ARTE

ART. —

I. HISTORY OF THE WORD

The term has never had, strictly speaking, a univocal meaning; it can be understood in a broader sense (from the art of dying to the art of the blacksmith, etc.). It is therefore difficult to provide a definition, since the various meanings and figurative uses deviate from a strict and clear specification. In a general sense, one can say that art exists when, in any activity, value is placed on the manner in which it is carried out, achieving a form that is posited as perfect. However, the distinction or indistinction of particular meanings within the broader concept corresponds to different ways of understanding, and thus to different historical positions. It is therefore advisable to examine, albeit through essential episodes, how the current meaning was reached—the meaning that is the subject of this discussion—namely, art as the essence of poetry, music, and the so-called figurative arts.

In the Middle Ages, the Aristotelian-Thomistic approach placed art within the realm of virtues: practical virtues, and more precisely of "making" as opposed to "acting": "ars est recta ratio factibilium... facto est actus transiens in exteriorem materiam, sicut aedificare, secare et huiusmodi: agere autem est actus permanens in ipso agente, sicut videre, velle et huiusmodi" (Sum. Theol., 1^2^, q. 57, a. 4, c.). Yet art was seen as having a more distinctly intellectual character than the particular virtue of acting, which is prudence: "ars magis convenit cum habitibus speculativis in ratione virtutis, quam cum prudentia" (Sum. Theol., 1^2^, q. 57, a. 4, ad 2); this was because prudence, despite having absolute principles "per conformitatem ad appetitum rectum," must rely on "regulae arbitrariae" in applying them, since moral life never presents identical situations: "ea quae sunt ad finem in rebus humanis non sunt determinata, sed multipliciter diversificantur secundum diversitatem personarum et negotiorum" (Sum. Theol., 2^2^, q. 47, a. 15); whereas art, by contrast, has fixed rules determined by reason: "immo nihil aliud ars esse videtur, quam certa ordinatio rationis, quomodo per determinata media ad determinatum finem actus humani perveniant" (St. Thomas, Poster. Analyst., I. I, lectio I, 1). Art therefore approaches science, though in some cases, such as the art of medicine and agriculture, it too requires "regulae arbitrariae."

St. Thomas further clarifies this relationship with science regarding the distinction between mechanical and liberal arts, a concept inherited from classical antiquity. The former, which St. Thomas calls servile arts, "ordinantur ad opera per corpus exercita"; the latter, divided into the trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy), are "habitus speculativi" "ordinantur ad huiusmodi opera rationis." The liberal arts thus approach the "scientiae," but differ in that the latter "ad nullum huiusmodi opus ordinantur." The servile arts are certainly inferior to the liberal arts, just as the body is subject to the soul, but "nec oportet, si liberales artes sunt nobiliores, quod magis eis conveniat ratio artis" (Sum. Theol., 1^2^, q. 57, a. 3, ad 3).

In the Middle Ages, therefore, the general concept of art did not distinguish that particular form of activity which would later become the object of aesthetics. Of the arts as we understand them today, only music was included among the liberal arts, due to its then-prevalent scientific character and its reducibility to numerical relationships. Painting, architecture, etc., were classified as mechanical arts, not distinguished as essences from the art of shipbuilding or tool-making. Indeed, from Isidore of Seville onward, all encyclopedists gave precepts of artistic technique, placing architecture, for example, on the same level as the art of weaving; nor did this concept change in the statutes of the artisan guilds. Cennini (v.), in his *Libro dell’arte*, though rich in insightful observations on the nature of painting, combines precepts concerning this art with others on dyeing fabrics and preparing and using ingredients for mosaics.

This does not mean that the Middle Ages lacked an aesthetics of its own: suffice it to recall the role of beauty in St. Augustine, similar to that proposed by Plotinus (v. AESTHETICS), and the definition of the beautiful as an attribute of Being, not as a mere accident, metaphysically coinciding with the Good, the One, etc., in the Thomistic conception. However, the concept of the beautiful, despite its Plotinian approach, was not explicitly related to that of art as it would later become. Nonetheless, the Scholastics did, albeit implicitly, provide some remarkably clear insights into the concept of aesthetic beauty, creation, the purpose of art, etc., some of which will be touched upon later.

