John
Paul II - Theology of the Body |
Ethical Responsibilities
in Art
General Audience, May 6, 1981
1. In the Sermon on the Mount
Christ spoke the words to which we have devoted a series of
reflections for almost a year. Explaining to his listeners the
specific meaning of the commandment, "You shall not commit
adultery," Christ expressed himself as follows: "But I say to
you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28). The
above-mentioned words seem to refer also to the vast spheres of
human culture, especially those of artistic activity, which we
have recently dealt with in the course of some of the Wednesday
meetings. Today it is opportune for us to dedicate the final
part of these reflections to the problem of the relationship
between the ethos of the image—or of the description—and the
ethos of the viewing and listening, reading or other forms of
cognitive reception with which one meets the content of the work
of art or of audio-vision understood in the broad sense.
Here we return once more to the problem already mentioned:
whether and to what extent can the human body, in the whole
visible truth of its masculinity and femininity, be a subject of
works of art and thereby a subject of that specific social
communication for which these works are intended? This question
referred even more to modern mass culture, connected with the
audiovisual media. Can the human body be such a model-subject,
since we know that with this is connected that objectivity
"without choice" which we first called anonymity, and which
seems to bring with it a serious potential threat to the whole
sphere of meanings, peculiar to the body of man and woman
because of the personal character of the human subject and the
character of communion of interpersonal relations?
One can add at this point that the expressions pornography and
pornovision—despite their ancient etymology—appeared in language
relatively late. The traditional Latin terminology used the word
obscaena, indicating in this way everything that should not
appear before the eyes of spectators, what should be surrounded
with opportune discretion, what cannot be presented to human
view without any choice.
Body a model-subject
3. Asking the preceding question, we realize that, de facto,
during whole periods of human culture and artistic activity, the
human body has been and is such a model-subject of visual works
of art. Similarly, the whole sphere of love between man and
woman, and, connected with it, also the mutual donation of
masculinity and femininity in their corporeal expression, has
been, is and will be a subject of literary narrative. Such
narration found its place even in the Bible, especially in the
text of the Song of Songs, which it will be opportune to take up
again on another occasion. It should be noted that in the
history of literature or art, in the history of human culture,
this subject seems quite frequent and is especially important.
In fact, it concerns a problem which in itself is great and
important. We showed this right from the beginning of our
reflections, following the scriptural texts. These reveal to us
the proper dimension of this problem, that is, the dignity of
man in his masculine and feminine corporeity, and the nuptial
meaning of femininity and masculinity, inscribed in the whole
interior—and at the same time visible—structure of the human
person.
Special ethical responsibility
4. Our preceding reflections did not intend to question the
right to this subject. They aim merely at proving that its
treatment is connected with a special responsibility which is
not only artistic, but also ethical in nature. The artist who
undertakes that theme in any sphere of art or through
audiovisual media, must be aware of the full truth of the
object, of the whole scale of values connected with it. He must
not only take them into account in abstracto, but also live them
correctly himself. This corresponds also to that principle of
purity of heart, which in determined cases must be transferred
from the existential sphere of attitudes and ways of behavior to
the intentional sphere of creation or artistic reproduction.
It seems that the process of this creation aims not only at
making the model concrete (and in a way at a new
"materializing"), but at the same time, at expressing in such
concretizing what can be called the creative idea of the artist.
This manifests his interior world of values, and so also his
living the truth of his object. In this process a characteristic
transfiguration of the model or of the material takes place and,
in particular, of what is man, the human body in the whole truth
of its masculinity or femininity. (From this point of view, as
we have already mentioned, there is a very important difference,
for example, between the painting or sculpture and the
photograph or film.) Invited by the artist to look at his work,
the viewer communicates not only with the concretizing, and so,
in a sense, with a new "materializing" of the model or of the
material. But at the same time he communicates with the truth of
the object which the author, in his artistic "materializing,"
has succeeded in expressing with his own specific media.
