By Paul Anel
Translation by Nathan West

Sixty years ago, on November 3, 1954, Matisse passed away in Nice.  His health started to deteriorate in 1941 when he underwent an operation to remove intestinal cancer from which he would never fully recuperate.  Ever since that decisive date in the artist’s life, photos only depict him seated or lying in bed.  The war and all its spiritual weight, in particular the kidnapping of his wife and daughter by the Gestapo, contributed to Matisse’s terrible anguish.  Thus begins the last decade of Matisse’s life, examined in the exhibition « Matisse, the Cut-Outs » now open at New York’s MoMA after its opening season at London’s Tate Modern.

Though the above premise would seem to suggest that the exhibition deals with a rather dark period in Matisse’s work, such expectations are radically, and paradoxically, dismissed: Matisse, ever the painter of light and life, left aside the « painting » part in favor of a veritable explosion of light and life.

From 1943 until his death, the physically compromised Matisse abandoned traditional painting to « paint with scissors » on paper his assistants had treated with watercolor.  Matisse first used this « cut up watercolor » technique to make adjustable models in preparation for larger scale works, but with the publication of the book Jazz the method gained importance, as the book immortalized these images in print.  But the artist was disappointed that the book smoothed over the edges and flattened the compositions, and so he began to value on its own terms this unique fusion of painting, drawing, and sculpture.  The walls of his house in Vence, then those of this apartment in Nice, were literally covered by cactus flowers, swallows, jellyfish, and hyacinths of all different colors

Since the exhibition’s debut last month, the MoMA’s galleries open their doors to such an immediate swarm of visitors that sometimes it’s difficult to cut a path from one room to another.  In light of this success, which is nothing new, a question comes to mind: why is Matisse – in a general way but particularly the Matisse of the cut up watercolors of his last years – the most beloved of our French painters?  Why does his work inspire, even 60 years after his death, such an enthusiasm the world over?  There are no better words to answer that question than those the writer and art critic John Berger used in reference to Van Gogh: « For him, the act of painting is a way to understand and explain the reason he loves what he’s looking at so intensely, and what he’s looking at (…) arises from daily life. »  

In 1905 Matisse had already painted his masterpiece La joie de vivre (The joy of living).  While that joy never left him, towards the end of his life it rose to new heights.  The day after his operation, in 1941, Matisse felt as though he’d received a second chance at life.  He wrote, « Everything is new, everything is fresh as though the world had just been born. »  It’s this newness that lends the cut up watercolors their powers of attraction, their breath.  Matisse doesn’t create « from a void, » he doesn’t create from an idea; he creates from a love.  « It’s in this sense, it seems to me, that we can speak of art as imitating nature: by the the imprint of life that creative work bestows upon a piece of art.  Thus a work of art appears just as fertile, just as endowed with that same inner palpitation and dazzling beauty, as the very works of nature.  For this a great love is needed, one that is capable of inspiring and sustaining that continuous exertion towards truth, in an undivided generosity and a deep inner nakedness that is the genesis of all art.  Isn’t love at the origin of the whole of creation? »

And then there are the two rooms presiding at the center of the exposition, a fitting place as the works they contain were at the center of Matisse's last years and constituted his chief preoccupation: the Chapel of the Rosary, in Vence, the chapel he affectionately dubbed "the Sainte Chapelle of my heart" and which he described, the night of its inauguration, as "the result of a life dedicated to the search for truth."  With Matisse feeling that his twilight years were really a second chance at living, it's only fitting that in these last years he should be surprised and nourished by indeed a radically new life: the life of faith, which erupted onto his path in the form of Monique Bourgeois, also known as Sister Jacques-Marie.

Those who accuse Matisse of abandoning art for mere decoration and convenience, or those who suspect he undertook the chapel project simply out of opportunism, should remember the severity of the attacks and criticisms he had to endure in those days.  They came not only from his artist friends (a number of them turned their back on him), but also from the Catholic hierarchy, who were startled by the modernity of the work, and certainly from the media, who suspected impropriety in his relationship with Sister Jacques Marie.  The high price he had to pay for this work in which he poured all his being speaks of Matisse's sincerity, and the violence of the reactions themselves speaks to the work's power.  Born of the friendship with Sister Jacques and the joy enkindled in Matisse by the "second life" he was given, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary is, despite its detractors, a chapel of light and joy.   "I want those who enter my chapel to feel purified and relieved of their burdens. […] Indeed this chapel is not "Brothers, we must all die" but on the contrary "Brothers, we must live!" 

Matisse died 60 years ago, but the love that he felt pour life in all its forms, the tenderness with which is looked at the sea, the stars, and the faces of his friends, remain very much alive.  "You have to look at all of life with the eyes of a child," Matisse said in the last interview we have of his.  The person who is able to behold Matisse's work with the eyes of a child enters into the mystery of his great love, the mystery of Matisse's "second life."  One day, in a letter to Sister Jacques-Marie, the master conveyed the reason for his art and life in these words: "These days I go to do my morning prayer every morning, pencil in hand, before a pomegranate tree covered in flowers at various stages, and I wait for their transformation.  I do so not in a scientific way, but absorbed in admiration of divine creation.  How's that for a way of praying?  And I do this (in reality I don't do anything myself because God's always guiding my hand) so that others can see the tenderness of my heart.

by Cecile Fourmeaux

Siki Im is a designer and received unanimous great reviews during the Fall 2014 Fashion Week in New York. His collection points out our frail – yet free – humanity in the midst of growing technology. We had the great opportunity to meet this humble and passionate man, who is also an architect and a singer.

