Our church is lovingly nicknamed by the youth group, “the bomb shelter”. That should give you an idea. It’s a brown, brick, misshapen, angular building that is partially sunken down into the ground, I believe. There’s a wide range of music, ranging from a choir that occasionally sings Latin hymns but mostly floppy modern ones, to a Kum-Bay-Ya style “band”. Well, at least it has an actual crucifix now, and it really is a very nice crucifix. There are real Stations of the Cross; however, the stained glass also represents the Stations and is very strange and abstract-looking.

My parish in Virginia has a roughly cruciform lump of brickwork at the front that apparently represents Jesus on the cross.  We call it “wind tunnel Jesus.”. Other lumps of brickwork seem to represent the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and the BVM.

The Vocations Director for our diocese grew up in the parish.  Supposedly he was a teenager when he was praying in the church and, upon looking at the “Holy Spirit” lump suddenly cried out “Oh, it’s a bird!” He’d been a parishioner there his whole life, and had never realized what that particular brickwork lump represented.

My former parish, St. Matthew’s Cathedral in DC, is generally gorgeous architecturally.  In fact I’d suggest it’s even more attractive than the Basilica.  There is one statue that is a little odd.  It’s a statue of the Virgin Mary that many parishioners dub “Bowling Ball Mary” or something like that.  It’s a decent piece of work but it also looks like Mary has just flung the ball down the lane for the 7-10 split.

I remember in a former diocese, our parish had this Jesus coming out of the wall.  The bricks were offset to make the design.  The church looked like an airplace hanger too.  Had it been St. Joseph of Cupertino’s Parish, I would have understood.

“Allegedly representing…”?

If this is the new NC Register, please bring back the Legionaries!!

Journalism matters. Religious journalism doubly so. Bad journalism is a corrosive force on the spirit, whether it’s bad narrative or bad theology generally, bad blog posting, bad movies, whatever.

Yes, indeed.

@ Mary: What’s wrong with “allegedly representing”? If you saw that statue bereft of context, would you have a clue who it was supposed to be?

P.S. “Journalism” is an awfully formal word for what typically goes on in the blogosphere. Incidentally, I’ve been at the Register for the better part of a decade ... and I first made the LA Madonna / Samurai Jack connection many years ago.

My son, when young, called some churches “Spaceship Churches” because they looked like space ships. He did not like them (despite being a bit of a sci fi geek).
Our current parish is beautiful: Saint Peters in Merchantville NJ. I have seen over time horrible things done to once beautiful churches. one formerly beautiful church in Vermont, which still had the skeleton of what it was, looked like someone had hired “Dr. Basement Dry” to remodel it. Oh, the faux panelling, covering the stonework. (And of course, hiding the tabernacle. We wouldn’t want a visible tabernacle, would we)

I have seen horrible art from the ‘classic’ past as well, including Holy Persons who look like they have a digestion problem. You can tell they are holy by how ill they look. Ugh, I hate that. (I refer you to the wonderful episode of the Brit Com “Bless Me Father” for more on this)

One thing that I have noticed is that a lot of statues unfortunately have sausage fingers, and sometimes toes too.

I was at a high school chapel the other day looking at the statues they had of the Blessed Virgin and St Joseph when the priest came up behind me and said, “I kinda feel bad for St Joseph. It looks like he always had to go to Mary whenever he needed to open the pickle jar!” Sure enough, Mary had some legit meathooks and Joseph the hands of an 8 year old child.

Why not show a pic of the entire statue, you know, with the moon under her feet…? A full picture would also more clearly show the halo over her head. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Christian and Marian iconography would instantly know that this is Mary. But then such a picture wouldn’t fit your “bereft of context” claim, would it? Don’t like the statue, fine. But don’t try to pull a fast one on readers.

Ok, here’s context via Wikipedia.  If a statue weirds you out and makes you feel like double-checking whether the building is a legitimate Catholic church or not, I think that’s a failure.  She looks like some new-agey generic woman in a trance.  I hate to think if anyone was walking below when she fell asleep and her load of firewood fell from her arms.  Am I wrong, or is the moon actually supposed to be Satan’s horns?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_Angels

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Entrance_to_Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_Angels,_Los_Angeles.JPG

@ Mary: Happy to oblige. Above are two additional images, one from a publication from the cathedral itself and one showing an ideal head-on view. Readers are invited to judge for themselves (a) how clearly the “halo” reads as a halo (particularly if you aren’t standing directly in front of the statue), (b) how clearly the moon reads as having the moon at her feet (distinct from the abstract geometric shapes surrounding her), and (c) whether there is anything in any way connecting with specifically Marian iconography other than the moon.

