Tesori di arte sacra a Venezia e Padova nelle descrizioni dei viaggiatori polacchi del XVIII secolo

In the 18th century, Italian sanctuaries played an important religious and cultural role, especially in Venice and Padua. They were visited by Polish wanderers during their trips around Europe, for example: diplomatic missions, pilgrimages, educational or tourist trips. They recorded their impressions from visiting these places in the form of descriptions in diaries, journals and itineraries. Reading the reports from the expeditions provides valuable insights on the mentality, customs of upbringing, as well as the religious and aesthetic experiences of eighteenth-century adventurers. The article aims to present the ways in which the collections of sacred art were perceived by Polish travelers from the 18th century. The analysis of their accounts, especially the fragments concerning the sanctuaries in Venice and Padua, will serve to present the literary covenants used by Polish wanderers. It should also answer the questions which tendencies dominated in the travel literature of that time, what phrases and formulations were used, and what items were paid special attention to.

Vietnam

In the 16th century, the first Spanish and Portuguese Dominican missionaries arrived in Southeast Asia, included Vietnam, but only after the first decades of the seventeenth century, Christianity began to take hold and lived through different episodes of the Proclamation of the Christian faith: first it was tolerated and then abandoned by the dynasties, supported by the colonialists, declined in the north by the communists, it expanded in the south under the Republic of Vietnam and stabilized until now after the reunification of the country followed by a long breakage due to political change. Along with this story, sacred architecture was interpreted in various ways to define identities in religious life and faith. However, the most difficult period of religious architecture is not only in the political conflict of the past, but also until now, the time of the economic boom. The change of values as well as the aesthetic system make sacred art and architecture remain a giant wheel stuck in mud.

Polityka rosyjskiej Cerkwi prawosławnej wobec cudownych obrazów katolickiej proweniencji na wschodnich terenach dawnej Rzeczypospolitej w XIX w. na kilku przykładach

Due to the liquidation of the Union in 1839 and the transfer of Catholic churches to the Orthodox Church after the rebellions of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 in the territories of the former Polish -Lithuanian Commonwealth which were incorporated into the Russian Empire, a great deal of sacred art pieces of western -Christian art became property of the Orthodox Church. As per directions of the Church authorities, the images of Jesus Christ, Our Lady and the Saints of the Undivided Church could remain in Orthodox churches, while those of Catholic and Greek -Catholic Saints were to be given back to Catholics. The images that were left in Orthodox churches were to be changed to meet the Orthodox rules. That usually meant addition of an inscription or repainting of the image partially or fully. The situation was different in relation to miraculous images. After being transferred to the Orthodox churches they remained unchanged, even in the cases when their iconography was unacceptable for the Orthodox Church or when they represented Catholic Saints, such as Ignatius Loyola or Anthony of Padua. This was related to the effect miraculous images had on local communities. The cult of miraculous images was above -confessional; believers of different Christian confessions went on pilgrimages to them. Leaving these images as is they were aimed at converting Catholics to Orthodoxy to strengthen the position of the Russian Empire on the land of the former Polish - -Lithuanian Commonwealth. To justify the functioning of western -Christian images in the Orthodox Church, both new legends were developed stating the images had Orthodox origins and were taken by Catholics, and attempts of theological rationale were made. These activities were successful: the images that survived through the disasters of the 20th century are still in the cult of the Orthodox Church along with the legends of their Orthodox origin developed in the 19th century.

SPANNING TRADITION AND MODERNITY – SOME THOUGTS PROMPTED BY THE CHURCH BUILDINGS COMPLEX LOCATED IN KRAKÓW – NOWA HUTA

Sacred buildings in Poland in the 20th century are characterized by a great variety of forms – although the sacred world is by its nature conservative. Different conditions should be taken into account when designing a church. In the sphere of sacred art and architecture one should rationally draw from the treasury of the new and the old. After World War II over 3,500 new churches were built in Poland, including the church in Nowa Huta in Krakow. This realization is an attempt to reconcile traditional forms with modernity and with the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council.

“Then He Stabbed Me with a Spear”: Aggressive Sacred Images and Interreligious Polemics

This paper studies Coptic communal identity in early Islamic Egypt by analyzing two hagiographical narratives from the Christian Copto-Arabic text The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. The narratives relate incidents of sacred images that become ‘aggressive’ when they retaliate against insults. Although the relation between religious violence and sacred art has merited much scholarly attention, the focus is usually on humans as the aggressors and sacred art as the victim. The reverse is scarcer, and its rarity means we miss an opportunity to rethink such narratives as communicative modes of rhetoric to be contextually interpreted. Here I argue that these aggressive sacred images were tools of power within a polemic religious discourse aimed at proclaiming divine truth, undergirding it with supernatural power, and ultimately shaping Coptic communal identity around this discourse.