Siki, what about starting with your story? What brought you to fashion and to New York City?

I was born in German from Korean parents. As an immigrant I was not so much into German culture, but I was truly fascinated by American culture (American movies, black culture, skateboarding…). I studied architecture, and since my dream was to live in New York City, I came here to become an architect, although architecture is not so great here (it is much more interesting and less mass market oriented in Europe). I arrived in 2001, one week after 9/11. I worked two years in an architecture company, very closed to the World Trade Center.

I actually came to fashion very accidentally: one day I met this amazing person, David Vandewal who is a huge designer here. He liked me and he offered me a job straight away. I worked with him for Karl Lagerfeld, Helmut Lang. Today, David is my stylist… But he is above all like my great Brother. We work very well together and it is good to keep our business in family. It is very important in fashion to have some consistency and someone you can trust. Because in fashion everything goes so fast.

What brought you to work on technology in your Spring/ Summer 2015 Collection ?

As a boy, I was always fascinated by robots, transformers, jets… I love their transformation mechanisms, their wired shapes, and the beautiful esthetic of their lines. So, one day I was sketching them and I thought “Let's make garments? Let's use stiff, hard fabrics and let's make clothes like robots”.

But something happened that changed my plan. I went to a surf trip in Costa Rica, which implied me to give up my phone for days. It first made me extremely anxious, but then I suddenly felt liberated. And I thought “ I don't want to do robots garments. I don't want to become like the human beings in WALL-E (a Pixar Animation Studio movie, produced in 2008, in which decades of mass consumerism lead human beings to behave like robots, editor's note). I don't believe in this future! I don't believe in this social media future where we don't meet people anymore. Let's make the contrary. Let's use very human fabric, fluid and natural fabric, more traditional fabric, like wool.”. And so my work became a juxtaposition of human and machine. It was not about robots anymore, but about anthropology and technology. For instance, I did these silk trousers but printed as a machine. In the show you can also see that everyone is wearing two different shoes, as if it was a mistake… because mistake is human. I also used colors, because of the surf inspiration and because nobody expected if from me. I like to surprise people.

And were you satisfied with the feedback you had on your collection ?

Yes, I was happy because I did not get any lukewarm feedback. My point is to question things. I don't give any answer, I just ask questions. I want the show to make you think, and I am happy when someone after my show thinks that it is good or bad – not in-between. And I think this season people understood what I was doing.

Where is your claim that humanity prevails rooted in?

Have you read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment? There is this sentence in the book saying that people in prison appreciate life more than those outside. Darkness interests me, but together with hope. I think that there is always hope. Or rather I hope that there is always hope.

All my collections are about human condition. Two years ago, it was about prison, and very heavy. For me, fashion is about psychology. It cannot be a mere product, it is intangible. At the end of the day, I hope that I claim on humanism. At the end, we celebrate our imperfection, we embrace that we make faults, that we have egos, and selfishness. At least, let us try to be honest about it and not to put make up on it… as if we were perfect robots.

However fashion can be precisely used to create personas!

Yes, we create personas, but in the sense that to me, every collection is like making a movie, trying to do characters, to hire special kinds of men to wear them. That is the beauty of design: you create a space and you can direct or shape people's emotions.

How do you keep this freedom here in New York City?

For sure, it is not easy, because at the end of the day I try to have a healthy business. I don't know if you are always free when you have responsibilities. But life is made of choices and I try to make choices that are driven not by money but by what I believe in. This is sometimes very difficult and I know that I have to keep checking myself. I especially have accountability with my friends and my team. And I am sure that there are moments where I fail.

Bill Cunningham (New York Times fashion photographer, editor's note) said in an interview that if we abandon fashion, we abandon civilization. Thus his thought is also that fashion enable us not to live as robots…

Yes, fashion is an important part of our culture. It is an art, as well as poetry or music. Sometimes I feel exhausted and I wonder why I am doing all this (these are only clothes at the end!)… But I still believe in it!

To know more about Siki:

• His website: http://sikiim.com
• His Spring/Summer 2015 Men Collection at the New York Fashion Week:

• One of his songs, Slow Death:

by David Rastas

From April 25 to June 15, the exhibition "Corporeality and Sexuality" was installed inside the Votive Church, in Vienna. Curated by David Rastas, this exhibition aimed to "promote a dialogue between contemporary art and theology, making space for the critical consideration of human sexuality, the body, desire and relationships." In this exclusive interview for landofcompassion, curator David Rastas comments three of the 21 works that composed this groundbreaking exhibition.