What is UP with those SLEEVES? Those bare arms? The apparently butch hairstyle? (Many people have thought the image looked more like Joan of Arc than Our Lady.) The uncovered head? The heavy features? The absence of traditional Marian colors? Not that a traditional-looking Mary can’t have one or another of these features (except for the sleeves and the hair), but the effect of the combination of all of them is to remove virtually all connection with specifically Marian iconography, except for a stylized moon.

The Church where I will be worshiping, alas, looks like a star destroyer (thank the Monsignor for that one, not me!).

Having been to the “Yellow Armadillo” (Mahoney’s cathedral) in LA and viewed the statue in question, my opinion is that the artist was trying to make a transgendered Mary.

The two new pictures of the statue don’t do it any favors. The photo on the cathedral literature is a little disorienting. The “halo” is actually a void-in-the-wall window?

Our parish is beautiful.
http://www.stjosephmacon.com/cms/index.php?id=120,0,0,1,0,0

Congratulations to James!

I once went to Mass at a church in Kansas that had the shape of an IXTHYS extruded upward to form the walls.  More interesting in concept than in execution; you could imagine yourself as a sardine inside a tin can.

In regard to the statue - if I had not read the commentary but only been given the image w/ no other information such as where it was located, I would have come to the same conclusion.

Without meaning any disrespect, it is intended to depict someone in a kimono due to its sleeve design and it was a young man due to its hair length and facial features.  The ‘halo’ and ‘moon’ are nothing more geometric designs and not anything that would even hint at the Blessed Mother.

As I once heard a good priest say - “Just because Jesus is in the picture doesn’t make it good art.”

If you ever visit the Abby Church at St.John’s University in Collegeville, MN, you will see the most hideous statue of St. John The Baptist ever. He looks like a skeleton standing over the baptismal font. I have nicknamed him Skeletor after the character in the He Man cartoon series.

@ Nicole: Wow, you weren’t kidding. St. Joseph’s is magnificent!

All is not lost!  There are still Catholics seeking good Catholic art:

thesacredarts.org

There’s a supposed statue of Our Lady in the St. Ignatius Chapel at Seattle University. It’s barely a carved piece of stone, just some vague form or blob representation. If one dare complains about it one is bound to be told by some ‘learned’ academic that we lowly laity ‘just don’t get it.’ Often we’re told what’s ‘good for us’, or what is ‘art.’ Call me stupid, but I know how I would prefer to have our holy saints represented, and modern art won’t help convey the beauty and majesty of heaven as it often leaves the soul wanting and uninspired. Kudos to the Orthodox they know art without the modern political correct slants thrown in. Please spare me the flying Jesus with cape flowing and no cross!

St. Martin of Tours in Louisville KY is beautiful and the liturgies there are the most beautiful I have ever attended. This parish has renewed my hope in the US church and is a consolation after wandering in the desert of modernism.

http://louisville-catholic.net/Home/tabid/204/Default.aspx

St. Louis Bertrand in Louisville is spectacular as well:

http://louisville-catholic.net/Home/tabid/204/Default.aspx

The statue at Our Lady of the Angels is hideous from any angle.

Speaking of ugly religious-themed art, anyone ever see the statue of Mary that is in front of the LA Cathedral?  She looks like a character from Star Trek.

## It looks dykey. At least it’s recognisably human - “that” statue of JP2 looks like an argument between a Sontaran and a sentry-box. The late Alice Thomas Ellis had a keen eye for Catholic “Un-art” - like the “horns of Hathor” in Armagh Cathedral (the Catholic, not the Church of Ireland one: Irish Episcopalians have, or had, far better taste than we do). For *really* dire art, nothing can compare with some Catholic vestments.

I have a real problem with “modern” sacred art. The philosophy behind modern artistic styles is the same as most modern thought - there is no absolute truth. This means the “art” depicts whatever the viewer sees in it, regardless of the artist’s thoughts on their own work. If art is to clearly communicate any really meaning the classical rules of iconography ought to be followed the same way an author ought to use correct spelling, and grammar. Yes, some of the rules can be bent to allow for artistic vision, but a few blobs of paint thrown at a canvas is art in the same way my toddler is a poet when he mashes the keyboard!

yhbkjnyhbhgrfkyf

Oh look, baby wrote a psalm!

I have to say that the majority of church art from the ‘60s to about the ‘80s is a cesspool of all that is grotesque.  Which is rather bizarre since religious art is supposed to elevate the viewer to thoughts of Heaven—I would mark those past decades as one big FAIL.  Either many artists didn’t get the memo saying “Art=Thoughts—>God” or we’ve all been hoodwinked by secretly anti-Catholic artists who laugh themslves to sleep every night over how they passed off fusions of Henri Moore sculptures and African masks as “Catholic art” to all those Papist sheeples.

