Friday Links – July 6 2018

What is the trouble with religious art? Joaquín Navarro-Valls, longtime director of the Holy See Press Office, has some thoughts. Religious artists, he says, “seek to represent [saints] in a paradigmatic moment of their existence. And this results in the plastic image of holiness usually appearing in a context of exceptional circumstances, thus giving the impression that these are the only ones that can form the context of a saint's life.”

Can the life and writings of Pope John Paul II be understood outside of the context of Polish Romanticism? Czesław Miłosz did not believe so. “Karol Wojtyła was undoubtedly formed by Polish Romanticism. From early on in his life the poetry of the Polish 19th century bards fascinated him. He wrote poems referring to them, studied under the direction of outstanding experts in Romanticism, and during World War II he created dramas firmly rooted in the tradition of Polish messianism.”

A new exhibition of artifacts from the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien is on display in Oxford. “The exhibition’s theme is the creation of Middle-earth. Gathered from the U.K., the U.S. and France, there are manuscripts, artwork, maps, letters and other artifacts. ‘Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth’ includes more than 200 items, 60 of which have never been displayed before, from Bodleian’s extensive Tolkien Archive and Marquette University’s Tolkien Collection, as well as from important private collections, with many items drawn directly from the author’s family.”