12/1/10
I saw a picture in National Geographic today with this caption: “Statues of St. Vitalis and 139 other saints overlook a crowd gathered to hear Pope John Paul II deliver Easter greetings from St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, seat of the Roman Catholic Church.” The photograph is of a statue in the foreground looking out over a sea of what is probably thousands of people all waiting for the Pope. However, the most interesting part of this photograph is not the Pope’s importance. It is of the statues. I wonder how long they have been there, watching the waiting people. Sure, if walls could talk we would have some pretty amazing stories, but think about statues! People travel from across the globe to see some statues, but why? Is it because of the natural beauty in the statue? It can’t be, human beings carve statues. However, it would seem it is the statue that gets more attention than the human who gave it “life”. I believe an artist is somehow able to breath life into their work, thereby giving it a spirit of its own. In the same way that children share physical and attitudinal attributes with their parents, so a statue shares spirit with the artist. I believe true beauty is not something that can be created, it should be something natural and pure, but art is different. Art has beauty because it reflects something natural and pure, and that is the artist’s soul. Do statues know they are beautiful? Or will St. Vitalis continue to watch the waiting people without ever knowing of his significance? I hope the former, because if art is the artist’s soul, they deserve to know.
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