On the 23rd of June this year, Pope Francis welcomed in the Vatican an important group of contemporary artists. In the prestigious setting of Sistine Chapel with frescoes by Perugino, Botticelli, Michelangelo, etc. they sat and talked about the commitment of the Roman Church to artistic endeavors (Deborah Castellano Lubov, 2023).
Vatican Media | The New York Times | Image Source
This gathering is organized for the celebration of 50 years of Modern and contemporary Art collecting in the Vatican (Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, n.d.). In June 1973, the Pope Paul VI inaugurated this initiative of acquisitions by the Vatican. The collection gathers work by Van Gogh, Matisse, Francis Bacon or the collective Studio Azzuro. The idea behind this collection and meetings, precisely in the Sistine Chapel, was to reconnect with the Art world. In Italy of all places, the Church and the artists have always been deeply connected. The Church was one of the main patrons and its initiatives are the reason why museums are today filled with precious artworks. However, at some point, this connection was lost. The creation of the contemporary art museum in the Vatican was the outcome of that first gathering 50 years ago.
This week artists such as the Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso, the British movie director Ken Loach, the British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor and more, Andre Rieu, Javier Cercas, Amélie Nothomb, Roberto Saviano, with overall 200 others were welcomed in the Vatican (Boucher, 2023). Even the American photograph Andres Serrano, considered back in 1987 as a “blasphemous” artist had the opportunity of a brief exchange with Pope Francis.
Pope Francis expressed his vision of artists as “dreamers and visionaries”. “You want to reveal reality also in its contradictions and in those things that it is more comfortable and convenient to keep hidden,” he said, as reported from Vatican News. “Like the biblical prophets, you confront things that at times are uncomfortable; you criticize today’s false myths and new idols, its empty talk, the ploys of consumerism, the schemes of power.”
The Catholic Church is no longer the most dynamic patron of the Art world. It has faced even many confrontations with artists in the past century. While since the Renaissance until the 20th century, the Church was ruling about which subjects are acceptable to be expressed in Art, in the years, just as society did, artists withdrawn totally from this authority (Chrisafis, 2022).
Let’s take a look at two examples of paintings that were refused by the church during the 17th century. Caravaggio (1571 – 1610), one of the most important Italian artists has been commissioned to paint Saint Matthew and the Death of the Virgin Mary. First, he presented the prophet in such a way that it has been decided this depiction is absolutely inappropriate.
The painting is nowadays only known by this photograph as it has been lost in a fire in 1945 in Berlin. Her Saint Matthew is presented as an old man, it is clear that the painter used a model that he didn’t idealize as it was customary. As the painting was hanged on a high spot, the viewer would first see the dirty feet of the saint and that wasn’t acceptable. Nothing so human could be used to depict him. The second version of the painting is far more agreeable with the Church’s canons.
Saint Matthew and the Angel | UniScienza&Ricerca | Vita-Salute San Raffaele University | Image Source
Saint Matthew and the Angel | UniScienza&Ricerca | Vita-Salute San Raffaele University | Image Source
La Mort de la Vierge | Louvre Collection | Image Source
La Mort de la Vierge | Louvre Collection | Image Source
Few years later, Caravaggio was commissioned the painting of the Death of the Virgin Mary (La Mort De La Vierge, n.d.). Again, he presented a version that was not accepted by the church. In this painting, now held in the Louvre Museum in Paris, a well-known model of Caravaggio, working as a prostitute, posed for the image of the Virgin.
It was too shocking for the public to discover such a humanized vision of one of the most sacred figures of the Bible. The Virgin was said to look like a person who was drowned and the commissioners could not accept it as a holy image.
Nowadays, scandals around artworks are also often in the news headlines, but artists have a wider variety of patrons compared to few centuries ago. It is interesting to see how the new governance of the Vatican is expanding its speech to writers and movie directors or musicians and we have to notice that there is a will to reconnect with the Art world. But the old way of authority like it could be witnessed in any art during a totalitarian regime, has no possibility to be pursued ever again.
Militza Ganeva is trained in Art History at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris, as well as in Conservation and Restoration of Paintings at La Cambre Academy in Brussels. She currently works as a painting restorer at the National Gallery in Sofia, where she resides after spending many years in Paris, Brussels, and Malta.
Her interests lie in the connections between restoration and science, and she is actively involved in several interdisciplinary studies of artworks. She is also passionate about the development of the contemporary art world and constantly seeks its intersections with history, politics, and global social evolution.
In addition, since 2022, Militza has been contributing to the organization of concerts in Sofia and participating in book editing projects on the side.
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