Recently, Pope Leo XIV visited the famous Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona to celebrate the completion of its central tower. Last year, the Catholic Church advanced Antoni Gaudí, the architect of Sagrada Familia, on the road to official sainthood. After more than twenty years of research into Gaudí's life and work, the Church became satisfied that the architect had led a holy life worthy of emulation. He is now declared "Venerable".
Often, we imagine that great artists have to lead turbulent lives in order to be "great." This belief, I think, stems from a form of modernist hyper-individualism that demands uniqueness and novelty. The most turbulent lives can be the most productive of spectacle, melodrama, and oddity in ways that titillate culturally decadent, overfed audiences. Artists may even choose to cultivate extreme experiences for the purpose of generating audience-grabbing novelties! Consequently, the history of modern art (and literature, and theater) is littered with tortured souls who abused substances, engaged in reckless pastimes, bounced from one dysfunctional relationship to another, and just generally "lived on the edge."
Antoni Gaudí, however, was a very stolid, un-turbulent soul—even as he made some of the most innovative art ever witnessed. He was a hard worker and devout Catholic Christian with a monkish personality and a deep connection to the local poor. As his laser-focused architectural career developed, he ate sparsely, he dressed in worn and humble clothes, and he worked constantly, eschewing a personal life. Accounts relate that Gaudí had a romantic crush on a young lady in his early years, but soon his architectural obsession took over. Gaudí died at age 73 after being hit by a streetcar; he did not receive immediate medical care because he was perceived to be a vagrant. In other words, Gaudí lived obscurely and died obscurely, even as his architectural work attained greater and greater fame.
Antoni Gaudí is known for creating the enchanting Parc Güell and Casa Milà in Barcelona, Spain, but his best-known work (which is also Spain's number one tourist attraction) is Barcelona's aforementioned Sagrada Família—the church of the Holy Family. Considered Gaudí's masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia occupied forty-four years of the architect's life and was not finished at the time of his death. (Nor is it finished today!) The church's remarkably unique and compelling architectural style is world-beloved to an almost unparalleled degree, first for its undeniable beauty, and second for its peerless blending of ancient tradition with modern innovation.
Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Familia (Church of the Holy Family), Barcelona. Photo by C. Messier / via Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons and under Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The interior of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. Photo by Catalunya Sabadell. via Wikimedia Commons and under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Gaudí's Sagrada Familia richly employs all the major components of beauty, as described by Thomas Aquinas, whose account of harmony, integrity, and luminosity as marks of true beauty still shapes how we understand transcendent design today. The church, first of all, utilizes both the golden ratio and repeated, fractal-type forms at different scales (e.g., columns and arches repeated rhythmically in smaller and larger registers) to produce strong impressions of harmony and integrity. Second, the Sagrada Familia richly explores the principle of luminosity through its nuances of light, shade, and color, particularly in the form of its famous stained-glass windows. And third, the Sagrada Familia conjures wholesome, beautiful associations through its use of organic forms—flower-like, mountainous, stem-like, and tendril-like—that unfurl endlessly and fruitfully on the inside and outside of its structure. This endless fluidity was made possible by Gaudí's extensive use of reinforced concrete—a modern building material known for its malleability (unlike, say, marble or granite). However, Gaudí did not neglect natural materials in his magnificent basilica. While the enveloping forms might be fantasies of molded concrete, other details and supporting forms are richly natural and granular, showcasing the textures of traditional tilework and rare local stone. Through all these design elements, Gaudí joined modern advances in technology and aesthetics to perennial principles.
In addition to its innovative and spectacular use of reinforced concrete, experimental organic structures, local stone, and modern lighting/stained glass, the Sagrada Familia makes profound nods to tradition. Despite its uniqueness, it bears an obvious resemblance to the celebrated Gothic cathedrals scattered throughout Spain and much of Europe. It also has stone sculpture reminiscent of both the Gothic and Baroque eras—though with a modern twist. Its interior stays true to the ideal of great cathedrals as human-made forests with towering trees pointing towards starry heavens. And its layout remains cruciform (cross-shaped) in the manner of the greatest Christian churches for over a thousand years. Meanwhile, the church itself is a potent high place, drawing visitors with both fervent faith and none; its magnificent portals (below) summon one into a heavenly space; and its resplendent interior is a sanctuary putting one in mind of the truly holy. Tourists from all over the world become pilgrims to this sacred spot, lovingly designed by a solitary, borderline monk, to the tune of about 5 million per year.
The Portal of Charity—one of the main doors of the Sagrada Familia. This grand doorway features sculptures influenced by many different historical styles, while remaining distinctively modern / via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain.
The Venerable Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Familia is a limit case of what reverent church architects (and their communities) are capable of. Most communities don't have more than one hundred years and half a billion dollars to create a symphonic masterpiece that stupendously evokes the transcendent for even the most jaded eye.
However, we can all do our part. We can all do small things to adorn our sacred spaces, acknowledging their set-apart specialness, grace-filled holiness, and heavenly home-likeness—even in humble ways. This will help our culture heal. First, we can give hungering souls something beautiful, plaintive, honest, and deep to "look up to" for transformation (like the Brazen Serpent and its descendant, the Christian Crucifix)—a tradition of sacred art forming the soul that stretches back centuries. Second, we can forge compassionate ties with the past by taking up and honoring the painstakingly evolved forms of our ancestors. Third, we can honor the uniqueness of our locality by embracing local heritage and the beauty of local materials found right at our doorsteps (specific types of wood or stone; specific, traditional craft forms). And fourth, we can empower the makers in our midst (the unsung and unactivated artists and designers, with hearts that yearn to make beauty), calling them into their full vocation as temple builders for our beautiful God.
The healing fulfillment of the Brazen Serpent: The Christian Crucifix, which we look upon to be healed. This particular example, called the Gero Crucifix, is housed in the cathedral of Cologne, Germany. It is painstakingly made of the finest local wood and combines fidelity to biblical narrative with ornamental splendor and theological insight. Photo by Elya. via Wikmedia Commons and under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Of course, all earthly beauty is only a foretaste of heaven. (As St. Paul said, "No eye has seen, nor ear has heard what God has prepared.") But that's how God works. He gives us glimpses of his splendor and glory and makes us fall in love. And then we yearn and follow. And our hearts grow in holy desire, wishing to see the true splendor that is beyond today's earthly appearances, waiting to be revealed in the Heavenly Jerusalem.
Our world is heartsick from simultaneous over-indulgence (in watered-down pleasures) and deprivation (of what is truly beautiful). We live in an eclectic, aestheticist, functionalist, reductivist world that desperately needs true sublimity that fires on all cylinders—materially, formally, symbolically, historically, spiritually. Who will answer the call? Who will raise up shining new beauties that heal?
The preceding text was an excerpt from Dr. Kresser's new book, Church Beautiful: Sacred Art and Spiritual Healing from Cascade Press.