Interview with Chris Lewis from Baritus Catholic
For some months now Baritus Catholic has captured the imagination of young Catholics and non-Catholics alike through the power of art. Chris Lewis, the mastermind behind Baritus Catholic was an obvious choice for the first installment of our Artist Interview series. His work embodies a new Renaissance of uplifting art that pleases both eye and soul. In this interview we ask him about what inspires him to create art and what’s the reason behind this revival of the Good, the True and the Beautiful.
Has art lost its way, if so how?
I believe there will always be someone, somewhere, creating meaningful works of art with purpose. However, I think it’s also fair to say that the standard of art we accept today versus times in the past, has fallen quite far. I think there are good reasons for this when you look at the cultures that particular pieces of art are cultivated in. The works of the Medieval and Renaissance era were cultivated in a richly devout Catholic culture, and the artwork that flourished in that time and place reflects those values and ideals. Today, we live in an era of materialism and secularism, and so the artwork that becomes popular today reflects those ideals. Artwork is simply the outward aesthetic manifestation of the inward cultural identity. So you look at art, you understand the culture.
Our art has lost its way, because our culture has lost its way. Whereas art was once used to build cultures up, unite them together, inspire and ignite piety, devotion, and imagination, today’s materialist and secularist society promotes the tearing down of traditional values. Rather than creating work that takes man up to God, it attempts to bring God down to man, to deconstruct, trivialize and critique our heritage. It’s always seeking ways to introduce some novel protest of our once commonly held traditional values, rather than proclaiming eternal truth and beauty and higher ideals. G.K. Chesterton once said that we’ve passed from thinking that a masterpiece can be unpopular, to unless it’s unpopular it can not be a masterpiece. I think this still sums up the mentality behind popular art today.
What makes your art different?
Since so much of the art created today gets attention for being novel or new, or challenging traditional ideals, I am attempting to offer a counter-balance. I want to create art that is good, true, and beautiful, and presents our traditional values in a way that is relevant not only to Catholics, but a new audience of those who have fallen away or are separated from the Church entirely. I’ve been called a ‘modern traditional artist’ and I think this is fitting. I've merged the medium of digital illustration with traditional Catholic imagery as a way of representing the images we are so used to in the Church in a way that modern viewers are open to exploring. Modern art tends to be confrontational and question the idea of beauty all together. But I think art allows the possibility of being drawn to truth through beauty in a way that is non-confrontational. It creates a connection between the viewer and the artwork that can speak to the heart and allow them to remove the barrier in even approaching a curiosity about the Catholic faith.
There is a certain facade to popular art, that people are drawn to, but underneath is lacks substance. I’m seeking to bring the same attractive aesthetics to the people with modern tastes, but instead of digging deep to find only a hollow work, I hope they find the unending depths of Catholic Truth that goes way beyond my representation of it, and rediscover the truths that for so long were the center of culture and art together.
When you walk through the great churches of Europe, you enter heavenly sacred spaces that are full of the most beautiful artwork ever created, and the work speaks to us and reveals who we are. However more and more, as Christianity is pushed to the margins of society, and mass attendance shrinks, people do not get the chance to enter into these spaces, to contemplate the deep questions this artwork evokes because they never enter through the church doors. I want to use the modern means available to create art that takes this aesthetic beauty outside the doors, and take it to the street so that the average person can be confronted with the traditional Catholic imagery that has been central to the faith lives of so many in our past. No doubt we’ve lost touch with this, so for many it is something new, something unfamiliar, and art is a great way to begin a reintroduction to popular culture of the Catholic faith they once had and have now lost.
What is beauty and is it subjective?