Leiblichkeit & Sexualität, 2014 – FLOORPLAN

1. Bernardi Roig, Ejercicios para transportar la luz, 2008

I feel as though Bernardi Roig's Ejercicios para transportar la luz was an understated work in the exhibition, I occasionally forgot about it during the tours and left it until the very end to discuss. This state of oblivion and neglect itself was interesting because it seemed to resonate with the main themes associated with the sculpture; solitude and loss. The sculpture stood in an inaccessible place, high above the ambulatory entrance on an unreachable balcony. The work was not concealed, but nor was it immediately revealed. I really like when art makes full use of its architectural environment. I imagine the Austro-Hungarian Emperor may have stood in the very position where Roid's sculpture was standing. People tended to discover this work during the Mass as their eyes wandered from the altar. The figure is carrying lights, but its stance is remarkably similar to the posture seen in representations of the carrying the cross. Man is alone, we are alone. But the photograph shows how the light carried by the figure affects its entire surroundings. This light strikes me as very meaningful. It is important to remember that even in our solitude, when we are on our own, we still have an impact upon our surroundings.

BERNARDI ROIG – Ejercicios para transportar la luz, 2008

Leiblichkeit & Sexualität, 2014

Photo: ©Christoph Bartylla, www.bartylla.at

2. Matthew Lenckiewicz, Erdapfel, 2014

Matthew Lenkiewicz's Erdapfel is a work that must be experienced. The visitor has to step into it's interior. It is an invitation to think about conjugal spirituality – the spirituality that informs our relationships. Love runs throughout all of our activities. When a relationship fails, often other areas of life become increasingly unbearable. The spirituality which informs our relatioship with the other, also informs our relationship to the world. So when the relationship crumbles, it is as if the world is crumbling.It entails a specific hermeneutical approach, where my own subjectivity ceases to be the point of reference.

MATTHEW LENKIEWICZ – Erdapfel, 2014

Leiblichkeit & Sexualität, 2014

Photo: ©Christoph Bartylla, www.bartylla.at

3. Takashi Murakami, Figure Miss Ko2, 1999

On the back wall of the chapel, seen between the Serpentin copy of Herkules Farnese and Takashi Murakami's Figure Miss Ko2, there is a memorial of World War II. There is a conflict between a western idea of beauty and Murakami's caricature of a western idea of beauty. The theme of this installation is “Imago Dei”. The woman makes a seductive gesture toward the viewer. The glass case in which she is enclosed might represent the third art work in this particular chapel. She is trapped under the glass, as if in a fridge, cage, or vitrine. The Figure Miss Ko2 seems to negate or is suppressed by her desires and sexuality. Hence, in so many words, she denies her exterior beauty. It is the presentation of something negative in order to reflect upon the positive image of God. The visitor is immediately drawn to the way the two sculptures interact with each other. The man looks at the woman. His gaze has something sexual about it. However, they do not and cannot ever meet. They are trapped, inaccessible to each other.

TAKASHI MURAKAMI & 19th CENTURY COPY – Figure Miss Ko2, 1999 & Herkules Farnese (19th Cent.)

Leiblichkeit & Sexualität, 2014

Photo: ©Christoph Bartylla, www.bartylla.at

Interview by Jacques Bagnoud

Australian of Finish descent, David Rastas studied international trade in Japan and art history. As a curator, he seeks to promote a dialogue between contemporary art and the Catholic Church. His latest achievement is an exhibition on "Corporeality and Sexuality" in a Church in Vienna. Encounter with a visionary curator.

David Rastas, how did you become a curator?

I studied international trade and Japanese, then art history and architecture. I would have liked to have studied fine art but I became distracted with the idea of doing something related to business and I only later became interested in facilitating encounters with art in order to move people deeply. From the very beginning, I was convinced that art has a great power to move and to heal. I was working at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and came to know the works in the collection very well. I became frustrated to see that many important religious and devotional works appeared to be trapped in museums while religious space seemed to be trapped in the past.         

In 2006, I curated the exhibition «Crisis, Catharisis and Contemplation» in the cathedral of Melbourne. Each of the twenty-two invited artists were offered a specific space within the Cathedral to create or loan a work to be installed. Some of the visitors to the exhibition were upset because they convinced themselves that certain artworks had a sexual meaning which they considered to be inappropriate for the Church. I decided that the next major exhibition would address this problem directly, dealing with the meaning of the body and sexuality. Both St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne and the Votivkirche in Vienna involve an architectural plan which resembles a human body, a crucified body with outstretched arms. In a sense, the body and sexuality were already embedded in the neo-Gothic architectural form.

My encounter with the German Jesuit Friedhelm Mennekes in 2003 brought about a dramatic change in my understanding of the relationship between art and religion. Fr Mennekes made it very clear that art was vital to the Church, but gave the impression that he had 'zero tolerance' for so-called 'religious' art. It took me several years to understand why he seemed to be such a hardliner, but now I can say that I, too, am not interested in new “religious art”. I am more interested now in the relationship between art and sacred space. It is possible to find religious meaning in non-religious art, precisely when the latter is shown in a Church. This is what I tried to make accessible through“Corporeality and Sexuality: Theology of the Body in Contemporary Art.”

Nowadays, many people regard the Church as a minority stuck in an outdated tradition. How do we reconcile that with the universal dimension of art?

Art has the power to reach out to anybody even when its intended audience is a specific group. Anyone can relate to the image of a “mother and child” but the Pietà, for instance, appeals to certain codes that are specific to a certain group. I am not interested in curating art for those who already find themselves comfortable in the Church. They are not the audience I am interested in (though I must take them into consideration, of course). Instead, I am more interested in people who don’t go to Church. I like to see my work at the service of the building and the tradition of art, rather than the needs of a particular group. My experience of church buildings is more informed by its physical features than by its social function.

