| 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."290
[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.291 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.292 I became enamored of her beauty.293
2501 Created
"in the image of God,"294 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,295 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.296
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."297 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.
______________
290
Wis 13:3, 5.
291
Wis 7:25-26.
292
Wis 7:29-30.
293
Wis 8:2.
294
Gen 1:26.
295
Cf. Wis 7:16-17
296
Cf. Pius XII, Musicae sacrae disciplina; Discourses of September 3 and
December 25, 1950.
297
Heb 1:3; Col 2:9.
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