Posts Tagged ‘Art’

Originally from Calcutta, Jesuit Father Saju George Moolamthuruthil is a dynamic and unique artist with a rare vision and passion for the art and culture of India and a dancer of the bharatanatyam style.  For over 15 years, he has shown a constant concern to conjugate his dancing with his Catholic faith and considers art as an effective means of spiritual integration and social transformation.

In recent years, Fr. Saju has given over 200 performances in India and worldwide and adopting both Hindu and Christian themes in his incorporation of images whether of Radha-Krishna and Shiva-Parvati or of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

“I love dance, I love to dance, I love to teach, and I love to experience God and the sacred in and through dance,” says Fr. Saju.

According to the Saju, this art involves prayer and adoration, self-awareness and divine realization, social service, the promotion of interreligious peace and harmony and ecumenism.

The bharatanatyam is an elegant form of dance with a strong visual impact. Originating in the temples in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, literally thousands of years ago, this dance style is the oldest of the main forms of classical Indian dance. The dancers, through their choreographies, display gestures and movements representative of mythology, philosophy, epics, ancient stories, contemporary themes and other experiences of life.

The graphic depiction of Jesus as the suffering Man of Sorrows is not a crowd pleaser but is a crowd draw, according to Jesuit Father Gregory Waldrop, assistant professor of art history at Fordham University.

Fr. Waldrop moderated a March 18 panel discussion on the Man of Sorrows as part of a symposium organized by the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture in conjunction with a new exhibit at New York’s Museum of Biblical Art.

“No one would dispute the importance of Christ’s sacrificial death in Christian theology, but we are less inclined today to decorate our living rooms with bloody representations of him,” said Waldrop.

But Waldrop said the Man of Sorrows — which is an image of Jesus upright, dead but not yet resurrected — still resonates artistically and religiously. “It continues to attract and provoke, responding to current conditions of anguish, loss and deprivation in the world, and showing up in contemporary songs, popular images and even as a theme in artworks by high-profile, emphatically secular contemporary artists.”

For more on Waldrop’s panel discussion, visit Catholic News Service.

The graphic depiction of Jesus as the suffering Man of Sorrows is not a crowd pleaser but is a crowd draw, according to Jesuit Father Gregory Waldrop, assistant professor of art history at Fordham University.

Fr. Waldrop moderated a March 18 panel discussion on the Man of Sorrows as part of a symposium organized by the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture in conjunction with a new exhibit at New York’s Museum of Biblical Art.

“No one would dispute the importance of Christ’s sacrificial death in Christian theology, but we are less inclined today to decorate our living rooms with bloody representations of him,” said Waldrop.

But Waldrop said the Man of Sorrows — which is an image of Jesus upright, dead but not yet resurrected — still resonates artistically and religiously. “It continues to attract and provoke, responding to current conditions of anguish, loss and deprivation in the world, and showing up in contemporary songs, popular images and even as a theme in artworks by high-profile, emphatically secular contemporary artists.”

For more on Waldrop’s panel discussion, visit Catholic News Service.