I do think that beauty is subjective to a certain degree and also that beauty in art is very diverse, just as diverse as the individual artists themselves. However, much like the idea in Catholic teaching that we are to act on our conscience - our conscience must first be well-formed. In the same sense, I believe that our idea of beauty has to be well-formed, too. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, true, but the more we see the world through the eyes of Christ, the more our idea of beauty will conform to True beauty. To a large extent the culture lacks the moral and theological foundation with which to see the world properly. For this reason the modern idea of beauty is often distorted and disfigured. To paraphrase something I once heard from G.K. Chesterton: you can make a beautiful thing ugly, but you can not make an ugly thing beautiful. It seems in current times we are set on making beautiful things ugly, and I think that’s because we’re seeing through eyes very much clouded by sin. Until we can see clearly again, we will not recognize the truly good and beautiful.
What inspired you to start creating art?
I’ve been an artist my entire life and it’s really the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, and that I was ever truly good at doing. I’ve always had a deep desire to create, and tell stories through illustration. However a career in Graphic Design took me away from any serious drawing for years. It was also around the time I started out on this career path that I discovered the Catholic Church through meeting my wife. Previously I had rejected my lukewarm Protestant upbringing and embraced an Atheist worldview, which landed me doing freelance work outside of graphic design in artistic environments that were very much secular and often times counter-Christian. After I entered into the Church and went through various conversions which helped me set my bearings straight, this setting started to become increasingly at odds with my Catholic faith. After suffering a health event that turned my life upside-down, I found myself pulled back into drawing as a way of having some kind of outlet for everything going on during that time of recovering my health. I started to be convicted that I should use this second chance I was given and the time and God-given talent to give back to God and glorify Him and His Church and so I made the decision to drop my previous freelance design and illustration ties, and devote my free time outside of my regular job entirely to artwork that helped motivate and encourage me and others in our faith. As I grew spiritually and in the knowledge of the rich history and theology of our Church, I became tired of seeing Catholic practices and teachings misrepresented, attacked, and mocked in the public forum, while at the same time seeing anti-Christian ideals take such a hold on a large part of mainstream society, especially through the arts. This motivated me to also teach the truths of our faith through the illustrations I was creating. Everything started to become aligned, thanks be to God, and my health, my faith, my conviction, started to come into focus and I found purpose in illustrating that inspired me to start Baritus Catholic Illustration.
Where did you get the idea for the name "Baritus Catholic”?
I love history, and once while reading about the late Roman Empire in the 4th century, I was fascinated by the accounts of the Roman armies who confronted Germanic invaders at the northern frontiers of the Empire and were faced down by the war cries that sounded like trumpeting elephants. In Latin, war-cry, or trumpeting is ‘Baritus’, and this was the perfect connection I wanted to make with this illustration project. First it was Latin, which ties it to the language of our Church, it evoked something strong and powerful, and called to mind the many Biblical accounts of the trumpeting armies, or Angels ushering in the end of times which is where my logo of the trumpeting Angel carrying the sword comes from. The idea of a battle-cry is something that represents my purpose behind this project, which is to do what I can to counter the anti-Christian aesthetic in our culture. I want to flood the visual space with Catholic imagery, and do what I can to remind faithful, and unfaithful Catholics in particular, of the rich and beautiful legacy we have in our Church. I also want to reach the non-Catholics, and I felt like the cultural climate was perfect for sounding another battle-cry, although spiritual, using art as a ‘weapon’ to push back the tide of secularism through beauty.
Your art has captured the imagination of young men and those further from the Church. Why do you think that is?
Deo gratias! I hope that is the case. I love the traditional art of our Church, there is something familiar and comforting about it. But we are in some tough times as a Church as Christianity is more and more marginalized in public culture. This is this era of digital content and social media, we live on it all day every day, and the images we consume carry weight. Unfortunately the images that we consume day in and day out in popular media often lack substance, or worse, are toxic. That being the case, I think people want to see something that invigorates them and reinforces the strength of what we believe in a way that is up-lifting. This is what motivates me to illustrate work that shows the passion, the energy, and the truth of what we believe, but in a way that stands up to the secularist aesthetic that often captures the imagination of young men in a way that modern Catholic art may be missing.
