Pope to artists: help us glimpse the beauty that saves

Audience at the Vatican with 200 writers, musicians, painters, film directors marking 50 years since the inauguration of the contemporary art collection of the Vatican Museums. Some significant figures of Asian art were also present. The Pontiff's recommendation: 'Be sentinels of the true religious sense, which is sometimes trivialised or commercialised. And be interpreters of the cry of the poor'.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "We are not only light, and you remind us of this; but we need to cast the light of hope into the darkness of the human, of individualism and indifference. Help us to glimpse the light, the beauty that saves." 

This was the message that Pope Francis delivered this morning to a group of 200 artists from around the world at a meeting held in the evocative setting of the Sistine Chapel to mark the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the modern and contemporary art section of the Vatican Museums.

The audience - promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education - was attended by writers, poets, musicians, painters, directors and actors. Among them were also personalities from Asia: South Korean pianist Yiruma, Indian writer Pankaj Mishra, Malaysian figurative artist H.H. Lim, Korean-born American director Jean Lee Young, East Timorese artist Jose Avelar Borges, and Israeli writer and playwright Roy Chen.

Pope Francis reminded them of the "natural and special" relationship between the Church and art, which - he said - "is like a sail that is filled with the Spirit and moves us forward".

Quoting the theologian Romano Guardini, who likened the figure of the artist to those of the child and the seer, he emphasised his placing himself "in the space of invention, of novelty, of creation, of bringing something into the world that had never been seen before".

"You are allies of God's dream," he added, "You are eyes that look and that dream. We human beings yearn for a new world that we will not fully see with our own eyes, yet we long for it, we seek it, we dream of it'.

It is precisely for this reason that the pope invited artists to escape "the suggestive power of that supposed artificial and superficial beauty that is widespread today and often complicit in the economic mechanisms that generate inequalities. It is a fake, cosmetic beauty, a make-up that conceals instead of revealing".

The real one, on the other hand, is 'critical awareness of society, removing the veil from the obvious. You want to show what makes people think, what makes them alert, what reveals reality even in its contradictions, in its aspects that it is more convenient or convenient to keep hidden'. And 'you do well,' he added, 'to also be sentinels of the true religious sense, which is sometimes trivialised or commercialised'.

"One of the things that brings art closer to faith is that it disturbs a little,' he commented. 'Art and faith cannot leave things as they are: they change them, transform them, convert them, move them. Art can never be an anaesthetic; it gives peace, but it does not put consciences to sleep, it keeps them awake'.

Regarding the relationship with beauty, Francis spoke of 'an important criterion for discerning, that of harmony'. "We are in a time of ideological media colonisation and lacerating conflicts," he commented, "a homologising globalisation coexists with many closed localisms. We need the principle of harmony to inhabit our world more. And you artists can help us make room for the Spirit'.

Finally, the pope addressed a recommendation to the artists: "I would like to ask you not to forget the poor, who are Christ's favourites, in all the ways one is poor today. The poor also need art and beauty. Some experience very harsh forms of deprivation of life; therefore, they need it most. They usually have no voice to make themselves heard. You can be the interpreters of their silent cry".

• Pope Francis
• artists
• Vatican
• Vatican Museums
• beauty