The Assumption of Blessed Mary
One of the many things that bothers me about modern art, and really it's not something new, just something more overt nowadays, is the de-humanisation of art. Just from skimming my channels and groups, the objectification of humanity as a thing or the de-sacralisation of sacred art to make it more base is far too rampant. Even the few artists on Deviant art who do sacred art or religious works do so in a way that points, not to the subject of the painting or to higher ideals, but to the low and base.
It never bother me until I saw how other people see MY work. For many of them, it's impossible to see that my pictures are'nt just colorful pictures, or pictures of women and men. I'm trying, in my slopy and untrained way, to communicate something of divine truths with them.It really all started after I posted my picture of Adam and Eve in the garden. It turned out to be quite popular, but the comments I got on it and the collections it went into were not what I hoped. Certainly, everyone is'nt religious, but I did'nt expect for people to add it into collections named "Cute Couples" or "Bishies", or "Rainbow". It really annoyed me for months, and it still does that when people see my work, all they see is "Pretty Lady" or "Naked person", and not "St.Agnes" or "St.Mary Magdalene". My pictures of the saints, of Christ, and of his Blessed Mother are MORE than just pretty pictures of people. They represent real truths.
You guys should remember the layers of theology that I wove into This Picture, for instance.
But no one ever saw it. And even when I showed it to fellow Catholics on deviantart, I often got shot down by them. They could'nt get past the fact of what they were wearing to understand how beautiful I wanted to make that picture, not just in execution but in motivation. I tried to submit it to one of the Catholic groups, sent with the explanation, and it was declined due to "Inappropriate subject matter". Really! An allegory of Our First Parents is inappropriate!
It got worse when I was editing the tags for something I did a while ago. I decided to re-tag the Tree of Life cross that I drew, so I decided to see under what tags people put pictures of the Crucifixion. There were some very nice results, including copies of painting by Velasquez and the Netherlandish masters. But there was a whole host of irreverent and blasphemous images as well. Unfortunately, with the way DA is, unless they're breaking a real rule there's nothing you can do about them.
It never bother me until I saw how other people see MY work. For many of them, it's impossible to see that my pictures are'nt just colorful pictures, or pictures of women and men. I'm trying, in my slopy and untrained way, to communicate something of divine truths with them.It really all started after I posted my picture of Adam and Eve in the garden. It turned out to be quite popular, but the comments I got on it and the collections it went into were not what I hoped. Certainly, everyone is'nt religious, but I did'nt expect for people to add it into collections named "Cute Couples" or "Bishies", or "Rainbow". It really annoyed me for months, and it still does that when people see my work, all they see is "Pretty Lady" or "Naked person", and not "St.Agnes" or "St.Mary Magdalene". My pictures of the saints, of Christ, and of his Blessed Mother are MORE than just pretty pictures of people. They represent real truths.
You guys should remember the layers of theology that I wove into This Picture, for instance.
But no one ever saw it. And even when I showed it to fellow Catholics on deviantart, I often got shot down by them. They could'nt get past the fact of what they were wearing to understand how beautiful I wanted to make that picture, not just in execution but in motivation. I tried to submit it to one of the Catholic groups, sent with the explanation, and it was declined due to "Inappropriate subject matter". Really! An allegory of Our First Parents is inappropriate!
It got worse when I was editing the tags for something I did a while ago. I decided to re-tag the Tree of Life cross that I drew, so I decided to see under what tags people put pictures of the Crucifixion. There were some very nice results, including copies of painting by Velasquez and the Netherlandish masters. But there was a whole host of irreverent and blasphemous images as well. Unfortunately, with the way DA is, unless they're breaking a real rule there's nothing you can do about them.
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