It is not possible to pinpoint the exact moment when the term *art* assumed its current meaning. Even though the interest of Humanism focused on particular forms of art (Ghiberti compiled the history of illustrious painters of his time, and Alberti wrote treatises on painting, sculpture, and—most impressively—architecture, understanding these arts in the modern sense of creators of beauty), the word *art* still referred only to an element of the creative act, namely the capacity for execution (though not to be confused with technique in the modern sense). Indeed, the word *art* almost always appears accompanied by the term *ingegno* (ingenuity), which denotes invention, the mental act of conceiving through imagination—corresponding, in the intellectual climate of the time, to what was called *fantasia* (v.) in the late Middle Ages (Cennini) and in our own day.

Yet as early as Boccaccio, the classification of painting, sculpture, etc., among the mechanical arts no longer satisfied, and there was a tendency to place these arts on the same level as the liberal arts, or rather to detach them simply from the concept of "mechanical," which began to take on a pejorative meaning (Hugh of St. Victor, Boccaccio). Alberti, with his definition of the architect (in *De re aedificatoria*, preface), fully achieved this liberation; and finally Leonardo declared that painting is the noblest of all human activities because it makes man ("lord and god") of the universe through vision, realizing in this the highest evidence of the mental synthesis that is proper to man.

In the 16th century, the concept of art became more precise: Vasari, by coining the term "art of design," sanctioned the intimate affinity of painting, sculpture, and architecture, explicitly justifying it with the assertion (repeated in the centuries that followed) that design is the common father of the arts. This term, which persisted for a long time, is still found in Hegel; Winckelmann stated that in his writings he intended to deal with the "arts of design," affirming that he used the term "history of art" only for brevity. Indeed, even today, the phrase "history of art" commonly refers to the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture.

The essential identity of the arts of design with music and poetry (to say nothing of other manifestations, such as dance, etc.), which is for us moderns an accepted concept, was by no means clear during the Renaissance; the Horatian *ut pictura poesis* was repeated, as indeed it had been in the Middle Ages, but only in an extrinsic and occasional sense. It is nonetheless to be noted in this a comparison, at least adumbrated, between the arts, a comparison which Leonardo treated most extensively; and thus the implicit recognition that, being comparable among themselves, the various arts must have some common element. Yet it is certain that an explicit affirmation of the essential identity of the arts was not pronounced before the 17th century, for it was only in this century that, in France, the use of a term which, by its very force as a common attribute, effectively unifies the arts came into vogue: the term was *beauté*, which indeed appears conjoined with that of *arts* in the formula *beaux arts*. The expression passed also into Italy (Bettinelli); and later, Milizia combined the two terms in the title of his celebrated pamphlet *Del modo di vedere nelle belle arti del disegno*.

In Germany the Italian designation was at first prevalent, then the French; but by the mid-18th century Lessing, in his *Laocoon*, enunciated the new formula *bildende Kunst*. This tended to sharply separate, in their essence, poetry from painting, calling the former a time art and the latter a space art; in the term *bildende* is reflected the then widespread conviction of the excellence of Greek sculpture (Lessing, in fact, demonstrates his thesis chiefly on the basis of an ancient work of sculpture). *Bild* in the strict sense means figure, and in a broader sense is any object which has been formless mass and has received from art a precise form. This terminology was accepted in Germany; in Italy an attempt was made to translate it as *arti formanti*; the terms *arti plastiche* or *arti figurative* were also used (the first to employ this last term was Selvatico in 1855). The theory of *pure visibility* (v. CRITICA D'ARTE), which limits artistic qualities to visual elements, has suggested the name *arti visive*, now resolutely employed by Berenson for painting, sculpture, and architecture (L. Venturi).

The philosophical formulation of the concept of art is due to modern philosophy, which, first with Vico’s fundamental thesis and then with the treatments of the Leibnizian school and later Kant, developed—isolating it from other concerns—the science of aesthetics; and today, despite divergences of opinion and of aesthetic systems, we have acquired a clear consciousness of this particular form of human activity which is artistic creation.

Naturally, since it is a matter of human activity, its boundaries cannot be defined with geometric rigor; and while we immediately recognize its proper characteristics in the five arts—painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and poetry—we cannot deny that these same characteristics are also found, for example, in goldsmithing, dance, or eloquence, albeit mingled with other, practical or cognitive, elements. The tendency of modern criticism is precisely to investigate the essence of art beyond its various occasional manifestations, which in practice leads to a reevaluation of the so-called *minor arts* (miniature, goldsmithing, the art of furniture, of fabrics, etc.); from this point of view, today as in the Middle Ages, no division into various forms of activity is possible. It is better, therefore, instead of seeking to distinguish the separate extensions of art, to attempt to inquire what common concept underlies these various manifestations and the various problems it raises; and, for the sake of brevity, to refrain from considering the predominance which authors from time to time confer upon a particular art (for example, when one wishes to identify the terms art and poetry, or when it is asserted that all arts tend toward the condition of music).

