The Color of Light

At first sight this book might seem somewhat unusual. It is not an art book in the traditional, expected sense of the term, nor is it a theological essay, and much less a biography. Yet it contains all these elements—art, theological reflection, and the experiential given. What we seek and what we are striving to reach is an art, a theology, and a spiritual experience that is part of a living organic unity and can thus speak from and to everyone’s life. In today’s world we are jostled between emotions that are cultivated and imposed by the media, which deny us authentic feeling, and a rationality imprisoned in methodologies, which claims an exclusive role as an instrument of knowledge in an ever more tired and pathetic way. In this context, we all have a nostalgia for an approach to life and knowledge that is a global and integral experience. This book follows the research of Marko I. Rupnik, outlining a continuity between typically pictorial artistic problems and those relative to the essential themes of human life (questioning about the world, about matter, the body, sorrow, evil, people, relationships, forgiveness…). In his vision, this work presents an inseparable weaving of the language of colors, materials, light, poetry, and passages of reflection. The words with which Rupnik accompanies his images are not “explanations” of his works. They are rather, another way of expressing himself. They are words with which he alludes to his attitude toward art and, therefore, life, words that suggest themselves to the ear of the one looking at the colors and images, pointing to a double perception that is based in a single word-image. This volume, therefore, is not an art monograph, but rather a book of theology in images and colors. Not only is there no antagonism between word and image (as can be seen as a consequence in many areas of theology), but in some way, the artistic creation also indicates another paradigm in theological thinking.

Table of Contents:
Presentation by M. Campatelli * Forewords by C. M. Martini, O. Clément, T. Spidlik, C. Valenziano * Insight into the Mystery * Faithfulness to the Insights * A First Synthesis: The Redemptoris Mater Chapel * Developments * Indices and References of Work Cited. In English.

Other languages:
Also in Italian (Lipa Publishing House), Slovene and Spanish.

Art, English, Mosaics, Painting.