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Amassing Artistic Analysis

The key to understanding Christian art is understanding the liturgy that’s at the heart of Christian life. That’s the thesis behind a new, three-volume work of art history by Father Timothy Verdon. An American, a Yale graduate, and a faculty member at Stanford, Father Verdon is a priest of the Diocese of Florence, Italy, where he heads up the office for catechesis through art. He attended the last synod of bishops at the invitation of Pope Benedict XVI. Sandro Magister discusses Father Verdon’s trilogy and why we need it.

In three large volumes, two millennia of Christian art are recounted for the first time in their original context: the liturgy …

Italy, where Rome and the papacy are located, is the most extraordinary treasure chest of Christian art that exists in the world. But it is as if the key to unlock its marvelous treasures had been lost.

And these three volumes are intended to offer precisely the key to rediscover, comprehend, and live Christian art in its authentic light.

A solely aesthetic analysis of Christian art is misleading. Christian art is not made for the museums, but for the liturgy. An altar screen can be understood only if it is viewed together with the Eucharist celebrated on that same altar.

For example, why is it that in so many ancient churches, the altar is flanked on the one side by the archangel Gabriel making his annunciation, and on the other side by Mary who is responding to this, with the divine dove up above in the center?

The reply is simple: every time the Mass is celebrated, what the figures show in images is carried out on the altar at the center. The Son of God is announced again, and becomes truly present among men “by the work of the Holy Spirit.”

Thanks to the celebration of the Eucharist, the three images take on life in a way that is unimaginable for those who look at them apart from the sacramental rite.

Magister doesn’t hint at Father Verdon’s insights about paleochristian art — in the catacombs and the oldest churches. But the first volume does deal with the patristic era, and even peeks into the medieval. Unfortunately, the trilogy is only available in Italian.