Description
Few things are more depressing than the art, architecture and furnishings of the average modern church. The glorious aesthetic of light and colour of the Middle Ages and Renaissance has been replaced with an infantile modernist decor more suited to a primary school than a place of worship.
In the Catholic Church, especially, bishops who may privately have reasonably good taste happily commission cringeworthy 1970s-style art because they think it's demanded by 'the spirit of Vatican II'.
Is there any way Christian art can escape from the grip of mediocrity? My guest on this episode of Holy Smoke thinks there is. She's the charismatic Rome-based art historian Dr Elizabeth Lev, whose TED talk about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is both erudite and, in places, hilarious. Liz's plan to rescue Church art is ingenious and, I think, achievable. But to find out more you'll have to listen to the podcast.
Since the election of an overwhelmingly secular Labour government, people who describe themselves as humanists have a spring in their step: for example, there's a prospect that humanist weddings will be legally recognised in England and Wales (they already are in Scotland).
But what exactly is...
Published 11/08/24
In this week’s Spectator, William Finlater reveals that some of the Church of Scotland’s most precious architectural heritage is being flogged off quickly, cheaply and discreetly. Most western denominations are being forced to close churches, but the fire sale of hundreds of Scottish churches is...
Published 10/25/24