What is the point of bringing art back into churches?

I discovered moments in history that were particularly interesting from the point of view of the relationship between art and Church. It all began with my love for Byzantine and early Christian art, especially because of their having a kind of code embedded in that was not readily accessible to a broad public. The anonymity of the artist is also really interesting because it makes the artwork/object the most important thing.

Most of the time, I find modern art to be a bit empty. The priority seemed to be in its form and a certain interrogation of itself and its terms. I believe that modernism was a necessary moment in art history, but have never considered modern art to be appropriate for the Church. Modern Art is best examined and reflected upon as autonomous and separate from its physical environment. There are great exceptions to the exclusion of modern art in churches, of course, such as Chagall, Rothko, Matisse, etc…

In the 1990s, contemporary art seemed to break free from any kind of explicit agenda or ideology. Works of contemporary art installed in churches are open to a whole range of interpretations, from very superficial to very profound. I have a preference for curating contemporary art because I consider it to be the most appropriate for sacred places, and it works well in relation to more traditional and figurative art. Contemporary art is a kind of answer for today.

Contemporary art is often transgressive, provocative. How do we reconcile this with a sacred environment?

Art can be provocative, but provocation is not what defines art. It should be measured and tempered by the revelation of some deeper meaning. A small number of artists may give the impression that art is an insult to moral sensibilities and it’s true that some works might have this intention, but that's not what defines contemporary art. The power to provoke is not something unique to contemporary art per se; it is inherent to the nature of art. Yet provocation is not what drives my preference for contemporary art. What drives me is art's capacity to provoke a kind of surprise, an experience of being stunned which leads to introspection, reflection and contemplation.

What causes this surprise? What is the object of contemplation in contemporary art?

Contemporary art is not limited by a strict distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. Since 1990, the position of the viewer has shifted to replace the subject of the work of art and the space seems to be becoming an increasingly crucial element in the experience of art. When the viewer becomes the subject of the art experience, it makes it difficult to be objective. Works may attempt to be objective, artists may even try to be objective, but because of the way art is presented, an experience of the “we” is emerging. We enter a shared space, where the location of meaning is a shared experience and while still remaining personal and subjective.  The art of today is paving the way to a “we” experience.

How do you understand your mission as a curator?

The curator’s role is usually a well-defined one. In a museum, the curator is often involved in cataloging works, making decisions about what fits in the collection and what works in an exhibition. I don’t consider myself a curator in this strict sense. In order to integrate artworks into the architectural fabric of a church building, I have to look at the church with the eyes of an architect rather than with those of a curator.  I am interested in engaging the visitors in a deep and personal relationship with the art works, and this approach is not typically the responsibility of a curator.

I don't use the word “mission” because I don’t find it useful to think in terms of having an agenda when I work as a curator. What drives me is faith; however it is not a devotional, religious faith, but a faith in the power of art to reach people. It comes from a personal experience of being healed by art. There is an attempt to reach out to people, not in order to convert them or to bring them toward a specific idea of who or what God may be, but to mediate an experience of He who inspires the world and my own life. This Spirit is already at work in people and all we have to do is open a space and to let the rest happen.

If I was motivated by a sense of mission to promote religious faith, I am afraid that the artwork would be kitsch. Personally, I often find beauty in the ugliest, darkest and most unexpected places. This kind of beauty is not pretty or attractive; it is extremely disturbing. When art comes close to truth, there is beauty.

Impressionism is very attractive to a lot of people and is sometimes described as beautiful, but I don’t consider it very deep. This idea of beauty is so complicated. Sometimes, we may find it easier to reflect upon the antithesis of beauty in order to better understand what Beauty is. That is, we can often better understand what beauty is by looking at what it is not. Kitsch is a 'by-product' of this search for beauty, it is a distraction, and in a religious sphere it is like pornography for the soul. Kitsch doesn’t show the reality. It doesn’t delve into the depths. The search for beauty is dangerous.

by Paul Anel

Interview of Frédéric Eymeri

Reading time: 3 mn

Frédéric Eymeri is an author, poet and painter. Married and the father of three children, he is 47 years old and lives in the region of Anjou in France. He just recently opened up the small workshop where he paints for several exhibitions, and is making imself available for conferences and offering his works with a surprising concept at www.fredericeymeri.com.

Frédéric Eymeri, © Tous droits réservés

What has led you to painting as an art form?

As a child, I was surrounded by artists: my mother, but also my uncle, and my grandfather. One of my first memories is of my grandfather painting a portrait of my mother. I can see vividly again this white canvas, little by little, being filled with color and becoming “a person”. It was something that really came to life. Very early, this same grandfather taught me how to draw. Through the years I painted in my spare time, without being satisfied with the result, not daring to display my work, never really ready to take the next step towards actually becoming a painter. With neither particular method nor place, overbooked and stressed in every area of my life, painting seemed to me distant and inaccessible, yet the intense desire to paint was never far from my mind. For more than twenty years, I have waited for the door to open…

What happened that allowed you to begin painting seriously?

