My apologies - guess I misunderstood 'world of hilarity' - ln any case, as hilarity is a good hiding place for awful truths. I'll hide mine more carefully here.
Thanks for putting in understandable terms what I found unsettling but could not articulate. It brings to mind illustrations in hand missals. I have several on my shelf: the Angelus Press and Fr. Lasance missals use older, traditional, realistic art and the effect is powerful; I have a JMJ 1962 missal (prayers by Christine Mohrmann. Yay!) what what I can only call vulgar or low-brow art not worthy of the texts; and, I have a 1962 St. Andrew's missal with a sort of woodcut art that is modern but somehow appealing. As a former Orthodox, your points on icons I find spot-on.
I agree that art should stand or fall on it's own merits and Rupnik's art should have fallen long before any scandal came to light. It's not just perverse, it's bad art. I would depict demons with eyes and faces like that, but never saints. I remember my mother complaining that the hardest thing to take about the new Mass and all it's baggage was just how *ugly* it was. It's oppressively ugly by design I suspect, and so's Rupnik's junk.
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Good example from St Paul.
You've put into words what I'd been thinking for awhile. There's nothing like picking up a missalette (Rupnik on the front) then taking note of the composers of the apalling songs to google them later. Like a drinking game:
-Did he leave the priesthood within ten years of composing that song? One shot!
-Is he survived by a husband who is also an ex-Jesuit? Double shot! (bonus shot if he died of an Immuno-deficiency syndrome)
And so forth.
ON THE OTHER HAND and lest one should gloat immoderately, the recently published report on Père Marie-Dominique Philippe, a knight in shining armour of pre-Conciliar Thomism, indicates that our side too has its Rupniks.
I appreciate the critique. I do wonder though, if this part of his work was intentional rather than random as you suggest here or subversive as you suggest elsewhere of other parts. “The Christ of the baptism on the left is apparently randomly lower than that of the Christ of the Transfiguration.” Christ’s Baptism is Our Lord lowering himself into our waters, into the chaos, into humanity. His transfiguration or ascension or pantocrator (whatever it is, as you say it’s ambiguous), is the elevation of his humanity up to God again. So, I think it’s probably intentional.
My experience with someone like this and their theological project is not to undermine and subvert expectations or rules for randomness or transgression for its own sake, but to further a theological agenda, indeed, even as you say. But often you claim that he is doing this for no reason, for the sake of vogue nouvelle work, to be noticed. And I just wanted to point this piece out to make the counterpoint that the subversion of art canons can actually make a true theological argument as well as a false one, however ugly he ended up portraying it.
He's a Jesuit. 15 years of training being steeped in that depraved organisation's subversive ideology. There's no reasonable doubt that his subversive work was intentionally so.
Thank you for the very thorough explanation of why this horrible "art" has always creeped me out. The person who creates art always exposes their inner state, so it's no surprise many of us see something unsettling- even if we didn't know the truth of his life. The thought of his mosaics decorating Padre Pio's tomb makes me feel ill. It's a wonder our dear Saint has not turned over in his grave at the demonic forces still haunting his body! I would tear them all out everywhere if I could.
Superb explanation of a perverse aesthetic. It got me thinking of the Objective Room in C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, where malevolent institutional powers distort the natural good in a premeditated and often subtle way. Add in that mawkish, egalitarian childishness of the Sixties to get the diabolic mixture correct. The great, almost unclassifiable fantasist, R. A. Lafferty, never tired of taking down the vulgar pretentiousness of the guitar strumming Mass crowd. Nicely done.
Re the real icon of the Transfiguration, Our Lord is always shown with Moses and Elias (both are Saints on the Byzantine calendar along with Sts. Peter, James & John the Theologian.
You're correct that it is not a Pantocrator. If anything, it would be a parody of Christ the Teacher, which is extremely ironic as well as blasphemous because the Jesuits (with a few notable exceptions) have not taught the Catholic Faith whole and entire (c.f. the Athanasian Creed) for at least 2 generations.
O Holy Father Athanasius, pray for our Church and Bishop Schneider who bears your name ! ☦️
Many thanks for your excellent article. It is such a help for anyone who needs an explanation of why
this work "feels" incredibly ugly for those of us who can't quite articulate why. Another "why?" is the obvious question of why those who made the choice of having this perverted man adorn a place long venerated by those who need the comfort of our Lord's presence in that holy place only to have it, yes, perverted. It seems bitterly symbolic of the aberrations unintended by Vatican II.
