Art v. Rupnik et al.

Marko Rupnik, "artist", former Jesuit, accused serial abuser.

ROME (AP) — The Jesuits said Monday that a famous artist priest is definitively expelled from the religious order for sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing women(.)

Catholics are saying that Rupnik's "art" should be removed because of his character, or lack thereof. To do that for that reason is a weak argument for removing his mosaics, etc. A better argument for removing his work from churches and other buildings is because his work is of low artistic merit. In other words, his work does not rise to the level of art.

Rupnik's works have figures with large eyes. The eyes are solid, opaque, and disturbingly vacant. The eyes of C-3PO convey more feeling than do Rupnik's eyes. Are we meant to find ourselves in those eyes? So much of human warmth and compassion is conveyed through the eyes. What of divine warmth? Again, Rupnik's work falls short of conveying mercy, divine or human.

It might also be helpful to remember that

A determination of artistic merit does not depend on the popularity of a thing. Artistic merit is determined by the degree to which something epitomizes the true, the good and the beautiful. Merit can be intuited and/or deduced. One does not necessarily need a university degree to be able to recognize art. A trained intellect corrupted by attachments to base things is just as likely to ascribe merit to an ugly thing as an intellect mired in willful ignorance does not distinguish between art and pornography. Minds enamored in baseness and shallow thinking tend to admire the emperor's new clothes.

Every artist paints himself (or perhaps paints himself as he would hope to be).

There have been many badly behaved brilliant composers and virtuosic performers, artists and architects. They have produced great works of art. We can legitimately accept and celebrate art for its power to convey what is noble and true without condoning its creator's wayward behaviour. Great works remind us that even a man or woman given to outrageous or destructive behaviour can teach us something about our better selves, and reveal something of the beauty of the human soul made in the image of God. Rupnik's work, however, is cartoonish and hollow, like so much other heterodox junk haunting church walls. His work - like that of David Haas - is inappropriate for temples of the Lord.

Some might argue that Rupnik's work is childlike with a power to inform and form innocent minds. Possibly. That said, children thrive when presented great works to engage their imaginations and are mentored in the meaning of said works. School curriculums have been underestimating the ability of children to intuit and comprehend art for too many decades. Instead of a diet of pablum, Catholics young and old should be offered great art to stimulate and stretch their imaginations toward the eternal. Imagine the wonder and awe induced by works that, by fueling the heart and mind with truth, goodness and beauty, also generate and sustain hope. A mind exercised by art is more likely to reach beyond itself, to explore, to discover truth and goodness that heals and disposes the soul to the grace of God. Conversely, when the human mind is trapped in a wallow of mediocrity, a person will gravitate toward the cheapest and basest pleasures, soon to drown in boredom and despair.

If Catholics can (wrongly) paint over beautiful murals, rip out magnificent altars and deface once beautiful sanctuaries (and toss aside chant and sacred polyphony for saccharine ditties) as they have in the past, it might only be a matter of time until Rupnik's stuff earns a spray paint touch-up or is recycled and replaced.

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See also:

1. https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2022/12/art-not-art-autobiographies-in-paint.html
2. https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-psalm-of-david.html
3. https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2019/06/contra-bland.html