On 6 and 7 May, at the via Petrarca site in Naples, the first conference of 2022 will be held online. It is promoted by the Scuola di Alta Formazione di Arte e Teologia (Safat) of the Pontificia Facoltàdell'Italia Meridionale (PFTIM) Sezione San Luigi, in collaboration with the Fondazione Culturale San Fedele of Milan and with the patronage of the Fondazione Posillipo. Dedicated to the theme "What type of sacred art is relevant today?", the two-day event will take an interdisciplinary approach towards this topic and art critics, artists, philosophers, liturgy experts and other experts in the field will participate. 

Creativity and spirituality

In Western culture, and in Europe in particular," Hernandez the director highlights, "we are in a historical moment when we are probably overcoming an intellectual schizophrenia that had, in the last century and a half, separated artistic creativity from the spiritual dimension, from the deepest roots of our religious and spiritual traditions and, above all, from the demand for deeper meaning, which lies in every human heart and which leads the heart to recognise its own limits and turn to something that is much higher. This is therefore a privileged time to interpret this reunion between art and spirituality, which is not a return to the past but a rediscovery of the past with new fruition. Rediscovering this intrinsic link between art and theology, between art and mystery, has a totally new fruition compared to a thousand or five hundred years ago. The time of schizophrenia has been a time to discover this relationship: the conference aims precisely to show that art is searching for and meditating profoundly on the mystery, but it is also aiming to be of help to the more explicitly sacred spheres that are searching for new languages, a search that the Church itself finds difficult to pursue". 

Art and theology

The School of Higher Education in Art and Theology of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy, St. Louis Section, has been carrying out its activities since 2006, with the aim of focusing on the relationship between art and the sacred, both in the historical-artistic and theological perspective, as well as in the perspective of communication and understanding and production of art and its proposed mechanisms and fruition. The years and the experience gained have allowed a constant evolution that led to the turning point, in 2020, with the establishment of the Diploma of Art and Theology, a unique award in Italy.