Please forgive my adding another comment and, perhaps, a question. You may remember the old Hollywood production of Dracula, with Bela Lugosi. It is said that he was a drug (opium?) addict. In any case, closeups of his face show eyes with huge pupils, which make the eyes almost entirely black. As the image of evil, surely those huge, black eyes are most effective. Perhaps that is what Rupnik was conveying, knowingly or unknowingly?
The eyes are the window to the soul. Art is extremely personal. It’s an extension of the perception of the individual. Someone who is ordained has the Gift of Christ within him. That is LIGHT. Note it never comes through in any of the eyes. In fact Rupniks eyes in every one of his works are disproportionally large (maybe purposefully plagiarized) and are always black, and empty. Oddly so. The other interesting note is his placement of hands: again disproportionately elongated and awkwardly sexualized by their placement. I love Byzantine art and Icons. These features are dark to me and given the egregious acts he’s committed as a predator, I believe this is his way of “marking” territory. In a similar way predators serial killers collect souvenirs from a kill. This is demonic. I don’t believe a single one should be allowed to occupy a sacred space.
When working out the initial constitution of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius made no provision for prison cells (a common feature of religious orders at the time). When asked about this, he said that they'd have the door instead.
Might be a time for a re-think on that one.
This is symptomatic of what the Jesuits have allowed to happen to the Society. They have a ling-standing problem with obedience. Since the very essence of a Jesuit, the sine qua non, this keeps getting more and more out of hand.
John Paul II stayed his hand and did not suppress them. Soon, they'll not be so lucky if they do not start to obey, perinde ac cadaver, as the saying goes.
This is obviously the case - the Jesuit order has lost control of its members - but I think this is because of a fundamental error at the beginning. The Jesuit concept of religious obedience was a radical departure from the medieval monastic concept, a radical novelty based on Ignatius' military experience. This novelty of "blind" militaristic obedience was used after Trent to create internal discipline, not only in the Jesuits and religious life more broadly, but throughout the Church that now found itself under siege on all sides in a madly expanding world. This new Jesuit style obedience was a long-term disaster. It solved certain immediate problems facing the Church in the 17th and 18th centuries, but insidiously corroded the foundations by an attempted denial of a key aspect of human nature. I firmly believe that the Jesuit distortion of obedience has brought us to our current disastrous condition.
This is an excellent summary of the disorder that is the Jesuits. My mother was a devout Catholic. She wanted to be buried from her favorite church. The funeral home was a 15 min drive to the church but down a highway. Sure enough the procession ran into a wreck and was delayed 10 mins getting to the church. The Jesuit priest was so angry he slammed the book of Gospels on my mother’s coffin. My dad collapsed. His sermon was 3 sentences and essentially was she’s dead Rest in peace let’s get on with it. Keep in mind it was 1000 dollar donation. He wasn’t a priest. He was a business man who couldn’t be inconvenienced with things out of our control.
I’m an artist and I love Godly inspired art. I’ve never liked nor appreciated Rupniks stuff. It always creeped me out and never seemed fitting for inside or around the church. It lacks the beauty of truly spiritually inspired works. The eyes are always black and have zero light in them, there is no expression on the faces and his content always is bizarrely distorted. Knowing the depth and scope of his disgusting appetite for desecrating Our Lords altars sexually: The Chalice which held The Sacred Blood and use of God to gain trust…I am mortified and stricken with complete disgust. Our poor Lord Jesus. Every last piece should be removed and destroyed! He should pay these churches restitution! He’s not an artist he is a dog marking territory! Leave NOT a single remnant of his so called art and exorcise it burn it and toss it in the deepest depths of the earth. Horrified.
I enjoyed your other series on icons vs. sacred art. The Orthodox Church teaches that iconography is a sacred vocation to be pursued with fear and trembling in the context of a holy lifestyle. Even a simple visit to the Iconography page on Orthodox Wiki will tell you that traditionally, monks and nuns are those who write icons, and they do so with much prayer and fasting.
It's impossible to divorce the personal life of a true iconographer from the product of his or her work.
Umm... <shocked awkward silence> Could I ask you not to leave this kind of comment again, please? Thanks.
Think of me as a Victorian auntie in a high collar presiding over a drawing room tea service, and modify accordingly. If that helps.
My apologies - guess I misunderstood 'world of hilarity' - ln any case, as hilarity is a good hiding place for awful truths. I'll hide mine more carefully here.