II. THE CONCEPT OF ART

Modern authors, even those of opposing tendencies, agree in holding that art is a creative spiritual activity, not subordinate to any model or concept, an intuitive and hence lyrical rather than rational knowledge, and an expression of the spirit in the sensible; artistic creation, by its nature, is disinterested, sets itself no practical end, not even the highest; it has no other purpose than the perfection of form, yet for all that it is not a vain game or a dream, because in this perfection it achieves (as is implicitly consequent) an absolute value; in creating, as has been noted, art knows, but not in a logical, conceptual, discursive form, rather with immediate intuitive apprehension; it discovers and determines and reveals in the sensible new formal appearances, which then become the spiritual patrimony of all, even of non-artists, and in this way reveals new riches in creation and brings new praise to the Creator (Leonardo): one need only think, for example, how the taste for landscape arose first from Venetian and then from French painting.

The artist’s intuition, even if it begins from his individuality and preserves its imprint, has universal value; and this universal value the artist infuses into the sensible. And this is the wonder of art and its supreme dignity: to bring down the infinity of the spirit into a fragment of matter, to redeem and spiritualize the sensible, which brings the creative artist close to God. Thus is supremely exalted the efficacy of human personality, which, precisely for this reason, not only through the practice of art, does not draw away from the supreme principles on which it depends in every case and to which it is ordered, but indeed shows, as in a higher synthesis, the most evident power of such principles.

Yet in this nobility of art lies also its limit, its very drama: art is an expression of the spirit, but it must speak through the sensible; the artist is a creator, but only in a relative sense, in that he creates with the matter that preexists and is given to him; even the greatest genius is first and foremost a craftsman who, in order to bend matter to his expressive ends (Leonardo), must struggle with II.
From this dualism arise all the problems of art. What is the relationship between spiritual intuition and practical realization on the one hand, and on the other the new form of expression and the contents expressed? What is the relationship between art and other activities of the spirit?

III. ART AND TECHNIQUE

Positivism emphasized the importance of technique and the material employed, even making it the determining factor of form; idealism, on the contrary, overvalued the intuitive element, equating art with fantasy, art with lyricism, and assigning to technique only the office of a mnemonic device or an accidental means of transmitting one’s intuition.

Yet to make artistic activity depend on extrinsic elements would be to deny its spirituality and creativity and thus to deny it in its essence; the arguments adduced do not prove the fact, for while it is true that a construction in marble is different from one in wood, it is equally true that it is the artist who chooses the materials and bends them to his expressive ends; so much so that in the Baroque, for example, marble was treated as if it were cloth or even pure color, in order to achieve certain formal effects characteristic of that period and unmistakable in others; and the centuries preceding the van Eycks did not avail themselves of oil paints, although they knew of them, because the problem of form did not require it, just as the Greeks did not wish to use the arch in monumental buildings.

On the other hand, to assign purely mental value to the artistic phenomenon is to deny the concrete reality of the work of art, its character as an expression of the intelligible through and by means of the sensible. The artist knows well how difficult it is to overcome the passivity, the obtuseness of matter, and his work begins with the first brushstrokes or the first chisel blows: and the image is slowly and laboriously freed from the matter; so much so that, rigorously speaking, one may affirm that art does not preexist the executed work.

Technique, then, is necessary for the artist but does not dominate him; it is merely a means by which he can master matter. Technique can be taught; art cannot. The latter, indeed, belongs to reason, since reason is the principle of every human faculty, but it arises from a special aptitude, almost a gift, which predisposes the artist to creation. The artist is undoubtedly privileged, though he cannot boast of this, for the gift is gratuitous; his virtue will instead consist in serving this vocation, in nourishing it with all human and technical means so as to better express II.
Technique, therefore, does not determine the value of a work of art; and when the artist makes it his end, what results is virtuosity, not art. Hence it is absurd to speak of progress or decline in art based on a greater wealth of technique, as has been done since the Renaissance onward in judging medieval art. Every expression, if it is a form attained, is universally valid, whatever means it employs.