It was when I least expected it that things came together, almost without my being aware of it. These things were: the creation of a little workshop planned as part of the renovation of our house, my encounter with a genuine and excellent teacher (which is so rare) and the most unbelievable thing, the luck to have, at least for awhile, the time – the time to learn, the time to work, the time to create. Within several months, that which I had waited for since almost forever, that which I had tried to put in place a million different ways without succeeding, this thing which has not since ceased to amaze me, was given to me! Painting took on a life of its own, taking shape within my life, in the hours of my day, in the walls of my home, in the questions of my children and the gaze of my wife, in the encouragement of my friends! For all this I am immensely grateful…

Can you tell us in a few words what the act of creating means for you?

To create means to offer to the world a “new piece of being” which recalls us to the source of everything and directs each person to their ultimate end; it is something which helps us to stay in love with the world. The point of departure is an encounter with a wholly other reality, which you catch a glimpse of and perceive in all its depth, through its many and varied relationships. It is this something saying powerfully (but in a whisper) that it is hidden here in the moment as a word to hear, a door to open, and an offer of friendship with this world that surrounds us. To create is to respond to this invitation, to try to convey to as many people as possible the intensity, the tone and the urgency of this message. For me, this happens through the figure of things (which is why my painting is figurative), even if it’s an encounter which takes place beyond this simple appearance.

To synthesize the idea, the act of creating is the actualization, through the language of an indeapendent art form, of a new knowledge – a knowledge which is acquired through the experience of an encounter with “that which is.” The artistic work is in order to transmit this experience. The experience is usually liberating, a source of joy and exclamation. But all of this only encompasses my own experience as a creator and is, I imagine, not very exhaustive…

Your website will be a new painting posted online each week along the lines of the “a painting a day” concept. Could you explain a little further this idea?

“A painting a week” is inspired by the “a painting a day” movement which is the initiative of Duane Keiser. Begun in 2004, "a painting a day" saw a rapid growth and a great number of artists began to post their work on the site, calling themselves “daily painters.” The idea is to create a painting every day, generally the size of a postcard, and to post it online at a fixed and accessible price. According to Duane Keiser, “This is fundamentally changing the relationship between artists, galleries and collectors.” [1] For the first time in history, the artist has the means to create, exhibit, sell and deliver their work instantaneously throughout the world.  For this reason, I think the movement “a painting a day” in its entirety can be seen as a work of art in the process of unfolding and is representative of its time. It seems to me like a giant “flash mob” still happening, or like a “performance” that finds itself on the same level with the new artistic practices of our contemporaries.

What moves me the most about this “a painting a day” movement is precisely this attention which these daily painters have, which allows them to bring to life the simplest, most ordinary of things. Raising up something useful to the order of the spiritual is a noble task, a high calling, it is a celebration of that which is considered as having no worth. It is saying to tin: “you hold within you a degree of being which makes you the same material as gold!” To paint a spoon, is to make it come alive in a way, to give to it another presence, to make us aware that it is something valuable, to rescue it from trivialization. To paint those objects hidden in the shadows, I believe, is also reaching out to the men and women who use them. Wanting to say to each person: “You are part of the beauty and life shining within all things.” I wish with all my heart that my paintings of the week will reach as many people as possible throughout the world.

NOTE

[1] Cfr. this link for more information.

by Maria Borkowska          May 2, 2014

Poland’s deep night of captivity had continued for a very long time. In the midst of totalitarian oppression, when hope seemed extinguished, there appeared a sudden and unexpected light. On October 16, 1978, good tidings of great joy were announced “urbi et orbi”: a Pope called from a distant land, a land that that very day began its journey back to hope and freedom along with other oppressed countries.

Karol Wojtyla knew what freedom meant. Born two years after Poland regained independence, he grew up with great respect for his homeland and the strong faith of his forefathers. He perceived freedom as a grace from God and therefore it could be never detached from responsibility, or, in the wider perspective, detached from love. A few months after his pontificate began, the Pope, visiting his homeland in 1979, said: “Freedom is a great gift from God and we have to use it properly. Love is a fulfilment of freedom.”[1]

Karol Wojtyla grew up in a free country but this freedom was still young, immature, and apparently not fully recognized by western countries. It was taken away one more time by the opportunistic political decisions of the world powers. As a result of the Yalta conference, Poland again lost its independence and came under the political influence of the USSR together with other European countries from 'the Eastern' block. One more time oppressive powers took control – powers aiming to destroy the nation by reaching deep down into the souls of its people and taking away their faith – the cornerstone of their identity. 

Facing the horrors of the XXth century, the whole Church needed a renewal of the spirit but in the slavic countries there was a need for even more – a need for an actual and concrete liberation which was not possible without first experiencing a restoration of faith. Karol Wojtyla had a deep understanding of what real freedom was and this remained the great concern of the whole pontificate of John Paul II: to insist on the freedom of the nation and to fight for the freedom of souls.

