From Art Knowledge News:
Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often “illusory and deceitful.” The Pope told the gathering of hundreds of painters, sculptors, architects, poets and directors, held beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo, that he wanted to “renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art.” Against the backdrop of Michelangelo’s vast fresco of the Last Judgment, which adorns the chapel’s altar wall, Benedict lamented that the once-close cooperation between the Church and the artistic community had weakened.
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