This article is the third in a five-part series on Donahue Academy’s identity. (Part III)
In the previous two weeks, we explored Donahue Academy’s Catholic and classical identity and its emphasis on faith, character, and intellectual formation as key activities that help the school to deliver on its vision and mission. This week, we will explore students’ artistic formation through the fine arts program. As before, we refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and also seek guidance and inspiration from the magisterium of Pope Saint John Paul II.
The Catechism teaches that, “Created ‘in the image of God,’ man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life, which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being’s inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing…” (CCC 2501)
Consider also Pope St. John Paul II’s Letter to Artists (1999): “Society needs artists, just as it needs scientists, technicians, workers, professional people, witnesses of the faith, teachers, fathers and mothers, who ensure the growth of the person and the development of the community by means of that supreme art form which is ‘the art of education’” and “…To communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God… Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colors, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look or listen…”
About music specifically, the Catechism teaches that, “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value… [because] as a combination of sacred music and words, it forms a necessary or integral part of solemn liturgy…” (CCC 1156) Furthermore, “Religious singing by the faithful is to be intelligently fostered” (CCC 1158) Moreover, St. John Paul II in his Letter to Artists (1999) urges: “The Church also needs musicians… In song, faith is experienced as vibrant joy, love, and confident expectation of the saving intervention of God…” And once again in the Saint’s Chirograph for the Centenary of St. Pius X’s Motu Proprio “Tra Le Sollecitudin” on Sacred Music (2003): “Popular singing, in fact, constitutes ‘a bond of unity and a joyful expression of the community at prayer, fosters the proclamation of the one faith and imparts to large liturgical assemblies an incomparable and recollected solemnity.’”
Thus, Donahue Academy’s fine arts program includes instruction and practice in the plastic arts, dramatic arts, and music across the Trivium stages (Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric). Grade by grade, students learn theory, technique, tradition, and expression. They create art and present drama and choir performances of increasing complexity while also integrating artistic skills into grade level curricula; for instance, as early as Kindergarten, students turn to the plastic arts to develop the senses, music to aid memory, and dramatic play to feed the imagination.
Donahue Academy’s fine arts curriculum is designed to graft students’ aesthetic values to the transcendental value of beauty. In this way, throughout their lives, graduates may discern what is good in secular culture and “sing intelligently” as they partake on the rich Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church as its living stones.
