Lawrence Lam @ WYD2002

Images of Salvation

The Royal Ontario Museum is putting on Images of Salvation, a display of works shipped from the Vatican galleries as well as other Italian museums. This is the first (and most likely only) time these works have left Italy and it is only being shown in Toronto in conjunction with World Youth Day before going back to Rome in the middle of August.

Back in June, Corey Keeble, the curator of the ROM had given a very enthusiastic slide show presentation on the Vatican artwork that was to come. When the exhibit was opened I made plans to see it at the earliest possible time. I went once at the end of June with some St. Mike's guys but then went a second time with North Toronto Chinese Baptist Church's Josiah Fellowship.

Let me just say that the collection is quite awe-inspiring. At the entrance are a collection of paintings of various cherubs, a bunch of baby heads with wings. But hanging over the entrance are three very very large tapestries. The first one depicts the Resurrection, of Jesus coming out of the tomb as if he was shot out of a cannon. Next to that is a tapestry of St. Joseph of Cupertino, filled with ecstasy that God's grace allows him to fly (St. Joseph is the patron saint of airline pilots and also of exam-writers). Then there's an intricate tapestry of the "Franciscan Tree", which has a bunch of cardinals and saints and St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata from the cross of Christ, like laser beams being shot through his hands and feet. Inside the exhibit was a collection of paintings arranged in the order of Old Testament, New Testament and everything after which includes depiction of saints and liturgical objects. There were also old, beautifully illustrated Bibles. One of them, though looked like it was drawn by a grade 3 with pencil crayons, which provoked Terry's comment "Hehehe...they didn't know how to draw". Jesus looked like a little kid with a beard. Close to the end of the collection are liturgical items: vestments, chalices, even a beautiful monstrance. At the very end was a portrait of the Pope and a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta.

Interesting things I noticed about the tour when I went with the Christian Fellowships. The saints were not discussed at all (as expected), but the tour guides said to me up front that they really weren't touched at all with those paintings because they didn't know anything about them. I remarked that if they bothered to learn anything at all about the lives of the Saints, they'd see how great these people were. They made warnings several times to the fellowship about "If you think Jesus is there, he might not actually be there"...I don't know what they were afraid of...were these protestants going to suddenly start worshipping paintings? I don't know. What struck me was the discussion of the painting of Peter denying Jesus. The group leader referred to Peter being "the rock of the Church....the man to whom Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom of Heaven". He later acknowledged to me that the papacy is the lineage from Peter. Wow...I wonder why they're not Catholic. On the whole they did not like the art very much because they were not accurate portrayals of scripture. What happened to artistic license? In any event, I'm really glad the Baptist Churches still got to take part in a World Youth Day activity, whether they knew it or not.

The beauty of everything was quite astounding. Why isn't there any modern-day Religious art? Why are there no Protestant works of this calibre? Evangelization can happen just by looking at these works. It reminds me of Jeff feeling a jolt of spirituality just by being in European cathedrals. It makes one feel like St. Joseph of Cupertino, tempted to just fly up to Heaven.

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It is not my intent to offend anyone here. What I wrote was straight from the heart: uncensored, uncut.