Saturday, April 25, 2009

Reclaiming Sacred Art

Interview With Creators of "Catholic Canvas"

ROME, APRIL 23, 2009 (Zenit.org.- A new Rome-produced series airing this spring on EWTN is doing its part to reassert the original evangelizing purpose of the greatest Catholic works of art.

"Catholic Canvas," which was filmed entirely in the Vatican Museums, recounts the history of man's salvation through the Church's rich and varied collection of art. The creators of the project call it a unique event in the history of art documentaries.

ZENIT interviewed the three people most involved with the project.

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Mary Shovlain is the producer, director and creator of the program.

Q: What inspired you to develop this project? Out of all the many books, films and TV specials produced about art in the Vatican what makes this unique?

Shovlain: I have covered the Vatican for over a decade, I have advanced degrees in theology and for the past seven years I have been making television shows about the faith. I got tired of the ever-increasing programs on Vatican art, especially the Sistine Chapel, offering erroneous, secularized interpretations of the images of sacred events in Salvation History. Many of these shows often twisted or ignored the Christian message to promote individual agendas or even used the art as a loudspeaker to broadcast criticisms about the Catholic Church or the Popes, etc.

We wanted to reclaim the original intent and function of these world-famous works. Using their creative genius, Michelangelo, Raphael and others were evangelizing through art, trying to "incarnate" eternal mysteries.

Today, more than ever, we need beauty, and although some of the works we filmed are over 1,000 years old, they still proclaim objective truths clearly and powerfully to a frantic world lost in relativism...

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