Museum vs. Church Debate
In First Things, published by the The Institute on Religion and Public Life, Matthew Milliner writes: “The most beautiful painting in the world, ”Raphael’s "Transfiguration", belongs not in a museum but in a liturgical setting, the master of pontifical ceremonies and a scholar of liturgy and sacred art recently declared in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, speaking of a painting that now sits is the Vatican’s own Pinacoteca Museum.
“A work of sacred art placed in a museum, even with the best of intentions and perhaps guarded more safely, loses three quarters of its capacity to speak,” wrote Monsignor Marco Agostini. It is a laudable suggestion, but one that raises complicated museological questions. Certainly religious art is at home in a religious setting, but is a call for house arrest consequently appropriate? (Read: all)
“A work of sacred art placed in a museum, even with the best of intentions and perhaps guarded more safely, loses three quarters of its capacity to speak,” wrote Monsignor Marco Agostini. It is a laudable suggestion, but one that raises complicated museological questions. Certainly religious art is at home in a religious setting, but is a call for house arrest consequently appropriate? (Read: all)
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