We all know there’s good art, bad art, beautiful art, ugly art, so makes Christian art Christian? And what exactly are we trying to do with our art? Make money? Give people a cathartic experience? Help people feel human?
Cameron O'Hearn, Director of Mass of the Ages gave this talk at the 2021 'Return to Beauty' Conference put on by the Catholic Art Institute in Chicago.
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In John Paul II's letter to artists he said:
“All artists experience the unbridgeable gap which lies between the work of their hands, however successful it may be, and the dazzling perfection of the beauty glimpsed in the ardor of the creative moment: what they manage to express in their painting, their sculpting, their creating is no more than a glimmer of the splendor which flared for a moment before the eyes of their spirit.”
It’s our vocation, and I would also add, it’s our cross, to reveal the dazzling perfection of beauty to the world who is no longer dazzled by it. We are prophets who have seen a spark of divine truth and must share it with the world.
I believe there will be a new renaissance of Catholic filmmaking. Because there must be. Now is the time.
I’m not talking about Christian movies that make Christians feel nice for being Christians and therefore are not art.
And I’m also not talking about films that try to mimic Hollywood and lose their soul and are therefore not Christian. For it’s a shame that Christian art is all too often, not Christian or not art.
I’m talking about films that use the best resources of the world but rise ABOVE it. Filmmakers who do not compromise their Christian integrity united with benefactors who can make that vision a reality.
So that the 1 Billion Catholics of the world aren’t just assenting to a list of beliefs, but are thrilled by them. That the truths of the faith become irresistibly beautiful. So that they remember that this world is thy ship and not thy home.
That we are not musicians on the Titanic, just trying to make tragedy bearable. But we are prophets who have witnessed a divine spark, some glimpse of the heavenly homeland, and we want to tell the world about what ‘eye has not seen, and ear has not heard’.
2 янв 2022
