Professional paper
«De Arte Sacra» by Marijan Gajšak, S.J. (1944-1993)
Mirela Lenković
Abstract
Marijan Gajšak (1944 - 1993) the greatest artist among Croatian Jesuits: theologian and liturgist, polyglot and a man of generosity. He studied theology in Zagreb and Rome, and fine arts in Rome and Paris. He taught at the Philosophical – Theological Institute of the Society of Jesus in Zagreb, and was a member of the Croatian Society of Artists. He held several international and group art exhibits, as well as four independent art exhibits. His theoretical work «De arte sacra» (Zagreb 1992) was written for his students at the Philosophical – Theological Institute of the Society of Jesus in Zagreb, and it provides a survey of certain periods in the history of art with a special emphasis on the problem of ecclesial space. Commencing with pre-Christian ecclesial space, Gajšak studies three categorically diverse thematic units: pagan temples, Slavic shrines, and Jewish sacral space; secondly, he deals with the subject of Christian ecclesial space by doing a systematic analysis according to historical periods, namely the Early Christian era, 6th -16th Century Eastern Churches, and Western Churches of the early Middle Ages, of the pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque Periods, and also 19th and 20th Century Art. He touches on topics such as the search for a model church-building, deals with the issue of the church as a building «from the inside» (where he continues to define interior ecclesial disposition, and studies the altar as both the point of divergence and convergence in the conceptualization of ecclesial space), but also with the origin of iconography. In his theoretical work «De arte sacra» Gajšak in fact studies man and the manner in which man pays homage to a higher being, that is, to God.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
945
URI
Publication date:
18.3.2006.
Visits: 1.601 *