The blushing saints are great, and beautiful, but they aren’t something that is going to stand next to the hard-edged realistic visuals that the secular culture is constantly feeding men. But we have that too! Our saints weren’t the pristine and well-groomed images we’ve come to expect on prayer cards - they were the real, tough and gritty fighters who stood up to the world, and to sin, and won. We can show this side too and I think it will appeal to those who feel like the Church has lost its relevance. This is the power of art, is it not? We’ve done such a good job at showing the beauty and perfection of the Saints, that maybe some who are feeling the pressures and burdens of society start to think “well I’m not like that, I have problems.” Hey, we all have problems and struggles. No one knew this more than Jesus, the Holy Family and the Saints. So tapping into that aspect through art is much needed right now. We need to show the strong fighting side of our faith because we’re in spiritual war.
I hope this appeals to those who are further from the Church because they know deep down they are longing for something the culture isn’t giving them even though all of their images appear to be what they want. This goes back to my previous point: all of the aesthetics can be there, but if the motivation isn’t the Good, the True and the Beautiful, people hit a dead end. I’m also quite tired of seeing Our Lord portrayed in art as simply our friend. Yes He’s our friend, but He is way more than that. He is our Priest, Prophet and King, God of the Universe. We need to remember His power and glory in art, along with Our Blessed Mother. I just don’t see this side too often in art anymore, and I think people who are beaten down in life want to look at Our Lord and Our Lady in imagines that invoke their total confidence. Someone they would lay their life down for. This is the Jesus of Scriptures, and I want to show that too, and most especially I want those who have fallen for the offensive portrayals of Jesus in popular media to give a second glance at Him, because many of them will not pick up the Bible and read about Him after watching an episode of the latest popular show making a mockery of Him. Is it possible to readjust their preconceptions? I hope so. That’s what I want to do.
What challenges and opportunities does the 21st century have for digital art?
Digital art was created for commercial purposes so I think at the outset there is a challenge in that it may seem impersonal, and at the rate we consume digital media there is the risk of over-saturation, meaning these works often end up having a pretty short life-span. I don’t know that digital art will ever stand up to the timeless nature of traditional painting, but that may be just a reality of the medium that artists have to consider. However, there is a positive in that because it was created to be commercial, it is extremely versatile as far as the uses you can get from digital art. Whether creating for digital content or for print, the opportunities for reproduction and distribution make getting Catholic imagery out into the public arena much easier, and in various ways that can be relevant to a diverse modern audience. We have to use the medium in a way that it’s intended, and adapt it to suit the purposes of promoting the Catholic faith because if we don’t, secular art will simply fill that void.
Is there any difference viewing art in person?
It depends, with digital art, I do not think so. I think with traditional art, yes, definitely! I remember seeing a painting titled ‘The Raising of Lazarus’ by Juan de Flandes online once, and I really did not like the work at all. To my amazement I came across this same painting in a museum on a trip to Spain, and I couldn’t stop looking at it. Every detail and stroke of the artist’s brush was visible on the canvas, and seeing the texture and vivid color with varnished surface in person brought the image to new life in front of my eyes. I couldn’t believe it, to this day it’s the only painting I remember from that visit. So I do think that traditional hand-painted works offer something to the viewer that a piece of printed work can not. There is the very personal interaction of the painter and the paint and the canvas with traditional work, that almost imparts a part of them into the paint and canvas. With digital work, we create through a barrier of a screen, and so there is a sense that the humanity of the artist is lost. If you look close maybe you can see it in the individual techniques and details, but I don’t think you can have that same personal experience with the piece even if it were printed and hung on a wall that you get looking at a one- of-a-kind painted work. In addition many of the sacred works of art were meant to be encountered in the sacred environment of a church. They were meant to serve as a part of the worship, and so in a sense they were tools to help lift minds and hearts to Heaven. You just can’t get this same experience out of a reproduction in book.
Would it be correct to say that your art is in this world but is not limited to it?
