Religion and Art
Catholic Art and Culture. By E. I. Watkin. (Burns Oates. 9S.) WITHIN the comparatively small compass of this book Mr. Wa has applied himself to a vast theme—nothing less than the Ca religion as it has impressed itself on art and culture throughout ages, and the arts in so far as they bear the imprint of Ca inspiration. He appears to take the view that no culture complete unless it is a " religion-culture' " and draws its nouns from a society sincere in its religion. From the nature of the a religion which is to convert the world and win souls c exclusively be concerned with the contemplation of divine tru must also address itself to men in society, and take account their interests and impulses—that is to say, it must enter into art. Mr. Watkin sees the Catholic religion as symbolised in a cathedral; vertical movement expressed in the spire, in which human soul seeks to transcend bodily existence in its vision of divine, and the horizontal movement in which religion takes and wing the whole created world of appearance in which the Del 4mmanent—upward, he would say, to the Godhead and down to humanity. In proportion as these two have been reconciled Catholic Church, in his opinion, has fulfilled its mission.
In the early days, when the Roman Empire was breaking up and when barbarism threatened to submerge civilisation, the Church was on the defensive ; it could do no more than give " asylum " to literature and art ; though he suggests that " plain chant, the creation of this period, was a superb achievement of the new Christian culture." The Dark Ages were followed by what he calls the " summer " of mediaeval Christendom, whose art found its greatest expression in the cathedral and its learning in the universities. Mr. Watkin states the case against those who have held that the mediaeval Church was a repressive influence which tended to stifle the creative arts and suppress science. He does not shirk the difficult issues. " Did not the hovel belie the cathedral? " Did not the Church discourage the humanism which led the poet to make the hell of Aucassin preferable to the heaven of " the old priests and cripples "? Did it not persecute Roger Bacon? He replies that the alternative to the Catholic religion was universal barbarism. " In any case, the squalid hovel would have existed. Nothing else was possible in an age of scarcity, strife and scientific ignorance." He does not adequately meet the point that when scientific ignorance was attacked in the Renaissance period the Catholic Church, in the main, was on the side of the defenders and loit half of Christendom ; though he points, somewhat uncon- vincingly, to Michael Angelo as the supreme achievement of the " late summer " of Catholic art.
After that came the counter-Reformation and the autumn, with Baroque, to which he gives an interesting definition—" the employ- ment of classical forms by Gothic feeling." He admires Baroque art because it shows Catholicism evolving with the needs of civilisa- tion, achieving a belated synthesis of the mystical and the humanist, the divine and the secular. The next stage is that of the modern world and " winter "—the disappearance of real religious communities, the complete secularisation of culture, starvation of the spiritual element, and the disappearance of any collective vision of (Catholic) truth. Every page in this stimulating book starts ideas and challenges discussion. It is governed by the central viewpoint of a Roman Catholic, who is profoundly convinced of the essential truth of fundamental Catholic doctrines, but has no relish for the Church's errors and knows that it must adapt its expression to the needs of each succeeding age and incorporate new knowledge and experience. Inevitably he is less than fair to the Renaissance, and again to Romanticism ; and one cannot expect him to make concessions to the devil of the modern world. But the reader will admire his learning, his breadth of interest, his vitality and his generous
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