IV. FORM AND CONTENT

As for the relationship between form and content, it is clear that both elements are necessary to a work of art. The artist, if he expresses, cannot help but express something—whether it be the artist’s feeling or the subject represented; but what gives the work the value of art is the form, the manner in which the content is expressed. The content, that is, is entirely absorbed by the form, which recreates it anew, expressing itself in and through the form alone in a synthesis that is absolutely new, unrepeatable, and therefore of universal value.

It has been said very effectively (by L. Venturi) that a cry of pain can never be a work of art; that is, the mere expression of feeling in its empirical immediacy cannot, and does not, have universal value. For it to acquire such value, the artist must free himself from his own empiricism, contemplate his feeling, and “seek” the form that will express it in the best way. Thus it is entirely understandable how art is absolute liberation and purification (catharsis), and how it always generates, in every case, a feeling that can only be that special enjoyment to which the single attribute of “aesthetic” properly belongs. That is, even if what is represented in a work of art is in itself something painful or ugly, it is resolved—when contemplated by the artist and the viewer—into a particular pleasure: one applauds before a death scene and admires with satisfaction a painted monster.

The artist will have achieved an irreplaceable expression, to which nothing can be changed, removed, or added without breaking the spell, that is, without losing its harmony. (And here the concept of art is joined to that of “completeness.”) The artist must achieve, that is, the conditions of beauty, which St. Augustine called “unity” (De vera Relig., ch. 41), and which St. Thomas formulated in three points: “For beauty three things are required. First, integrity, or perfection. For what is defective is ugly by that very fact. Second, due proportion, or harmony. And third, clarity. Hence things that have a bright color are said to be beautiful” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 39, a. 8, c.), and which Alberti will enunciate in his celebrated definition: “Beauty is a harmony of all the parts arranged together with proportion and composition, in that thing in which they are found, so that nothing can be added, diminished, or changed without making it worse. And this is certainly a great and divine thing” (De re aedif., trans. Bartoli, bk. 6, ch. 2).

This unity, this integrity, this *concinnitas* is what moderns call style, that is, form attained and affirmed. This style, this form, precisely because it is the fruit of creation, will be new each time and unrepeatable. It is therefore vain to speak of progress or decline, not only with respect to technique, but also with respect to the style of a given artist (as Vasari did, for instance, with Michelangelo). To fix the perfection of art at a given historical moment or in certain works is to deny the life of the spirit, which is always renewing and growing within itself. For the artist, a previous style may serve as an experience and stimulus, but it must not become a canon, a bond that constrains his creative freedom. Hence, academic teaching—which studies styles divorced from the artistic personalities that created or recreated them, within which alone such “styles” have value—or worse, that posits a model in a single abstract and therefore artificial style judged gratuitously perfect—is not only vain but harmful. Whereas the medieval artisan’s workshop had the function of teaching technical means, which one with artistic vocation could then master, the academic schools from the 17th century onward, while they have not prevented the natural development of art—which finds its own way despite all obstacles—have nonetheless brought about an innumerable series of misunderstandings and misconceptions from which we are still not free. As Léonard rightly says, “the existing... is... that each expresses beauty in the spiritual line of the gift he has received... Living, he must recreate in spirit everything he touches, lest he reduce his discoveries to formulas... Necessarily, then, unable to live outside the common circulation, he accepts disciplines and continuity, but not constraints that would remain external to him, even if religious.”

V. ART AND NATURE

Another obstacle sometimes imposed on the artist is the natural model. The art-nature relationship constitutes perhaps the oldest question, for it was, one might say, the first problem regarding art that engaged the attention of Greek philosophers (Plato’s definition of art as mimesis—a partial and deceptive imitation of nature and therefore to be condemned is well known, and Aristotle’s reevaluation, which sees in art the representation not of the particular but of the universal, and thus—in our current language—no longer imitation). And the controversy cannot be said to be closed even today.

Even here, holding fast to the concept of art as spiritual creation, it is clear that art itself cannot copy nature (as has already been said for any mode of art) without renouncing its creative function. If it did so, the best work of art would be photography or some even more exact means of reproduction conforming to visual perception (which, however, never has absolute and unique value). The artist is free before his subject, and if he is truly an artist he ends by imposing his vision. There is, however, a truth in this concept of imitation: as St. Thomas said, “art imitates nature in its operation” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 117, a. 1, c.), and as Boccaccio repeats or as Kant will say, genius operates like nature; “its vocation is not to imitate created nature (which would only order it to matter) but in it the act of creating. A divine solution; it safeguards the essential dependence of man on creation and on God, and the essential independence of the creative impulse in the only domain in which man can claim it” (Léonard).