"Hilarity" is my nickname of longstanding. "Hilarityjane." So, world of Hilarity is my world, the stuff I'm interested in.
Thanks for putting in understandable terms what I found unsettling but could not articulate. It brings to mind illustrations in hand missals. I have several on my shelf: the Angelus Press and Fr. Lasance missals use older, traditional, realistic art and the effect is powerful; I have a JMJ 1962 missal (prayers by Christine Mohrmann. Yay!) what what I can only call vulgar or low-brow art not worthy of the texts; and, I have a 1962 St. Andrew's missal with a sort of woodcut art that is modern but somehow appealing. As a former Orthodox, your points on icons I find spot-on.
I agree that art should stand or fall on it's own merits and Rupnik's art should have fallen long before any scandal came to light. It's not just perverse, it's bad art. I would depict demons with eyes and faces like that, but never saints. I remember my mother complaining that the hardest thing to take about the new Mass and all it's baggage was just how *ugly* it was. It's oppressively ugly by design I suspect, and so's Rupnik's junk.
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Good example from St Paul.
Children are not usually perverts.
Hallo Hilary,
You've put into words what I'd been thinking for awhile. There's nothing like picking up a missalette (Rupnik on the front) then taking note of the composers of the apalling songs to google them later. Like a drinking game:
-Did he leave the priesthood within ten years of composing that song? One shot!
-Is he survived by a husband who is also an ex-Jesuit? Double shot! (bonus shot if he died of an Immuno-deficiency syndrome)
And so forth.
ON THE OTHER HAND and lest one should gloat immoderately, the recently published report on Père Marie-Dominique Philippe, a knight in shining armour of pre-Conciliar Thomism, indicates that our side too has its Rupniks.
I appreciate the critique. I do wonder though, if this part of his work was intentional rather than random as you suggest here or subversive as you suggest elsewhere of other parts. “The Christ of the baptism on the left is apparently randomly lower than that of the Christ of the Transfiguration.” Christ’s Baptism is Our Lord lowering himself into our waters, into the chaos, into humanity. His transfiguration or ascension or pantocrator (whatever it is, as you say it’s ambiguous), is the elevation of his humanity up to God again. So, I think it’s probably intentional.
My experience with someone like this and their theological project is not to undermine and subvert expectations or rules for randomness or transgression for its own sake, but to further a theological agenda, indeed, even as you say. But often you claim that he is doing this for no reason, for the sake of vogue nouvelle work, to be noticed. And I just wanted to point this piece out to make the counterpoint that the subversion of art canons can actually make a true theological argument as well as a false one, however ugly he ended up portraying it.
He's a Jesuit. 15 years of training being steeped in that depraved organisation's subversive ideology. There's no reasonable doubt that his subversive work was intentionally so.
Thank you for the very thorough explanation of why this horrible "art" has always creeped me out. The person who creates art always exposes their inner state, so it's no surprise many of us see something unsettling- even if we didn't know the truth of his life. The thought of his mosaics decorating Padre Pio's tomb makes me feel ill. It's a wonder our dear Saint has not turned over in his grave at the demonic forces still haunting his body! I would tear them all out everywhere if I could.
For sure the black eyes are the absolute worst
Superb explanation of a perverse aesthetic. It got me thinking of the Objective Room in C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, where malevolent institutional powers distort the natural good in a premeditated and often subtle way. Add in that mawkish, egalitarian childishness of the Sixties to get the diabolic mixture correct. The great, almost unclassifiable fantasist, R. A. Lafferty, never tired of taking down the vulgar pretentiousness of the guitar strumming Mass crowd. Nicely done.
In my follow up post I get into the comparison with the Objective Room specifically.
Re the real icon of the Transfiguration, Our Lord is always shown with Moses and Elias (both are Saints on the Byzantine calendar along with Sts. Peter, James & John the Theologian.
You're correct that it is not a Pantocrator. If anything, it would be a parody of Christ the Teacher, which is extremely ironic as well as blasphemous because the Jesuits (with a few notable exceptions) have not taught the Catholic Faith whole and entire (c.f. the Athanasian Creed) for at least 2 generations.
O Holy Father Athanasius, pray for our Church and Bishop Schneider who bears your name ! ☦️
Many thanks for your excellent article. It is such a help for anyone who needs an explanation of why
this work "feels" incredibly ugly for those of us who can't quite articulate why. Another "why?" is the obvious question of why those who made the choice of having this perverted man adorn a place long venerated by those who need the comfort of our Lord's presence in that holy place only to have it, yes, perverted. It seems bitterly symbolic of the aberrations unintended by Vatican II.
