Catholica: The Visual Culture of Catholicism
Suzanna Ivanič
Thames & Hudson, £25, 256 pages
The visual has always held a special place in Catholic devotion. Not for the Roman Church the iconoclasms of Byzantium, Cromwell or Calvin. Pope Gregory the Great rationalised this approach in the seventh century: “It is one thing to worship a picture [but] another to learn from the story of a picture what is to be wor-shipped.” St Gregory’s far-sighted approach to art spared the Latin west from the ideological convulsions which were about to destabilise the contemporary Christian east.
His principle endured, and the Council of Trent was willing to uphold it nearly a thous-and years later: it stated via its decree on sacred images that the stories portrayed in paintings and other representations “instruct and confirm” articles of Faith. Catholic art, in other words, has, and ought to have, a didactic function because an image really can convey a thousand words. The Church has traditionally encouraged Catholic artists to privilege beauty because of this. The aesthetic is a highly effective mode for transmitting the Gospel message, so an artist should make sacred subjects memorable – for the right, righteous reasons, of course.
Suzanna Ivanič’s new introduction to Catholic visual culture has two aims: to argue for the richness of its subject matter through the ages and to emphasise its sheer variety of modes and forms of expression, both chronological and geographical. Ivanič’s background as a scholar of early modern Bohemia undoubtedly shapes some of her selections, though in a good way: her unusual and gratifying emphasis on the art of Central and Eastern Europe – a frontier of the Baroque Church Militant – diversifies examples from the Church Triumphant’s Franco-Italian heartlands, and those from Iberian Empires.
Ivanič divides her resources thematically, which ought to have let her explore contexts, uses and motivations of production in satisfying ways. Three sections, “tenet”, “locus” and “spiritus”, each contain a further trinity of chapters; topics covered are the Word, prophets and saints, sacraments, public and private spaces of worship, Catholic communities, individual devotions and the senses. This is a potentially ingenious and inventive organisational architecture. However, what holds it back is a textual commentary which, light and attractive though it is in tone, simply lacks the length and depth to prosecute truly original treatment.
“Catalogue” feels the right term for this book because examples are on point and eye-catching. Indeed, Ivanič has certainly mined the depths of Marian and monastic kitsch: quirky staples such as the Cusqueño “angels with arquebuses” appear here alongside more biblically-grounded and theologically-informed paintings. Yet those who want to move beyond the superficial excursus of material are likely to find their ambitions frustrated. Ivanič’s apparatus for advancing the interpretation she presents is decidedly limited. Moreover, asides with the irritating label “Decoding the…” also interrupt her main text at regular intervals – a lapse in scholarly gravitas which seems almost certain to have been foisted onto her by the publisher.
In fact, Thames & Hudson’s other choices in bringing this volume to market leave much to be desired. As a celebratory catalogue of Catholic art, the book could have been attractive and effective, for it collates a huge range of material which no single exhibition – not even one backed by the British Museum, the Vatican or the Met – could muster. What stymies this is the volume’s relatively small physical size and seemingly low production values (there is no high-gloss paper here). These are both drags on its obvious potential. Frankly, many, even a majority, of the images are just printed far too small for a reader to appreciate them without a magnifying glass.
For an historian, Ivanič is also curiously casual in her concern about questions of period. The vast bulk of her images come from western Europe during the last millennium. But is it right to see such continuity through that period – especially before and after Trent? Did the transition from the medieval Church of the west to the self-styled and self-conscious Roman Church of global modernity affect so little that is worth remarking on? Equally, Ivanič’s constant emphasis on the local variation within Catholic art makes one question what precisely makes Catholica a meaningfully category at all. The book would have benefited from a stronger emphasis on what binds Catholic visual culture together to make it distinct from its broader Christian and secular penumbras.
Specific content, or else religious contexts of display or production, are obvious answers – and Ivanič reaches for them implicitly if not explicitly. But what, then, of phenomena such as secularising appropriations of religious content? One early example – an exquisite see-through Valentino dress which depicts Adam and Eve in Paradise, and echoes medieval styles of embroidery – raises the issue. Tattoos of the Virgin and Christ Crucified, which some of the more masochistic among the countercultural faithful have had etched on their backs, ought perhaps to do so also, and claims that such images are primarily expressions of devotion could easily be met with a little more scepticism.
The strangest omission in Ivanič’s conception of Catholic art, in fact, is her lack of curiosity at its role as a vehicle for the camp, the weird and even the erotic. “Saint Sebastian was tortured by being shot with arrows whilst tied naked to a tree, though this did not kill him,” she muses, deadpan, in one caption. The text accompanying a minuscule reproduction of Bernini’s famous Saint Teresa in Ecstasy likewise describes the context in which this masterpiece appears in the Cornaro chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome (opposite the sculpted heads of family members) rather than what Bernini thought made the saint ecstatic.
Such lacunae speak to the fundamental flaw in Ivanič’s reading of Catholic art: it is just too pious by half. Again, this may be publisher skittishness rather than authorial intention; one can easily imagine someone being worried that potential readers would spurn something lacking seriousness and reverence. Yet the result is a book that somehow fails to capture its own full essence, for all its myriad exempla. It would have been fun – and revealing – to learn where, for instance, Ivanič stands on art such as Madonna’s notorious Crucifixion routines or Rihanna’s infamous “pope” outfit at the 2018 Met Gala. They were both undoubtedly Catholic-inspired, although many in the Church hierarchy regarded them as essentially offensive and blasphemous.
The more far-sighted amongst the episcopate seem to have learned over the years to hold their tongues about such things, laughing them off. But an historian should surely comment on the profound implications they raise for the central question here: who has the right to set parameters for what legitimately counts as Catholic art?
Dr Miles Pattenden teaches at the Australian Catholic University
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