I definitely want my art to be in the world, and I hope it eventually reaches those places that are the furtherest away from God, and in turn I hope it will not be limited to that space. In so far as the God of the Universe could use a work I create to reach a person and make them look, make them question, and make them seek, then I would say yes my art is not limited to this world, but only by the will of God. That’s always possible. If even one person were to give the Catholic faith a second glance in part to my work, it is all the work of God, I am only trying to use the talents He gave me in a way that gives back to Him, and hopefully draw others to Him as well.
Are secular and Christian art opposed to one another or can they have a complementary relationship?
Insofar as secular art is proclaiming the good, the true and the beautiful, I think it can exist in a complementary relationship with Christian art. Much of the art of human history is not opposed to Christian belief, but in more modern times this has taken a deliberate shift. Many modern artists create with an intent to tear down the beauty and truth of the Christian faith and it’s values on which Western society rests, and this of course is a huge conflict. When art is purposefully made to attack Christianity, it will be impossible to exist side by side by the very nature of what they stand for. This goes back to my previous statement, that the culture needs to have the proper sense of beauty, and the rightly-ordered eyes to see it, in order for it to create work that can exist in harmony with Christian art. I don’t see that happening right now, unfortunately, and there seems to be an increasing turn in the other direction. The decline of art has real consequences for a culture, and especially when we have a church that is not formed and catechized properly, there is the real danger of Christians being assimilated into popular modern culture through imagery that is at odds with Christianity, and the dividing lines becoming blurred. Christian art needs to rest firmly on what is stands for, and put a stake in the ground. I think it’s the job of Christian art to represent the values that we want to influence secular art, and be the ones who guide the larger secular culture into an understanding of true beauty.
Why has the Church (which has inspired so many artistic masterpieces in the past) seemed to have artistically stagnated in recent decades and only seeing a revival now?
As mentioned in the previous answer I think bad catechesis on the part of the faithful is one answer. In the post-Vatican II era, when altars were torn down, statues removed from the sanctuaries and walls left barren, we really lost a sense of the purpose and importance of art in our worship. Historically, art such as with stained glass windows served to help tell the stories of our faith, to enrich our prayer lives, and to lift our hearts to Heaven. This has been a void in the lives of Catholics now for decades, as modern churches are erected almost as blank canvases. But looking back over time, there is an ebb and flow to artistic revivals that come on the heels of some kind of cultural change. I think we are seeing that now. We’ve lived with secularism and materialism for the last century now, which no doubt influenced some of the stripping of our churches in the 20th century, and I think it has left the faithful knowing there has to be more than the mundane reality in front of our faces.
We all sense something deeper in our hearts, and we’ve been looking for a way to express it, and I think we’re turning back to art as a rejection of the idea that all we have is materialism and nature. With the accessibility of vast information at our fingertips online now, the invention of social media, the growth of apologetics and all of the other tools that have come into our hands in the last couple of decades, the faithful are starting to learn the faith again, they’re starting to look at the past, and they’re starting to be revitalized in the truth. When this happens, the natural result of an inward conversion will be the outward expression of it through art in the Church again. I think this is happening; the challenge is we’re having to raise up a whole new generation of artists who can accommodate the reconversion of the faithful and hopefully the culture. But the artists I’ve been in contact with seem really on fire about it and are eager to help inspire a new Renaissance as soon as the Church is ready to support it!
What’s your favorite artwork by another artist?
It’s really almost impossible to say. I go through phases, and I have my favorite artists, but not necessarily my favorite work. I’ve always been inspired by the works of the Baroque period, and of 19th and early 20th century illustrators. I suppose my own style is somewhat of a merging of these two favorite eras. But if I were forced to narrow it down to a favorite, Bernini and Dore are at the top of my list. The Ecstasy of St. Teresa is simply one of the most magnificent pieces of work ever created, I just don’t know of anything even close. But Dore really did a masterful job with his illustrated Bible and Dante’s Comedy as a larger collection of work. It never gets old, and I could state at those books for hours. I’ve more recently discovered the stained glass window work of FX Zettler, and just can’t get enough of it. I’ve really been digging into the beautiful works they created in the late 1800’s, and am finding so much inspiration from the quality and beauty of such a craft.