Minipost: Pope John Paul II and Modern Art

The other day I was visiting the Vatican City when I saw the banner pictured below. What I first noticed about the image was how moving it was, particularly because it was such an intimate close-up depiction of the former Pope. Seeing so much of his face, I was able to ignore his position for a moment and see him as a person. A person whose face tightened up in a moment of reflection. A person whose individual strands of hair were pushed here and there by the wind.


What I noticed next was the form of the crucifix he was carrying during this moment of thought and reflection captured in an image that the church chose to remember him by. It was a bronze crucifix produced in not quite realistic form. It reminded me of the type of modern form employed in the statue dedicated to Pope John Paul II that I discussed in an earlier post. It seemed to me that there could be no greater testament to Pope John Paul II's approval of such modern form than this image.