, Church patronage became more and more conservative. New churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, were usually constructed to reflect historic styles: Neo-Gothic, Neo-Classical, Neo-Byzantine, Neo-Renaissance. Living as I do in New York City I am surrounded by multiple examples of this history. The interior decoration and furnishing of these historicizing buildings was conducted in the same manner, reproducing the styles of earlier periods. This often resulted in beautiful spaces, such as my own parish of St. Jean Baptiste in Manhattan below (http://www.sjbny.org). However, it also meant that, by the first quarter of the 20th century, religious art and high art flowed in entirely different and often antagonistic channels.

Nicholas Serracini, Church of Saint Jean-Baptiste Interior
Italian, c. 1900-1910
New York, Church of Saint Jean-Baptiste

Those artists who chose to pursue a career in high art frequently held beliefs quite opposed to Christian, or indeed any, religious belief. There are a few who seem to have been able to bridge the gap, but they stand out in art history by this very uniqueness. In addition, the art establishment tends to reward those who do not express religious content in their work. “Spiritual” content may be acceptable, but not religious content that positively references Christian or any other traditional belief.

Consequently, it is now very difficult for patrons of religious art to find persons who practice high contemporary style who can imbue their productions with an inner core of belief. One can easily see why contemporary religious commissions appear somewhat awkward and self-conscious in a way the work of earlier periods never did.

Indeed, problems of even secular patronage have been fraught with difficulties in recent years. For instance, many American taxpayers, whose tax money funds the National Endowment for the Arts, were seriously riled during the early 1990’s by some of the works produced under funding from the NEA by Andres Serrano (“Piss Christ”) or Robert Maplethorpe (homoerotic photographs). Their protests led to some modest cutbacks in funding. More recently, the New York art world has experienced controversy surrounding the inclusion of Chris Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary" in the 1999 Brooklyn Museum exhibition, Sensation, in which the picture was composed of (among other things) pornography and elephant dung, and the cancellation of a 2007 gallery exhibition of Cosimo Cavallaro's "My Sweet Lord", more commonly known as the "Chocolate Jesus".

Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin
Italian, c. 1606
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Patronage problems are nothing new, of course. One of Caravaggio’s most famous paintings, “The Death of the Virgin” (Louvre, c. 1606), was rejected by the church for which it had been commissioned. The church fathers found the bloated body of Mary, her exposed feet and the peasant-like mourners to be lacking in decorum. However, in 1606 the fathers were able to find another painter to give them the decorous picture they wanted. In 2008 their successors might have a harder time.

© M. Duffy, 2008

In the beginning

This blog has several aims.

The first is to offer some thoughts, from a Catholic perspective, on the art of Western Christianity over the last 19 centuries. I intend to do this in both general and specific ways. The general way will begin with a particular work of art. In the specific case I will begin with the Word and will try to connect the liturgical readings to works of art that reflect them. Not every Biblical passage has a corresponding work of art, but many do.

Another aim is that of offering information and reflections on museum collections or special exhibitions that may be of interest to people interested in western art. I live in Manhattan and have ready access to its many museums and to museums on the entire eastern seaboard and sometimes in Europe.

And finally, I aim to practice the art of writing, at least the art of writing that has no connection to my working life. All my life, people have been urging me to write. I've wanted to, but felt I lacked a subject to focus on. Although I have an excellent education in the liberal arts and in the history of art in particular (I'm an abd from the Institute of Fine Arts of NYU) I have not had a professional art historian's career. But the frustrated teacher yearns to move herself into an expression of what is important to her. The final spark came from the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to New York the weekend of April 18 - 20, 2008. I hope this will be my contribution to the work of spreading the good news of Christ, the Word Incarnate.