Moreover, it is indeed true that the artist is always free in his creation, but, as has been said, he must avail himself of sensible means to express himself; and if he paints, for example, a tree, he will indeed paint his “own” tree, but he must submit to certain conditions of intelligibility, linked to his condition as a man; which, it should be noted, are not fixed and immutable, but, on the contrary, reflect the continuous enrichment of human experience and the uncontrollable taste that can even give rise to conventional expressions. If, however, the artist disregards these conditions—as has occurred in some modern trends—he will pay for his sin of pride by failing to achieve art, that is, the transparency of the intelligible in the sensible, and instead produce either intellectual symbols, “figures” devoid of formal value, or meaningless signs, that is, signs without the light of the spirit.

VI. ART AND TASTE

Art is thus nourished by the entire life, spiritual and material, of man; this nourishment is indispensable to it and is at the same time its slavery: the artist can never disregard the taste of his time and his own individual taste; yet it is not this taste that constitutes the essence of the work of art, and so, as long as we speak, for example, of the love for perspective among the most humanistic painters of the Renaissance, of Baroque emphasis, or of the religiosity of Fra Angelico, we are not grasping the moment of art; these elements are, however, the necessary “historical” presuppositions of artistic creation, which will transfigure them (v. CRITICA D’ARTE).

VII. THE AUTONOMY OF ART

Art, by virtue of its dignity as an absolute creation, is an end in itself; it is not a means to the attainment of other ends, however lofty; art pleases and moves, but it does not set pleasure as its end, lest it fail as art; it does not demonstrate intellectual truths, nor does it provide precepts for moral edification; the artist, even when he expresses himself, must in a certain sense be objective, and, like the scientist, abandon himself to his object without thinking of the effect. Indeed, St. Thomas affirms with extreme clarity the autonomy of art; for, whereas “to the prudent man... it is required that he be well disposed toward ends... hence prudence requires moral virtue,” “the good of things made by art is not the good of human appetite, but the good of the works of art themselves: and so art does not presuppose a right appetite” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 57, a. 4, c.); “for it does not pertain to the praise of the artist, insofar as he is an artist, in what manner he makes the work, but what the work is that he makes... For as long as the geometer demonstrates the truth, it does not matter how he is disposed in his appetitive part, whether he is joyful or angry: just as it does not matter, as has been said, in the case of the artist” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 57, a. 3, c.).

The artist, then, insofar as he is an artist, must serve only the perfection of the work he accomplishes; his moral intentions, his qualities are indifferent to the work of art, insofar as it is such. On the other hand, even in the face of this absolute autonomy of art, nothing authorizes us to forget that the artist is always a man among men, and his humanity cannot be dissected into parts that are entirely independent and foreign to one another; the human personality has an integrity that cannot be disregarded, not only on the psychological level, but also on the moral level, because it is ordered to an end that transcends II. If, therefore, someone—not as a private individual, for that pertains to his conscience—but as an artist, reduces his work to an illustration of something that contradicts the ethical order, without resolving it into a work of art, he merely documents his particular state of mind, thereby failing, as is evident, in his peculiar quality as an artist; for, as in every similar case, since he pursues a determined end that does not rise to universal value, he remains outside the realm of art.

It is obvious, moreover, that, apart from its intrinsic artistic value, it may happen that a work of art may occasion sentiments contrary to the moral law; but this would not arise from the work of art itself, but from contingent dispositions of the one who contemplates it, and therefore such a case may and must call for the action of the censor. For example, the partial nudity of the figures represented, which no one thought to prohibit during the Renaissance, because at that time it did not seem to arouse sentiments contrary to morality, was not admitted in other ages. In the same way, certain poetry, being capable of harming a particular and specific kind of reader, must be kept from such readers. But, as is evident, such questions lie entirely outside the judgment of the work of art itself (v. MORALITÀ DELL’ARTE).

VIII. RELIGIOUS ART

Since we have seen that it is not the content that determines the value and essence of the work of art, one cannot properly speak of religious art; the artist who treats a religious subject will have no style different from that of his landscapes or still lifes. Only in deference to the destination that sacred painting, for example, has, can one say that the artist must keep certain conditions in mind: his work, that is, cannot be obscure, full of undertones and cultural premises, but must be readable and clear. This, in the final analysis, pertains to iconography.