I attend Mass at a beautiful, old-fashioned Midwestern church originally built in the 1900s out of golden brick from the Minnesota river bottoms.  Unfortunately our site doesn’t have any good interior pictures but you can see what the exterior is like: http://ourladyoftheprairie.com/

Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago…the tabernacle, which is off to the side and barely recognizable, looks the Snitch from Harry Potter.  The relief of the Assumption that adorns the wall on the right of the altar looks like a woman surrounded by little imps and demons.  I thought it was just because I was sitting so far back, so I went up close after Mass and it was worse!  And this is the CATHEDRAL! 

I was looking for a link to a picture to show you what I mean and I found this video.  Glad I’m not the only one that was seriously disturbed by the artwork here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Ivi_kuWy0

The Cathedral in LA does look exactly like a large armadillo sleeping in the city. Makes me wanna dust off my old Tarkus LP. And yes, it is filled with poor taste in art, the tabernacle is hidden off in a little room somewhere. Walking the crypts down below is kinda neat though.

The discussion continues in my follow-up blog post, “The Many Faces of Mary.”

I was raised in a small steel mill town with 6 Catholic churches, built by immigrants and divided by ethnicity.  One church was lovelier than the next.  As an adult, I moved to a larger, newer community closer to Pittsburgh.  There were 2 Catholic churches, built in the 1960’s.  Need I say more?  I’m sorry to say this about a church, but they were both HIDEOUS.  They had no sense of the sacred, no awe, no majesty befitting the Almighty God and Father.  One of the churches did not even have a crucifix.  Over the ensuing 23 years, both churches have taken small steps to become more “church-like” but they are still terribly lacking.  At least the one church put up a crucifix.  When I see a magnificent church like the above St. Martin of Tours, it gives me hope for the American Catholic church, yet makes me extremely jealous.  How I wish I could go to such a fantastic place every week to worship…. God help us.

With all the evolution that has supposedly been going on, why have we ended up with ugly art?

I have never seen the statue of Mary at the Cathedral in LA in person but from the pictures I have seen it sure looks rather Stalinist.  I see the moon and halo but looks like it should be in Moscow next to the guy with the hammer rather than LA, California USA.

She is absolutely beautiful.  I do not like the “cute” art of Mary, giving her pasted features.  Then beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I sung for a friend’s wedding in a large church in Denver. Due to various factors (mostly scheduling nightmares), I barely had time to register the rather cartoony art (boys in baseball caps? Really?) but I was reliably informed later, with horror, that many of their elbows were backwards.

Basic anatomy fail = immediate bad art.

Of course, I’m also reminded of San Francisco’s cathedral, which is actually pretty (abstractly) lovely on the inside, but its exterior has earned it the loving nickname “Our Lady of the Maytag” due to its resemblance to a washing machine agitator.

My parents’ church, St. Philomene’s in Sacramento, has some quite lovely quasi-Byzantine murals that were done in the 80s. It’s a massive triptych—the woman with the unguents washing Jesus’ feet to the left, the Samaritan woman at the well on the right, and the Last Supper in the middle. You can catch a glimpse of it in the background here but it’s not showing to advantage due to the high reflectivity of the faux gilding. In person, the colors on the figures is much brighter, though the field of stars is so deep as to look as though it’s inset.

I don’t mind the statue at all.
I am not a fan of the exterior of the LA cathedral, but in contrast to much contemporary church architecture, I find that some of the interior elements are quite fine: the saint tapestries and the lighting for example. Given the name of the cathedral, I never doubted who the sculpture depicted.

Representational sculpture seems to be at a low point. If you google some of the dedications of portraits of Pope Benedict and the recent installation of J.H. Newman statue during the UK papal trip, and the Rome JP 2 depiction, you will see that the LA sculpture is far superior to those paltry attempts.The artist is clearly skilled at rendering the human figure. Not everyone may like it…but it’s not bad art. I would be hard pressed to say that about the other examples.

Don’t lose heart!  There are many good young priests who are bringing back tradition to our liturgy as well as our church structures.  In one of our town’s parishes, out goes Mary with the Baby Jesus in Jean shorts and in comes beautiful traditional statues of Joseph and Jesus and another of Mary.  We also now have kneelers set up for those who wish to kneel to receive the Blessed Sacrament.  Rockford Diocese is supremely blessed with strong new priests.

Well actually, it’s not bad at all! I’m not actually disturbed by the bad church arts ‘coz I’m there to praise our Lord Jesus Christ not to criticize other things. But it is better if church arts must be sacred still and awe-inspiring! =)

I just saw the sculpture at the Paul VI auditorium in Rome on video. I also visited the new shrine at Fatima, and saw the “cross” they placed outside and the"cross” inside. Very disturbing.