Bad catholic Art

Why are there no "Michaelangelos" today? Why do so few artists seek to make art that is in the same vein as Rembrandt, or the great works of the medieval times? Interestingly (or maybe not) this kind of art is called "realism". In other words, it looks real; as opposed to much of the "art" today which looks like the nightmares of Dr. Seuss. We have been flooded with cheap advertising characters, and have largely forgotten what is beautiful.

On the top of the horrific list is the vast majority of modern Catholic art. It actually should be written with a lowercase "c" instead of a capital. This is because much of it is no more honoring to God than a cartoon. In fact, a good deal of what you see on Catholic books and materials is very "cartoon" in style and that is sad, because the Church has a wealth of beauty and grandeur in the artistic accomplishments that her faithful have graced us with.

It is a difficult time we live in, and we are so immersed in the modernist pop culture that cheap and childish "art" has become commonplace. People have had their senses dulled to the beauty of the past. I had someone tell me a few years ago that he did not understand why I rejected all modern "Catholic art", and criticized that I said it looked cartoonish. His explanation for his appreciation of it was, "it's so cute". My response: "that is what I hate about it". God is not cute.

No one looks at Michelangelo's Pieta, or DaVinci's Last Supper and says, "gee that's so cute!" They look at it with awe and are struck with an awareness of beauty. It is this cheapening of our artistic senses that has caused Catholics to build monstrosities that look like shopping malls and train wrecks and call them "churches". I am reminded of the powerful book titled "Ugly As Sin". The subtitle on the cover says "why they changed our churches from sacred spaces to meeting places"; that says it all.

As cute and quaint as a cartoony St. Joseph might be, no one looks at it and feels like kneeling in prayer. Nothing in modernist art can make a person feel humbled by receiving a greater appreciation of the awesome power of God. He just looks at it and says, "that's nice", or "wow! cool!". Except for the cutesy colorings of children (and those have their place), art is not supposed to be "nice". It is supposed to be at the service of our Almighty God.

When St. George is finally ready to build a new Church (and we are very close!), we will put the extra time and effort into making sure that we create something that points the soul to God. We are going to build a Church that our great-great-grandchildren will still be worshiping in with reverence and awe. We will say "no" to modern chaos; we will tell the devil to take his shopping malls and go elsewhere; we will raise up a home for the tabernacle; we will build something that will help our salvation, where we can come to offer ourselves to our Blessed Lord God.