Michelangelo and Me 3 comments

By Peggy Rosenthal

Comments on my February post about a secular appreciation of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books weighed in passionately on the question of whether one has to accept the religious beliefs of an artist in order to find meaning in the art work. Image’s upcoming Florence Seminar on “The Christian Humanism of Michelangelo” has sparked the question for me anew.

Here’s why: there was a time in my life when I stood blankly bewildered before Michelangelo’s Pietà.

It was when the Vatican loaned this sculptural masterpiece to the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Literally millions of people stood in the hours-long line for the chance to file by one of the world’s most celebrated works of art. I was among the throng of viewers, though I wasn’t sure why.

I’d gone to the World’s Fair with my first husband and his family, who lived nearby. I was twenty years old. My memory of the day is vague, mostly the visceral recollection of standing in line outside in the dust, thirsty under an uncomfortably hot sun. I vaguely remember the relief of finally reaching the cooler inside of the Pietà exhibition area; I vaguely remember a surrounding darkness, the brightness of the highlighted marble statue, and lots of flickering blue lights. (Hung around the statue were strings of simulated blue votive candles, which struck me as kitsch.)

I remember willing myself into a sense of awe, yet aware that mine was an awe steeped in ignorance. With no religious upbringing and at that point almost no knowledge of Christianity, I had no context for what I was seeing. My husband and in-laws were Jewish and seemed as out of touch with the sculpture’s meaning as I. From a college Art History course, I could appreciate the achievement of sculpting marble into swirls of drapery folds and life-like human form. But without any religious context for what I was seeing—without even a basic familiarity with the story being told—I could not connect with the art work’s call to transcendence.

What makes Michelangelo’s Pietà a masterpiece was lost on me. Because its beauty only barely begins with those sculpted marble swirls. Its beauty resides primarily in the incarnational splendor of these bodies—their spiritual energy caught and conveyed by polished stone seemingly become flesh.

Perhaps any believer in the Christian faith, as I’ve now been for over a quarter century, sees in Michelangelo’s achievement an image of the divine power which brings death to life. Believers know from the Christian story that the figure of Christ in this Pietà is dead, yet the artist makes him look alive. Further, Michelangelo sculpts the two figures of Mother and Son as one flowing shape, so that even as we grieve with the Mother, we praise God for taking on, in Christ, the vulnerability of our human condition. And further still, Michelangelo’s crafting of the two figures so that Mary appears to be giving birth anew to her Son recalls her initial assent to open her body to God’s mystery, eliciting our thankful praise of her and also our hope that we too might open ourselves to be God’s vessels.

I know that there are secular ways to appreciate this sculpture’s artistry. But for me, being inwardly moved by the Pietà was impossible until I shared the artist’s religious faith.

Today I’m experiencing this fascinating phenomenon from a different angle—as my husband and I complete the manuscript of a book on the beauty at the core of both Christianity and Islam, beauty manifested in ways of life and in works of art. The Muslim art that we include impresses me, but it doesn’t touch the core of my being. I can listen enrapt to the glorious sounds of the tajwid style of Qur’anic chanting; I can delight in the nearly abstract swirling lines of contemporary calligraphists making visual art of a beloved phrase from the Qur’an.

But I know that this art is not engaging my soul as it does the souls of my Muslim friends. For them, these art forms bring to life the very Word of God. For me, contemporary art that speaks to my soul is crafted by Christians: say, the paintings of Makoto Fujimura, the poetry of Jeanne Murray Walker, the porcelain sculptures of Ginger Geyer, Marilynne Robinsons’ novel Gilead.

And for you, dear cyberspace readers? Do you need to share an artist’s faith in order to be moved by the art?