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| April 2008 |
| Billie Silvey |
| I loved many of the statues in Italy, particularly the Michelangelos. But some statues seemed overdone to the eyes of a woman who’s grown up seeing God in the simplicity and practicality of houses of worship in the Restoration tradition. Perhaps it’s the strictures against idolatry that make me question the place of sculpture in the church. Or the sense that money should be spent on helping people instead of decorating churches. Or maybe it’s just that, for me, the spiritual is better expressed in non-material ways. I am more likely to see God in a person who’s lived close to him than in a statue, no matter how well carved. |
| Sculpture and Religion |
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| Only God can really make his creation come alive, and he did when he made us. James Weldon Jackson used the image of a sculptor God in his majestic poem, The Creation: Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled him down; And there the great God Almighty Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand; This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till he shaped it in his own image; Then into it he blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. |
| Pygmalion was a Greek king who carved a statue of a woman and then fell in love with her. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, brought her to life as Galatea. Much later, George Bernard Shaw wrote a play entitled Pygmalion, about a gentleman, Henry Higgins, who bets he can turn a cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a lady. It was later filmed as My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. |
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| When we were in Italy, we saw a lot of statues, many on religious themes. Many were remarkably lifelike, like Michelangelo's Pietà below, but none was really alive. |
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| Muslims agree. God in Islam is abstract and can’t be represented by objects or depictions. That’s why mosques are decorated with calligraphy and geometric or botanic forms. They can still be quite expensive, though, like the King Fahad Mosque near my home which was built by a Saudi prince for $2.16 million.. |