Please forgive my adding another comment and, perhaps, a question. You may remember the old Hollywood production of Dracula, with Bela Lugosi. It is said that he was a drug (opium?) addict. In any case, closeups of his face show eyes with huge pupils, which make the eyes almost entirely black. As the image of evil, surely those huge, black eyes are most effective. Perhaps that is what Rupnik was conveying, knowingly or unknowingly?
The eyes are the window to the soul. Art is extremely personal. It’s an extension of the perception of the individual. Someone who is ordained has the Gift of Christ within him. That is LIGHT. Note it never comes through in any of the eyes. In fact Rupniks eyes in every one of his works are disproportionally large (maybe purposefully plagiarized) and are always black, and empty. Oddly so. The other interesting note is his placement of hands: again disproportionately elongated and awkwardly sexualized by their placement. I love Byzantine art and Icons. These features are dark to me and given the egregious acts he’s committed as a predator, I believe this is his way of “marking” territory. In a similar way predators serial killers collect souvenirs from a kill. This is demonic. I don’t believe a single one should be allowed to occupy a sacred space.
Hi there,
Can I ask you about your opinion on Kiko Argüello's art? It seems to be also `primitive` and `byzantine`. But for me - strange, disturbing.
It's the kind of work you'd expect from a psychopathic cult leader. So, appropriate, I guess.
When working out the initial constitution of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius made no provision for prison cells (a common feature of religious orders at the time). When asked about this, he said that they'd have the door instead.
Might be a time for a re-think on that one.
This is symptomatic of what the Jesuits have allowed to happen to the Society. They have a ling-standing problem with obedience. Since the very essence of a Jesuit, the sine qua non, this keeps getting more and more out of hand.
John Paul II stayed his hand and did not suppress them. Soon, they'll not be so lucky if they do not start to obey, perinde ac cadaver, as the saying goes.
I enjoyed your piece. Thanks.
This is obviously the case - the Jesuit order has lost control of its members - but I think this is because of a fundamental error at the beginning. The Jesuit concept of religious obedience was a radical departure from the medieval monastic concept, a radical novelty based on Ignatius' military experience. This novelty of "blind" militaristic obedience was used after Trent to create internal discipline, not only in the Jesuits and religious life more broadly, but throughout the Church that now found itself under siege on all sides in a madly expanding world. This new Jesuit style obedience was a long-term disaster. It solved certain immediate problems facing the Church in the 17th and 18th centuries, but insidiously corroded the foundations by an attempted denial of a key aspect of human nature. I firmly believe that the Jesuit distortion of obedience has brought us to our current disastrous condition.
This is an excellent summary of the disorder that is the Jesuits. My mother was a devout Catholic. She wanted to be buried from her favorite church. The funeral home was a 15 min drive to the church but down a highway. Sure enough the procession ran into a wreck and was delayed 10 mins getting to the church. The Jesuit priest was so angry he slammed the book of Gospels on my mother’s coffin. My dad collapsed. His sermon was 3 sentences and essentially was she’s dead Rest in peace let’s get on with it. Keep in mind it was 1000 dollar donation. He wasn’t a priest. He was a business man who couldn’t be inconvenienced with things out of our control.
I’m an artist and I love Godly inspired art. I’ve never liked nor appreciated Rupniks stuff. It always creeped me out and never seemed fitting for inside or around the church. It lacks the beauty of truly spiritually inspired works. The eyes are always black and have zero light in them, there is no expression on the faces and his content always is bizarrely distorted. Knowing the depth and scope of his disgusting appetite for desecrating Our Lords altars sexually: The Chalice which held The Sacred Blood and use of God to gain trust…I am mortified and stricken with complete disgust. Our poor Lord Jesus. Every last piece should be removed and destroyed! He should pay these churches restitution! He’s not an artist he is a dog marking territory! Leave NOT a single remnant of his so called art and exorcise it burn it and toss it in the deepest depths of the earth. Horrified.
I enjoyed your other series on icons vs. sacred art. The Orthodox Church teaches that iconography is a sacred vocation to be pursued with fear and trembling in the context of a holy lifestyle. Even a simple visit to the Iconography page on Orthodox Wiki will tell you that traditionally, monks and nuns are those who write icons, and they do so with much prayer and fasting.
It's impossible to divorce the personal life of a true iconographer from the product of his or her work.