Just after World War II started, young Wojtyla wrote to Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk:
“Have we liberated ourselves indeed? I think that our liberation should be the gate of Christ. I'm thinking about the Athenian Poland – but superior to Athens by the immensity of Christianity (…) the Nation fell as Israel, for it did not acknowledge the messianic ideal, its own ideal, which was hoisted up as a foresail but never actualized!”[2]

To understand the mindset and cultural background of the Pope we need to go back to another time of oppression, back to a time when the captivated romantic spirit was looking for comfort in a messianic vision. Romantic messianism was the philosophical movement popular in Poland in the XIXth century, stemming from the judeo-christian tradition but at the same time invoking the tormented Jesus – a Messiah who came to begin a new history of mankind. In messianic poetry, well known and appreciated by John Paul II, the Messiah's role was given to slavic countries which were supposed to save and unite all sinners – other European nations. The objective was to build a Heavenly Kingdom on earth and Poland was supposed to play a crucial role in this mission. It was a time when the Polish nation was bleeding on the fields of two major uprisings (which had been until now the flagship symbols of patriotism). Messianism was a way to comfort the tormented nation by giving transcendent meaning to suffering, a way to give hope that the sacrifice and the struggle were not in vain. The role of suffering was highly regarded in its relation to the redemptive suffering of Jesus Christ. This historical union of Poland with Christ and His offering would be evoked many years later by the Pope during his first visit in Poland:

The Church has brought Christ to Poland – a key to understanding this immense and fundamental reality which a human is. For you cannot understand a human without Christ (…) You cannot understand the history of this Nation without Christ.[3] As the descendant of romantic visionaries, John Paul II was convinced that the history of martyrdom of his nation was tightly related to the history of salvation. As if giving meaning to the election to Peter's throne of a son of the Polish nation after hundreds of years of Italian domination he said: today Poland became a land of significant responsibility. (…) from here, with great humility but also with strong conviction, Christ must be proclaimed. Here, in this land, on this (historical) trail, we have to re-read the testimony of His Cross and His Resurrection. But, my beloved fellow countrymen – if we agree with what I've just dared to say – how significant a duty it brings! Are we capable to live up to this?[4] And again the Pope showed that being chosen, the same as being free, means to take on responsibility. To agree, with full awareness, to be part of a mission which is a part of a messianic plan of salvation, a plan that was carried out faithfully for many years by the Pope through his Church.

One of the main characteristics of messianic poetry was the creation of a messianic hero – the chosen one who would lead the nations. When Juliusz Slowacki, a Polish poet of romantic period, immersed in this ideo-spiritual messianic environment, wrote his poem, no one could expect its incarnation which was to come 130 years later. The Slavic Pope[5] was re-discovered with enthusiasm as a prophecy after the conclusion of the conclave in October 1978.

Amid discord the Lord God strikes
 An immense bell,
Behold, for a Slavic pope 
He opens a throne.

A Slavic Pope ascends on Peter's throne in a time of turmoil and oppression which determines the nature of his pontificate and the mission of the Church. The new Pope is aware that only by being close to the people, to his brothers, by joining himself to those who constitute the Church, can he unite and guide them on the path of renewal:   

Across nations he acts as brother, /
The voice sent forth,
That spirits come to their final end /
Through mounds of sacrifices;

(…)
He brings health, enkindles love
 And saves the world;
 /He sweeps out the interior of the Churches,
 Clears out the entrance,
 /He shows forth God in the world of creativity,
 Bright as day.

John Paul II was constantly emphasizing the importance of recognizing God in every aspect of our lives. God who is Love. God who is Mercy. The Pope, by the power of sacramental anointing, would reach out to people proclaiming Love wherever his pilgrimage led him:

He distributes love, as lords today/ 
Distribute arms.
He displays sacramental power,/ The world held in his palm;

Though just a poem, it carries attributes that we can recognize in the pontificate of John Paul II. We can find characteristics of the romantic 'warrior' in the Pope who was 'doomed' for holiness.

Along with the messianic hero figure, romantic poetry also defined another immortal model in Polish culture – an archetypal Polish Mother.[6] – an independent woman sacrificing herself for her offspring, a mother, who in time of war and oppression, would prepare her child and help him to go through suffering and, finally, an experience of death. The Mother figure stems from the great devotion for Holy Mary and also, at the same time, helps to preserve this devotion. John's Paul II exceptionally great love for the Holy Mother was based not only on his personal experience of being deprived of a loving mother  but it was rooted deep in the soul of his nation.     

Karol Wojtyla's mentality originates from romantic ideals but as a Shepherd of the Church he would always translate these ideals into concrete gestures and words full of meaning: when he speaks about love for our brothers despite differences he visits the Synagogue. When he speaks about the inevitable role of the dialogue he meets political and religious leaders; he goes to parliaments and international assemblies. When he expresses his concern for youth and their spiritual and moral education he invites them to World Youth Days. When he speaks about reconciliation he asks for forgiveness for all the faults of the Church throughout history. When he talks about forgiveness he goes to the prison to see his assassin. Also his devotion for Blessed Mother was not a sentimental ideal but involved concrete acts such as entrusting his priesthood to Mary as a Mother. He would always emphasize Her role in the history of salvation and the importance of Her example for all the faithful.

The call Karol Wojtyla received required him to give up his dreams and to take, from the path of Art, a turn into the narrow path of Holiness. Certainly there must have been a deep dissonance between the intimacy of the romantic ideal and poetry so present in the heart of Karol Wojtyla and the public life as a Pope of all the nations. Poets are people with hearts of loners. But they are also people of ideals that drive them to perform heroic acts. At least, that was the ideal of a romantic poet – the ideal close to every true Pole, and especially close to the heart of Karol Wojtyla. Hence he accepted the mission of renewal of the Holy Church and the diffusion of the Christian spirit throughout a turbulent world. This intense servant of God with the heart of a poet and an impressive stage presence gave a life-long performance, a performance of Faith, Hope and Charity that he proclaimed to the furthest corners of the globe.

by Thomas Billot          March 27, 2014

On Sunday, February 23, just a week before director Malcolm Clarke and producer Nicholas Reed would take the prize for best documentary short at the 86th annual Academy Awards, the main subject of their film quietly fell to sleep for the last time at a London hospital, 110 years of age.

