Bad Art’s Kinship to Idolatry
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Catholics, all Catholics, both the laity and the entire hierarchy, face a unique challenge concerning their relationship to History and Tradition. Every other institution, religion, viewpoint or philosophy holds a grip on the contemporary society of its time and forms the culture of said society. All of the actions of the people of any given time reflect this philosophy of their time. This was referred to by C. S. Lewis as the philosophical mental backdrop of a society. We can look at historical events and philosophies and see that in the passage of time, these philosophies and religions naturally die out and said society moves on. This cannot happen in the Catholic Church. Mankind cannot cause the Church to die out. We can never simply ‘move on’ from Catholicism to something ‘new’ and ‘different.’ All Catholics are aware of this Truth. So what is their challenge that I am referring to?
In order to understand it, we must be aware of our philosophical backdrop. Our current mental springboard began with the Protestant revolt. This resulted in many different ways of incorrectly dealing with reality, but I am pointing out one thing in particular. With the Protestant revolt as our philosophic springboard, we can only deal with History and Tradition in one of two ways: we can either slavishly try to copy the past or we can ‘revolt’ against it and impose something ‘new.’ Both of these choices result in participation in a pro-death attitude toward Life and both are equally doomed.
In the natural world, if you plant a bush under a tree and the bush grows high enough, you must prune the tree so that it is not hovering too closely over the bush and restricting its growth. If you do not, the bush will not be able to grow to its potential height and fullness. People are not bushes. The past greatness of art (visual, musical, architectural) in the Catholic Church cannot restrict our artistic growth unless we have a distorted view of our relationship to both History and Tradition. Unless, in other words, we act in accordance with, and in response to, the Protestant backdrop. Unfortunately, Catholic artists, probably since the Counter Reformation. have been behaving like bushes
Let us now turn our attention to the new high altar in the now ‘restored’ Notre Dame Cathedral. In order to conduct an objective and legitimate analysis of this altar I will dive thoroughly into the idea of it, the composition of the altar and the environment, and the medium used. I will also extend my analysis to cover the possible effect of this altar on the viewer.
The Idea
No work of art or craft can be successful without being informed by a legitimate idea. Because the idea is non-material and exists in the designer’s mind, we shy away from judging it. We should not. The work is always an expression of an idea and we should be able to see and understand what it is in the work. If we cannot, that means the idea was confused and chaotic and/or the artist/craftsperson lacked the ability to properly express it.
So, what is the idea informing this altar? On the surface that is the idea, it’s an altar. But that can never be enough for the serious artist. He digs deeper: the idea is not only the superficial subject matter (an altar) but what is its meaning? What is its purpose? What does it symbolize? What is the history of altars? How does the design best express these things?
An altar is the most sacred thing in the Church building. It is arguably the most sacred object on earth. Let us look at what the Idea should be: From The Dedication of a Church and an Altar (Chapter 4: the Dedication of an Altar):
“On the altar is sacrificed Jesus Christ Himself. Christ is the victim, priest, and altar of his own sacrifice. The Altar is a Sign of Christ. The Church’s children have the power to celebrate the memorial of Christ and take their place at the Lord’s Table anywhere that circumstances might require. But it is in keeping with the Eucharistic mystery that the Christian people erect a permanent altar for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and they have done so from the earliest times. The Christian altar is by its very nature properly the table of sacrifice and of the paschal banquet. It is: a unique altar on which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated in mystery throughout the ages until Christ comes; a table at which the Church’s children gather to give thanks to God and receive the body and blood of Christ.”
It is a representation of something permanent, something unchangeable. And, something complex. It makes demands on one’s intellect. A Catholic altar cannot, I repeat CANNOT be squeezed into some minimalist philosophy. Catholicism Herself cannot be squeezed into a minimalist philosophy. Minimalism exists within and fits into Catholicism. Catholicism does not fit into Minimalism.
At this point we could stop. It is clear that the artist is not expressing Catholicism. It is an untrue and therefore a bad idea.
But because there are people who think it is possible to express beauty even in a lie, let’s look at the altar in a strictly secular sense.
First, let’s look at the shape. Does it represent unchangability? It cannot, because the base is much smaller than the top. Frankly, it looks like a giant’s ramen bowl that would be easy to tip over or to move around. It does not look like anything permanent or anything connected to the Last Supper.
It also has something in common more with Islam or Mormonism than Catholicism, in that there is an aggression, a bullying, almost violence in the communication. It is a pushy and aggressive statement packaged in an untruth, the classic formula of the bully.
It’s a bowl. Does a bowl have any meaning? Well, not any inherent meaning. It all depends on what’s inside it. But that is not true of a Catholic altar. As we have seen from the quote above an altar in a Catholic Church does have inherent meaning. This artist has just ignored this truth.
So, in other words, it is a bad idea expressed badly.
The Composition
To judge the composition we must look at the altar and how it fits together with the environment around it. One of the beauties of the original altar is that the altar was part of an invitation. You were invited to come in, deeper and deeper. The altar stood there as a stationary object, but there was so much more. This new altar seems to say: STOP! Just STOP! Need I say more?
