VI. Truth, Beauty, and
Sacred Art
2500
The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral
beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual
beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself. Truth in words, the rational expression
of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality, is necessary to man, who is
endowed with intellect. But truth can also find other complementary forms of
human expression, above all when it is a matter of evoking what is beyond
words: the depths of the human heart, the exaltations of the soul, the mystery
of God. Even before revealing himself to man in words of truth, God reveals
himself to him through the universal language of creation, the work of his
Word, of his wisdom: the order and harmony of the cosmos - which both the child
and the scientist discover - "from the greatness and beauty of created
things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator," "for the
author of beauty created them."289
[Wisdom] is a breath of the
power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore
nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal
light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his
goodness.290 For [wisdom] is more beautiful than the sun, and excels
every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she is found to be
superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not
prevail.291 I became enamored of her beauty.292
2501
Created "in the image of God,"293 man also expresses the
truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic
works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the
search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art
is a freely given superabundance of the human being's inner riches. Arising
from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of
practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill,294 to give form to the
truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent
that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness
to God's activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is
not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate
end of man.295
2502
Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular
vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery
of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ,
who "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his
nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells
bodily."296 This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most
holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man
to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy
One and Sanctifier.
2503
For this reason bishops, personally or through delegates, should see to the
promotion of sacred art, old and new, in all its forms and, with the same
religious care, remove from the liturgy and from places of worship everything
which is not in conformity with the truth of faith and the authentic beauty of
sacred art.297
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