ARTIST'S LETTER TO POPE JOHN PAUL II - April 4, 1999

With the sole intention of sharing a thought with artists, critics, gallery owners and all those who in some way as a live art lighting, an invitation to the reading of the letter of the beloved Pope John Paul II, to be Him viewed in the Vatican in April 1999.
The motivations that led me to do this, reply as simple as it is beautiful.
I have gained only a few songs, of course.
No one is obligated, but anyone can access the site

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists_it.html

to read more.

Wishing you all a good read greet you.
Carlo


LETTER OF THE POPE
JOHN PAUL II
THE ARTISTS
1999
To those who are passionately dedicated
search for new "epiphanies" of beauty
as a gift to the world
in artistic creation.

The artist, image of God the Creator

"Nobody better than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that can sense something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when like artists of all time, captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colors and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate.
For this I thought there were more appropriate than the words of Genesis to begin my letter to you, to whom I feel closely linked by experiences reaching far back in time and which have indelibly marked my life. In this paper I intend to follow the path of the fruitful dialogue between the Church with the artists in two thousand years of history has never stopped, and which still rich in the future on the threshold of the third millennium.
So the artist, the more conscious of his gift, the more it is forced to look to themselves and the whole creation with eyes able to contemplate and give thanks, to raise to God a hymn of praise. Only then can he fully understand themselves, their vocation and their mission ... ... ...
.... On the threshold of the third millennium, I wish all of you, dear artists, to be joined by an especially intense experience of creative inspiration. The beauty which you pass on to generations to come be such as to stir them to wonder! Faced with the sacredness of life and being human, faced with the wonders of the universe, the only appropriate attitude is that of wonder.
... ... Thanks to this enthusiasm, humanity, every loss, you can still get up and resume its journey. In this sense it has been said with profound insight that "beauty will save the world."
Beauty is a figure of mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savor life and to dream the future. That is the beauty of created things can never appease, and stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine could express in incomparable terms: "Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new: late have I loved! "
Your many different paths, artists of the world, can all lead to that infinite Ocean of beauty where wonder becomes awe, exhilaration, unspeakable joy ......"