Element of sublimation in true art
5. In the course of the various eras, beginning from
antiquity—and above all in the great period of Greek classical
art—there are works of art whose subject is the human body in
its nakedness. The contemplation of this makes it possible to
concentrate, in a way, on the whole truth of man, on the dignity
and the beauty—also the "suprasensual" beauty—of his masculinity
and femininity. These works bear within them, almost hidden, an
element of sublimation. This leads the viewer, through the body,
to the whole personal mystery of man. In contact with these
works, where we do not feel drawn by their content to "looking
lustfully," which the Sermon on the Mount speaks about, we learn
in a way that nuptial meaning of the body which corresponds to,
and is the measure of, "purity of heart." But there are also
works of art, and perhaps even more often reproductions, which
arouse objection in the sphere of man's personal sensitivity—not
because of their object, since the human body in itself always
has its inalienable dignity—but because of the quality or way of
its reproduction, portrayal or artistic representation. The
various coefficients of the work or the reproduction can be
decisive with regard to that way and that quality, as well as
multiple circumstances, often more of a technical nature than an
artistic one.
It is well known that through all these elements the fundamental
intentionality of the work of art or of the product of the
respective media becomes, in a way, accessible to the viewer, as
to the listener or the reader. If our personal sensitivity
reacts with objection and disapproval, it is because in that
fundamental intentionality, together with the concretizing of
man and his body, we discover as indispensable for the work of
art or its reproduction, his simultaneous reduction to the level
of an object. He becomes an object of "enjoyment," intended for
the satisfaction of concupiscence itself. This is contrary to
the dignity of man also in the intentional order of art and
reproduction. By analogy, the same thing must be applied to the
various fields of artistic activity—according to the respective
specific character—as also to the various audiovisual media.
Creating an atmosphere
6. Paul VI's Encyclical Humanae Vitae emphasizes the "need to
create an atmosphere favorable to education in chastity" (n.
22). With this he intends to affirm that the way of living the
human body in the whole truth of its masculinity and femininity
must correspond to the dignity of this body and to its
significance in building the communion of persons. It can be
said that this is one of the fundamental dimensions of human
culture, understood as an affirmation which ennobles everything
that is human. Therefore we have dedicated this brief sketch to
the problem which, in synthesis, could be called that of the
ethos of the image. It is a question of the image which serves
as an extraordinary "visualization" of man, and which must be
understood more or less directly. The sculpted or painted image
expresses man visually; the play or the ballet expresses him
visually in another way, and the film in another way. Even
literary work, in its own way, aims at arousing interior images,
using the riches of the imagination or of human memory. So what
we have called the ethos of the image cannot be considered apart
from the correlative element, which we would have to call the
ethos of seeing. Between the two elements the whole process of
communication is contained, independently of the vastness of the
circles described by this communication, which, in this case, is
always social.
7. The creation of the atmosphere favorable to education in
chastity contains these two elements. It concerns a reciprocal
circuit which takes place between the image and the seeing,
between the ethos of the image and the ethos of seeing. The
creation of the image, in the broad and differentiated sense of
the term, imposes on the author, artist or reproducer,
obligations not only of an aesthetic, but also of an ethical
nature. In the same way, "looking," understood according to the
same broad analogy, imposes obligations on the one who is the
recipient of the work.
True and responsible artistic activity aims at overcoming the
anonymity of the human body as an object "without choice." As
has already been said, it seeks through creative effort such an
artistic expression of the truth about man in his feminine and
masculine corporeity, which is, so to speak, assigned as a task
to the viewer and, in the wider range, to every recipient of the
work. It depends on him, in his turn, to decide whether to make
his own effort to approach this truth, or to remain merely a
superficial consumer of impressions, that is, one who exploits
the meeting with the anonymous body-subject only at the level of
sensuality which, by itself, reacts to its object precisely
without choice.
We conclude here this important chapter of our reflections on
the theology of the body, whose starting point was the words
Christ spoke in the Sermon on the Mount. These words are valid
for the man of all times, for the historical man, and for each
one of us.
The reflections on the theology of the body would not be
complete, however, if we did not consider other words of Christ,
namely, those when he referred to the future resurrection. So we
propose to devote the next cycle of our considerations to them.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 11
May 1981, page 10
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