There is also a total disconnect between the original parts of the cathedral and this new altar. There seems no relationship, no connection, between the old and the new. God’s creation is filled with relationships. Things are surely different in appearance- a tree is dissimilar to a fish- but deeper than the appearance one can feel an essential relation. Both are organic, for example.
Both fit into the whole while exhibiting each one’s complete individual characteristics. There is nothing organic about a giant bowl. Because of its size and shape it belongs to the world of the man made, rather than the God made. That is, it belongs to a lower order, that of the imagination, rather than the higher order, that of the intellect. If an artist makes a sculpture of a 10 foot tall man, it can perhaps fit in to an organic composition, but the surrounding proportions must be considered. . In other words, the artist has to bow to God made proportionality to make a good composition. But what if a sculptor, trying to express some philosophy, creates a figure 70 feet high and places it next to a two story house. It would immediately be bad composition because the artist is not following one of God’s laws-that of proportion. It would look ridiculous and would be a jarring note to the viewer. No one would be drawn to it. One might feel an ‘aberrant attraction’ and stare but one would also want to turn away.
There is something else. Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that it is appropriate to change the ‘concept’ of Altar. We cannot, but let’s for the moment pretend we could. Does it not occur to this artist that doing so is not and could never be his job? If there could be some sort of ‘development’ or ‘expansion’ or ‘evolution’ to the concept of Altar, it could only be done or announced by one person: the pope. Anyone else has no business introducing something ‘new’ in the Church. This artist really needs to recognize his professional limits.
The Material
The earliest altars in the Church were made of wood. This is easy to understand as the Last Supper was thought of, and the Church was persecuted, so it made perfect sense to use a material easier to work with, one not requiring so much effort to move around. It would have been an easier task to take wood underground and build an altar, which could have remained hidden. As more and more thought was given to the meaning of an altar, stone became the default material. Not only does stone represent the unchangeable-the Church is represented as a rock- but the material itself is fairly permanent. It’s not so easy to move a 5or 6 ton piece of stone. Wood could be repurposed much more easily. So what about bronze-the material of the new altar? There is no dogma about which material to use for an altar. The artist was free to use bronze, This must be made clear.
However, there is a reason that relatively few bronze works have survived from the ancient world. The reason is that bronze is a material easily melted down and repurposed. Bronze should be the last material one would use for a high altar in a major cathedral. Not because it is forbidden (it is not) but because the artist should have enough technical knowledge of the various possible materials to choose the most appropriate. By appropriate I mean the medium most in line with the meaning of an altar. If this meaning is alive in the artist’s mind the altar should have been stone.
But again, there is something else to consider. Any choice of medium must be specifically connected to the idea. Choice of medium can never be arbitrary. There must be a specific reason why one medium was chosen over another because all media have specific characteristics. If one looks at minimalist furniture in terms of material, one immediately sees the similarity in appearance between wood and bronze. Sometimes it is difficult to guess which material was used. Since this is so, and since wood seems more appropriate that bronze for furniture, the artist must make clear the reason he chose bronze. It another confusing element to this artist’s idea,
The Effect of the Altar on the Viewer
Naturally every person is different and it could be said that no two people will have the same experience viewing this altar. But when one is placing a piece with the highest sacred meaning, it would be well to consider all possibilities and to always consider the worst possible message the viewer could receive. So after someone says ”oh, how different” which may be nothing more than the shock of the new, let’s see what the long term lessons may be to the viewer. Many will be distracted by a big metal bowl (and please don’t tell me it’s not a bowl. It reads like a bowl). As I have said, one doesn’t want to look at it too long; one can hardly look away. It demands attention that one does not necessarily want to give. This could lead to a vague resentment, the feeling one gets when one knows one is being manipulated, This is a result of the artist’s idea. He seems to be saying “Look what I made” rather than “Look what God did.” In any case, the possibility of the viewer being distracted from the Mass itself must be acknowledged.
To sum up: this altar is unsuccessful on every level of analysis. It is a secular burnt offering. It raises up every contemporary secular value to the heights: offence to God, egoism, pride, an inappropriate insertion of personality, ideology, lack of the use of the intellect, vulgarity, and disrespect for Catholic believers. It is an outrage beyond compare that this homage to the worst in man will actually be consecrated to God. It would be appropriate if every Catholic says a rosary to beg God’s forgiveness for this abomination.
After note−I wrote the above solely on my visual response to the new altar in Notre Dame Cathedral. Imagine my shock when, after finishing, I paid a visit to the artist’s website as well as a website describing the significance of his work in Notre Dame.. Imagine my stunned shock when I saw that his design for a coffee table is almost identical to the design of his ‘altar! It is reported that the commission was given to the artist after “a long and vigorous process.” What? Do you mean that the Church hierarchy, charged with the task of restoring one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the entire world, was specifically looking for someone who had perfected the making of bowls (and balls)? Someone who seems to obsessively create the same thing time after time? I did not discuss the ‘spirituality’ of bowls because it has nothing to do with an altar. I assume most people know that bowls can be a symbol of God’s blessings, wrath, judgments, mercy. Not an Altar. A Catholic altar has specific, inherent purpose and meaning. It is not a bowl.