Indeed, it must be borne in mind, as a responsibility of the artist, that images, precisely when they are works of art, impose themselves with the value of reality upon those who observe them. For example: a figure painted by a great artist in a certain way constrains the thought of whoever thinks—even independently of the work of art—of the person represented by that figure, thereby establishing, as if they were true, the somatic characteristics of that person. From this derives the necessity (which, moreover, is entirely contingent) of submitting to certain traditional iconographic norms; which, however, have no strict relation to art. Indeed, nothing would prevent, for example, dressing sacred figures in contemporary clothing, in conformity with what painters did at least until the sixteenth century; but it is also true that the immediate comparison with reality, the immediate recall to particular, determined experience, as conveyed by modern clothing, would diminish the intrinsic universal value of the artistic vision, tied as we are to an iconographic tradition established, precisely, in past centuries; unless, of course, the artist has such creative power as to entirely divert attention from the appeal of reality and experience; we all accept without any difficulty seeing the shepherds of the Nativity in Renaissance dress or contemplating the Annunciation within a clearly fifteenth-century architecture; just as no one, for example, notices or is in any way astonished by the fact that in Donatello’s *Deposition* (pulpit of San Lorenzo) the hands supporting the body of Christ are far more numerous than the number corresponding to the bodies of the bystanders.

IX. CHRISTIAN ART

For the same reason, one cannot speak of Christian art as an essential distinction within the realm of art. As a historical qualification, Christian art arose with the advent of Christianity, but at the beginning it made use of pre-existing pagan forms (v. ARTE CRISTIANA ANTICA). One can call Christian all art that expresses a content inspired by the teaching of Christ; and in this sense, if historically it embraces a narrower scope than religious art, it has, however, a broader meaning, because one can paint with a Christian spirit both a Madonna and a basket of fruit; indeed, as Léonard observes, the Christian artist who tends to spiritualize the sensible cannot narrow the field of his work, but must “avoir l'ambition d'y amplifier plutôt l'orchestration du sensible pour que la louange en remontât plus pleine vers Dieu.”

X. THE CHURCH AND ART — Since artistic activity is inherent in man and intrinsically independent, the Church not only could not think of excluding it, but indeed received it with such dignity as to elevate it to the status of a coadjutor in cultural expression. Christian monuments are the most valid testimony to this, from the catacombs to the splendor of churches and the value of their furnishings; and the Liber Pontificalis and inventories, for example, document the assiduous care with which the Popes adorned churches and how objects of art were soon considered actual patrimony.

The first controversies that the Church sustained regarding art concerned music (q.v.); this is explained by the fact that music directly recalled profane spectacles and banquets, and was particularly suited to stirring the emotions, having a special power—recognized in all ages—to move the soul. Hence, problems of a moral nature could more easily arise from the practice of music; and, on the other hand, this very emotional power, combined with the heritage of Jewish worship, had rendered it suitable for use in sacred rites. For these reasons, many Fathers of the Church explicitly condemned certain kinds of melody, chromaticism, the use of instruments, and female voices (for the latter, see can. 9 of the Council of Auxerre, 578). Nevertheless, the Church fostered the development of liturgical music to such an extent that Gregory the Great had to intervene to curb the virtuosity of the “precentores.” The two fundamental aspects of the Fathers’ view of music can be summarized in the propositions of St. Jerome and St. Augustine: for St. Jerome, music has an essentially content-oriented value: “Let the servant of Christ sing in such a way that it is not the singer’s voice that pleases, but the words” (Comm. in Eph., III, 5, 19); while St. Augustine, who, as is well known, resolved his doubts positively regarding the suitability of song as prayer, establishes not only the legitimacy but also the duty of art’s intrinsic value as such. Indeed, he exhorts the singer to sing well, directing his art to God, who is absolute perfection.

The Church took a position regarding the visual arts on the occasion of the iconoclastic heresy (q.v.), and from that time established that art itself could not lend itself to the danger of substituting the cult of the mere image for the cult of that which the image represents, and that whoever fostered such confusion was worthy of condemnation.