Religion, Nonreligion and the Sacred: Art and the Contemporary Rituals of Birth

This paper looks at the role of art and material culture in the rituals of birth, first taking into consideration research on material culture in traditional rituals of birth and then turning to the primary topic, which is how art in the contemporary rituals of birth often holds sacred meaning even when the ritual is of a nonreligious nature. A discussion about the sacred in the context of a nonreligious ritual hinges upon an understanding of that which is “sacred”; thus, the paper looks at research on modern theology and the sacred to examine the term in the context of birth as a contemporary rite of passage. Giving examples of how material culture has been important in several traditional birth rituals from different cultures, the paper then traces a similar occurrence in which participants in contemporary nonreligious rituals of birth also uphold art and material culture as sacred elements of the rituals. The paper provides the reader with description of a rich array of art and material culture used across cultures in different rituals of birth. Taking into consideration the numerous contributions that scholars have made to the emerging field of birth and religion, including the interdisciplinary importance of theories related to birth as a rite of passage, the paper also presents new research on the materiality of the contemporary rituals of birth.

Roman Catholic Art after L’Art Sacré and Vatican II

The interaction between the Roman Catholic Church and the arts in the period after L’Art Sacré and Vatican II has been eventful. The role of the visual and liturgical arts within the framework of the Catholic context has evolved, sometimes in radical ways. Works of art have been commissioned, curated, and displayed in different types of spaces with varying purposes. These range from modest chapels to huge cathedrals and from small galleries to world-renowned museums and international contemporary art exhibition venues. The period begins in the 1960s with the end of both the Vatican II Council held in Rome from 1962 to 1965 and of L’Art Sacré, a journal of avant-garde theory and action regarding sacred art published in France from the 1930s to the 1960s. Vatican II made official many of the changes already undertaken by what could be called the Art Sacré movement. However, the 1960s had brought so much societal upheaval globally that the arts were no longer the center of focus in the immediate post–Vatican II moment; most importantly in the Western church were the rise of secularization and the decline of traditional religious practice. Yet, Vatican II delivered guidelines that addressed the visual and liturgical arts specifically, and it set into motion organizational work within the Catholic Church that has allowed for several different types of artistic action to develop over the years. This quiet moment for the arts in the church afforded the emergence of a new generation of actors who, because of the years of theoretical and logistical groundwork, would be able to deploy the new policies of the Vatican. These could be poetically encapsulated in the via pulchritudinis, “the way of beauty,” referring to 13th-century theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas’s terminology. In this spirit, the popes since Vatican II have all engaged with the question of sacred art by calling out to artists to work for the church, collecting their work, and sponsoring exhibitions of contemporary art both at the Vatican and in international venues. At the same time, in countries like France and Germany where patrimony and heritage are high-stakes issues, cultural politics could be read as becoming an ally of the church—each with its own agenda at play. Both modest and major commissions for art in churches and cathedrals can be observed in this context, whether they be single artworks, series of stained-glass, or multifaceted ensembles. In countries like the United States and Australia, shifting demographics and concerns with cultural inclusiveness have played major roles in the application of liturgical reform and the types of art commissioned for churches. This activity highlights and demonstrates the theoretical premises of Vatican II put into action, sometimes with difficulty and resistance from within the church itself. This period depends mainly on primary sources for its information and must be seen as a narrow topic within the much broader conversation between contemporary art and religion. Studying it in depth means navigating between isolationist methodology and using comparative strategies associating neighboring topics and fields.

Religious views of Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti on sacred art

Being founded upon the book «Instructions on religious and secular images» (1582), the article examines cardinal Gabriele Paleotti’s views on sacred art. The author explores the issue of perception of painting as a God-pleasing art, exposes the ideological aspect of sacred painting and reveals the cardinal’s complex evidence base on the need for the existence of religious images in churches and their significance in the life of every person. It is concluded that objects of art should be perceived not only as an artistic commentary on the text of Holy Scripture, but also as a prayer image that plays a cohesive role in interlocution with God.

Sacred Art Between Tradition and Personal Expression: The Orthodox Icon and Artistical Transgressions of the Canon

The aim of this article is to present a personal reflection regarding the theoretical/philosophical relation between the generally accepted theological grounding of icon painting and other contemporary artistical endeavours to integrate the religious feeling – of Christian-Orthodox inspiration. This reflection is based on a mixture of ideas from different thought-frameworks which have as common ground the need for speculating on issues such as ‘tradition understanding’, ‘personal expression’, ‘art and religiousness’, exactly those key-themes that are constituting the fundamental threads of my argumentation. Hence, my appeal to authors like Lucian Blaga, Leonid Uspensky, Martin Heidegger, Paul Evdochimov, and Christos Yannaras. The point of departure for my study is the powerful and unavoidable conflict between the need for personal artistic interpretations of religious themes – expressed through contemporary artistic techniques and the application of contemporary metaphysical modelings – and the need for attaching oneself to an ‘authentic’ tradition of religious experience and to a community with deep roots in history. My all-round thesis is that this conflict cannot be, at least, clarified by choosing, from the artistic point of view, between two extremes: contemporary secular art on the one hand, and sacred, canonical art on the other hand, but by finding conceptual common pathways.