Acknowledged the world over as the oldest survivor of the Holocaust, she also happened to be a pianist of great heart for whom music was not merely a passion, but indeed an art of living.

What motivated Clake and Reed to create this short film was the quest for a superhero[1].  Not one pulled from the realm of the imaginary and sold to the public as part of some jolting fiction but, very much to the contrary, a real superhero – accessible – whose heroism lay in her simplicity and enthusiasm for life.  They found this rare gem in the solitude of a certain apartment number six in a building north of London: Alice Herz Sommier.  A Czech Jew, born in Prague in 1903, friends with Gustav Mahler and Franck Kafka, she lost her mother and her husband in the tragedy of the camps.  At the age of 39, she herself was sent along with her son, Raphaël, to the camp at Theresiendstadt.  There she would be hired to play the piano continuously, going on to offer more than 100 concerts which proved a boon for the camp's prisoners and, without their even knowing it, humanized the guards themselves as well.

This short, all of 38 minutes long, allows us to experience the grandeur of music in so much as Herz Sommier, while not a world-renowned concert pianist, nonetheless embraced her talent as a mission – one of enduring a century marked by the madness of war and the absurdity of the concentration camps.  Even amidst the most tragic events of her existence, she was capable of extracting unforeseeable beauty.

Up until her death Alice Herz Sommer practiced the piano for hours a day.  Her dedication, one could say, was nothing more than her awareness of a mission which, like all missions, demands a commitment of one's liberty on behalf of he who undertakes it and accepts its daily responsibilities: "Without work you cannot give anything.  If you love what you do then work, work, work."  The fruit of this work is an effervescent woman in whom neither hatred nor bitterness, despite all the horrors she witnessed, never had the last word: "Music saved my life."  And perhaps that's because, in her words, "music is … God!"

Through his on-screen heroine, Nicolas Reed reveals to us a master of simplicity and joy who turns incessantly to her experience and tirelessly deepens it, thus allowing us to taste the mystery of life hidden under each note, to taste 110 years of life-lived-as-gift.  While receiving the Oscar for his work, Malcolm Clarke wished to explain the two aspects of Alice's personality that most touched him and his film crew: her joy and her amazing capacity for forgiveness.  He concludes with these words: "See the film.  She'll help you live, I think, a much happier life.[2]"  Enjoy!

To purchase The Lady in Number 6 : http://nickreedent.com/

Her biography: « A Garden of Eden in Hell », Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki, 2008

Another documentary on Alice Herz-Sommer, produced by Arte : « Everything is a present », Christopher Nupen, 2011.

By Constantin Sigov 

As Russia masses military forces near the Ukrainian border, Land of Compassion relays excerpts from a remarkable article by Constantin Sigov (philosopher, professor at the National University Kiev-Mohyla of Kiev) published in Le Monde on February 3. This article presents the main events that have been taking place on the Maidan square since the night of November 21, 2013, and reveals the true motives of the Ukrainian uprising: liberty, civil society and human dignity.

Constantin Sigov with Lisa © All rights reserved

These last few days in Kiev, we wake up every morning wondering if the clashes that happened overnight with the usurper's regime produced more victims.  The violence waged by this radically shifting regime weighs down not only on our compatriots, but on the very notion of democracy's peaceful expansion in a Ukraine that has been independent since 1991.  Resistence to the virus of fear is a fundamental test for us to pass if we are to remain united.

The strategy of intimidation used is not limited only to acts of violence from the Berkut (the anti-riot police).  The desired goal is also to deprive us of a future both near and long term, as well as to make a clean cut with the experience of freedom that the two generations since the disolution of the USSR have known.

These last two months defending liberty at Maidan Square have revealed the quintessence of the whole struggle.  No smoking bomb will ever erase that experience, nor suppress our aspirations.  This experience is what allows us to draw courage.

Ukrainians are defending civil society and human dignity, having seen them cruelly jeopardized by authoritarian post-Soviet regimes.  The historical slogan "For our freedom and yours!" has over the years been taken up by courageous citizens of Belarussia, Russia, and now Ukraine.  We would be wrong, however, to consider this struggle an internal affair of Eastern Europe, for it strikes at the whole of European culture and her fundamental values.

The civil movement in Kiev is, in fact, the most powerful demonstration in defense of European values since the founding of the European Union.   The brainchild of European Parliament deputies, the movement brings about the possibility of giving a "second wind" to the fundamental values which inspired the architects of European unification after the Second World War.

Their motivations have since receded into the background as people started forgetting that harrowing world conflict and the blessing of peace.  Hannah Arendt has spoken of the "lost treasure" of European Restistence, as well as more recent cycles of losing and discovering that treasure.  En 2004, with participants in the "Orange Revolution" in Kiev, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa also testified to the difficult path to freedom and the risks of losing that European "treasure."  This winter, a new chapter is being written with the civil disobedience movement of Kiev. […]

In the middle of Kiev, a camp like something from an old Gaulish village (the Euromaidan) has come into being as a sign of resistance toward the usurpation of power, and it's here where the fundamental structures of a civil society materialize.  In the unions' headquarters nearby, some 1500 people spell each other off in the kitchen to feed the camp.