It is well known how the monastic orders, and especially the Benedictine Order, cultivated art, deriving characteristic aspects from it through special organizations and norms that sometimes became part of their Rules themselves (q.V. ABBEY; BENEDICTINE, CISTERCIAN, CLUNIAC, FRANCISCAN, etc.; ARCHITECTURE). It is likewise well known that Gothic art was at all times assumed as a symbol of the liveliest religiosity; and, on the other hand, Gothic cathedrals enshrined within them the names and portraits of the architects who built them (as a matter of curiosity, one may recall how in chivalric poems Rinaldo of Montalbano attained the fame of sanctity through his work as a builder of a cathedral).

At the Council of Trent, the Church issued a decree concerning the arts; against the laxity of the casuists (the decree was in fact prompted by Cardinal de Guise to have a weapon against them), the veneration of images was established and explained in the sense of tradition: “all lasciviousness must be avoided, so that images are not painted or adorned with wanton beauty” (Council of Trent, ed. Goerresiana, IX, 1078). A new and highly important element is the appeal made to bishops to instruct the faithful regarding the meaning and utility of sacred images for Christian life (Council of Trent, loc. cit.) and the obligation to submit every “unusual” image to the judgment of the competent bishop: “the holy synod decrees that no one may... place or arrange to have placed any unusual image” (Council of Trent, loc. cit.).

The Church has frequently intervened in iconographic matters, whenever the representation of an image would contradict dogmatic truth; for example, on June 11, 1623, the Congregation of Rites proscribed the crucifix in which Christ is represented with His arms raised high; and on September 11, 1670, a decree of the Holy Office prohibited the making of crucifixes in indecent attitudes or with features excessively distorted by suffering.

The Church’s concern that whatever serves worship must be of unquestionable artistic value is evident in the instructions on sacred music issued *motu proprio* by Pius X (November 22, 1903). The Pontiff demands that music be, above all, “true art,” since otherwise it cannot have that efficacy upon the soul which the Church intends to achieve by admitting into its liturgy “the art of sound.” This norm must likewise apply to every other form of art.

Any form that meets the requirements of true, holy art—excluding, of course, profane elements—may enter the church. Decisive in this regard is the teaching of the recent encyclical *Mediator Dei*: “One must not despise or reject out of hand and by preconceived judgment modern forms and images...; avoiding, with wise balance, excessive realism on the one hand and exaggerated symbolism on the other, and taking into account the needs of the Christian community rather than the personal judgment and taste of artists, it is absolutely necessary to allow free scope even to modern art” (AAS, 39 [1947], p. 590).

For the historical treatment of art, see the entries on the individual artistic periods: Early Christian Art; Barbarian, Byzantine, Carolingian, Romanesque, Gothic Art, etc.; Fifteenth, Sixteenth, etc., Art of the Counter-Reformation, Art of; etc.

Adriano Prandi

XI. ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIL LEGISLATION

The Church has undoubtedly been the first public institution to regulate, through its own laws, the creation, preservation, and enhancement of its artistic heritage. Numerous papal and conciliar acts have, at every epoch, laid down valuable norms in this regard. Memorable among these are the apostolic constitutions *Etsi in cunctarum* (31 May 1425) of Martin V, *Etsi de cunctarum* (30 June 1480) of Sixtus IV, and, in more recent times, the edict of the Cardinal Secretary of State, Card. Pacca, dated 7 April 1820, which served as the foundation and inspiration for the laws on the Fine Arts currently in force in the principal nations of the world.

With regard to current ecclesiastical legislation, it is worth noting that as early as 1907 Pius X imposed upon the Ordinaries of Italy the establishment of diocesan commissions to evaluate art objects, oversee their preservation, and examine restoration projects and new constructions (circular letter of the Cardinal Secretary of State, 12 December 1907). Later, the *Codex Iuris Canonici* provided regulation on the most vital aspects of sacred art, particularly concerning the erection or restoration of places of worship (can. 1164, § 1), the making or repair of sacred images and paintings (can. 1279, 1280), the materials and forms of sacred vessels (can. 1206, § 3), and the custody and oversight of sacred artistic heritage (can. 1497, 1522, 1523), while at the same time imposing special precautions and severe penalties for the alienation of such property (can. 1530, 1532, § 1, n. 1; 1947, § 2; 2347).

Of considerable importance for the preservation and enhancement of sacred artistic heritage are the circulars of the Cardinal Secretary of State, Card. Gasparri, dated 15 April 1923, no. 16605, and 1 September 1924, no. 34215. The latter, addressed to the Ordinaries of Italy, established in Rome, within the Secretariat of State of His Holiness, a Central Commission for Sacred Art for all of Italy. This Commission carries out its work through a Central Board, with the aim of fostering and promoting, through its own directives, inspections, and propaganda, in collaboration with diocesan (or inter-diocesan or regional) commissions, a sense of Christian art and to stimulate intelligent and devout zeal for the preservation and growth of the Church’s artistic patrimony.

