Hello! Glad to be back after a series of learning experiences which took me away from the keyboard. I see from the website’s analytics that we are still popular on a worldwide level (thank you!). I also appreciate and thank all of the hundreds of subscribers that have stayed with this blog and continue to use and enjoy the material I’ve presented and the many tens of thousands that have popped in and out over the past seven years.
Last week I made a church presentation (a power point lecture) on “Our Blessed Mother and Sacred Art Applied to Prayer.” For the upcoming weeks, during the Advent and Christmas seasons, I will be presenting to you – in short form – my lecture notes accompanied by relevant sacred and religious art. This is probably one of the busiest times of the year so I will be blogging it to you in small doses on a frequent basis. If you use any of it in your work, ministry, or studies please reference me. Thanks.
My lecture had three major goals:
- What is Art and its forms of sacred, religious, and absurd religious painting?
- What are the major/minor stages of sacred art within the history of the Roman Catholic Church?
- How do we apply sacred art, specifically in reference to the Blessed Mother, to the prayer form of Lectio Divina?
Let’s tackle the first part of the first goal: What is Art?
My perception is that art is a process in which an artist:
- Creatively thinks,
- Makes a product (there are seven major historical disciplines in which products are made: architecture, drama, literature, music, painting, poetry, and sculpture),
- Intends that the product will cause a reaction/response (for the artist alone and/or from the public).
The above process occurs in all seven major disciplines of art. More recent historical artistic disciplines such as photography, computer art, grand and small scale landscape architecture possess this process, too.
Also, Professor Dennis J. Sporre has discussed that “Art has four functions: artifact, entertainment, social and political commentary, and therapy. These functions, or options, are not mutually exclusive, nor is one more important than the others” (found in his book The Creative Impulse, Prentice Hall, 4th ed., 1996. When I taught Humanities years ago this highly valuable book was one of the foundation blocks of my lectures and activities).
Tomorrow I will discuss Roman Catholic sacred art within the discipline of painting.
Thanks for joining me today.
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