A young handicapped girl, who hails from East Ukraine, has become the soul of the group.  Her name is Elizabeth.  Her energy for work and her courage are such that the cooks have adopted her name to designate their whole team: "Lisa." […]

"We all saw in her the symbol of non-violent refusal to be occupied. (non-violent resistance to occupation? to usurpation? to hostile takeover?).  She is the banner of thousands of people's peaceful march toward freedom.  Why have the physically disabled become figureheads at Maidan?  Because in them, all those who seek to overcome their own handicaps – be they social, legal, civil – see a bit of themselves.  All who seek to overcome the political lie that touches everyone of us identify with them.  Our three words "liberty," "dignity," and "truth" found their feminine face in a sort of Ukrainian Marianne.  Her phrygian cap takes the form of a chef's hat.  And humor is the andidote to the virus of fear.

What would become of us if our confidence were displaced by fear?  if fear were to lodge hatred and violence in not only "them," but also in "us"?  So as not to give in, we could, as Charles Péguy said before the Great War, find help in the courageous "little girl of hope."

Whatever the weather, day or night, alcohol is forbidden.  But that doesn't spoil in the slightest the festive atmosphere that rules in the camp.  The spirit of Maidan is found in this sentence from the resistance fighter René Char: "We invite liberty to come and sit with us at all our shared meals.  The seat remains empty but the setting is laid."

I strive not to imagine the lpessimistic scenario.  On the other side of the window it's dark, minus 18 degrees Celsius.  At Maidan Square our children and our friends protect Kiev from bandits and fear, from "phobocracy," but above all, they protect us from forgetting that treasure that is human dignity.  And so Maidan has been holding on for three months and will yet hold on, as it is called to do, so that this moment will be written in the history of Europe.

Link to the article published in Le Monde (French)

March 7, 2014

Father Alexandre Schmemann – CC BY Archdeacon Kirill Sokolov

(…)

Lent is a gift from God to us, a gift which is admirable, marvelous, one that we desire. Now a gift of what? I would say that it is a gift of the essential – that which is essential and yet which suffers most in our life because we are living lives of confusion and fragmentation, lives which constantly conceal from us the eternal, the glorious, the divine meaning of life and take away from us that which should "push" and, thus, correct and fill our life with joy. And this essential is thanksgiving: the acceptance from God of that wonderful life, as St. Peter says, "…created out of nothing…," created exclusively by the love of God, for there is no other reason for us to exist; loved by Him even before we were born, we were taken into His marvelous light. Now we live and we forget. When was the last time I thought about it? But I do not forget so many little things and affairs that transform my whole life into empty noise, into a kind of traveling without knowing where.

Lent returns to me, gives back to me, this essential – the essential layer of life. Essential because it is coming from God; essential because it is revealing God. The essential time, because time again is a great, great area of sin. Because time is the time of what? Of priorities. And how often our priorities are not at all as they should be. Yet in Lent, waiting, listening, singing … you will see, little by little that time – broken, deviated, taking us to death and nowhere else, without any meaning. You will see that time again becomes expectation, becomes something precious. You wouldn’t take one minute of it away from its purpose of pleasing God, of accepting from Him Hislife and returning that life to Him together with our gratitude, our wisdom, our joy, our fulfillment.

After this essential time comes the essential relationship that we have with everything in the world, a relationship which is expressed so well in our liturgical texts by the word reverence. So often, everything becomes for us an object of "utilizing," something which is "for grabs," something which "belongs" to me and to which I have a "right." Everything should be as Communion in my hands. This is the reverence of which I speak. It is the discovery that God, as Pasternak once said, was "…a great God of details," and that nothing in this world is outside of that divine reverence. God is reverent, but we so often are not.

So, we have the essential time, the essential relationship with matter filled with reverence, and last, but not least, the rediscovery of the essential link among ourselves: the rediscovery that we belong to each other, the rediscovery, that no one has entered my life or your life without the will of God. And with that rediscovery, there is everywhere an appeal, an offering to do something for God: to help, to comfort, to transform, to take with you, with each one of you, that brother and sister of Christ. This is that essential relationship.

Essential time, essential matter, essential thought: all that is so different from what the world offers us. In the world everything is accidental. If you don’t know how to "kill" time, our society is absolutely ingenious in helping you to do that. We kill time, we kill reverence, we transform communications, relationships, words, divine words into jokes and blasphemies, and sometimes just pure nonsense. There is this thirst and hunger for nothing, but external success.

Don’t we understand, don’t we understand, brothers and sisters what power is given to us in the form of Lent. Lenten Spring! Lenten beginning! Lenten resurrection! And all this is given to us free. Come, listen to that prayer. Make it yours! Don’t even try to think on your own; just join, just enter and rejoice! And that joy will start killing those old and painful and boring sins… And with that you will have that great joy which the angels heard, which the disciples experienced when they returned to Jerusalem after Christ’s Ascension. It is that joy which was left with them that we nobly adopted. It is first of all the joy of knowing, the joy of having something in me which, whether I want it or not, will start transforming life in me and around me.

(…)