Further norms and instructions were issued for the same purpose in the circulars of the same Secretariat of State dated 3 October 1923, no. 22352, and 1 December 1925, no. 49158, which contains the unified text of pontifical provisions on sacred art, as well as those of the Sacred Congregation of the Council on 10 August 1928, 20 June 1929, and 24 May 1939, and of the Congregation of Seminaries and Universities on 10 March 1927.

Among the initiatives aimed at promoting and deepening the knowledge of sacred art, particular mention should be made of the Higher School of Christian Art “Beato Angelico” in Milan and the “Beato Angelico” Institute for Sacred Art Studies in Rome.

Finally, with regard to civil legislation on art, we note that the Italian State provides for the preservation of the national artistic heritage through the law of 1 June 1939, no. 1089. This law applies to immovable and movable objects of artistic, historical, archaeological, or ethnographic interest, as well as to villas, parks, and gardens of artistic or historical significance. Works by living authors or those executed within the last fifty years are excluded.

When the objects in question belong to ecclesiastical entities, the Minister of Public Education, in exercising his powers, proceeds in agreement with ecclesiastical authority regarding the requirements of worship.

Zaccaria da San Mauro

XII. MEDICINE AND ART – In the early periods, medicine enters into art almost exclusively through the religious subject (purely and strictly medical representations, such as those that would become more abundant from the 16th century onward, are quite late). Medical miracles depict various types of illnesses and settings; Christ on the cross, to demonstrate knowledge of external anatomy (sometimes more or less arbitrary and conditioned by artistic needs); resurrections of the dead, especially the resurrection of LAZARUS, for the thanatological notes that painters had occasion to observe in nature; in particular, representations of the putrefied (memento mori) given by corpses in advanced states of decomposition, as material for observation and study by legal physicians, even if the ravages of death are often enriched by elements of pure fantasy. Scenes of the Nativity of the Virgin and of certain saints are often nothing more than depictions of an environment in which a birth has recently taken place and in which the first care is given to the newborn. The figures of physician saints (first among them SS. COSMA AND DAMIAN and then ST. LUKE), often dressed and situated according to the artist’s time, are precious testimonies to medical customs and surgical interventions of the era.

The accuracy with which the likenesses of the sick, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed, and the "possessed" are portrayed, along with the depiction of medical customs and settings, constitute invaluable evidence for the medical historian, worthy of the highest interest.

Naturally, it is not possible to review all works on this subject, as they number in the hundreds or perhaps thousands. From the cemetery fresco of ST. LUKE in medical attire (Cemetery of Commodilla, 6th century) to the ivory cover of the "Five-Part" Evangeliary of Ravenna, where the medical miracles of Jesus are carved, including the healing of the man born blind, also carved in ivory on the lid of a portable pharmacy from the 6th century (Vatican Museums). The mosaics that begin to flourish in this century in the churches of Ravenna also represent medical miracles or physician saints (ST. URBICINO), while the Basilica of SS. COSMA AND DAMIAN in Rome depicts, also in mosaic, the titular saints. This is followed by frescoes and mosaics, among which we recall the healing of the blind (S. ANGELO IN FORMIS), the paralytic (S. SABA, Rome), and the exorcism of the possessed (OBERZELL).

In the Cathedral of Monreale, numerous mosaics depict medical miracles (12th century); in the Martorana of Palermo, a mosaic represents the "Dormition" of the Madonna (12th century) with a physician listening to her heart. From the 13th century, we recall Isaac the blind rejecting Esau (Assisi, S. FRANCESCO), the healing of the lame performed through the merits of ST. FRANCIS (ibid.), the renunciation of the bath of blood by Constantine (Rome, SS. QUATTRO CORONATI), the healing of the lame (Parma, Baptistery), HIPPOCRATES and GALEN (Anagni, Duomo), and so on.

From then on, examples multiply with GIOTTO and his school, with the BLESSED ANGELICO, painter of the stories of SS. COSMA AND DAMIAN, and then with the very numerous group of painters and sculptors who, in their representations of sacred subjects, have touched upon medical themes, whether directly or indirectly.