Pope: Art is not ‘mere aestheticism’ but a way to share the Gospel

Pope: Art is not ‘mere aestheticism’ but a way to share the Gospel

Pope Leo XIV met with members of the Bizot Group, officially known as the International Group of Organizers of Major Exhibitions, at the Vatican on October 10. The Group brings together directors of the largest art and culture museums around the world.

The Pope highlighted how the Group’s passion reveals that “every museum is a place of memory, beauty and history, fostering encounters between generations and promoting culture and human creativity.”

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church has developed a deep connection with the arts in all forms. Art, Pope Leo stressed, “is the means by which persons, through their ingenuity, enhance and transfigure matter—that is, the creation in which they dwell as made in the image and likeness of God.”

Centering on the theme of 'Materiality,' the Bizot Group’s meeting invites a deeper exploration into the relationship between an object and art interpretation. Moreover, it plays a role in reflecting on how God chose to reveal himself in the specific quality of matter.

With this in mind, the Pope outlined three points regarding matter, beginning with how it is available to humanity as “a gift entrusted to our care.” Through an artist’s skill, they are able to turn matter into a gift for others.

He underlined that cultural activity can reveal the beauty of creation.

Furthermore, matter can be formed into whatever the artist is trying to express. Art, Pope Leo said, “is a creative process through which human beings, in imitation of God’s work, shape matter and imbue it with a transcendent meaning.”

In this way, artwork becomes a sign of the beauty that stirs humanity’s hearts and minds, encouraging the person to look to what is above.

Thirdly, matter is memory. “The works preserved in museums bear witness to a history that speaks to every person, from one generation to the next,” the Pope explained. Pieces in a museum offer the wisdom of the past to the present.

“The Church, as a pilgrim through time, has understood art precisely in this way: not as mere aestheticism, but as a means of proclaiming the Gospel through beauty.”

Concluding, Pope Leo congratulated the Bizot Group for its work in directing and administering museums around the world—“safeguarding a heritage that belongs to all humanity.”