Art: THE QUICK & THE DEAD

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Weak Faith. These advances have followed a pattern which Couturier eloquently urged. Churches, he argued, should commission the very best artists available, and not quibble over the artists' beliefs. His reasoning: "Where traditions are still living traditions, minor artists are enough to insure the continuous production of whatever art religion may require. But . . . to effect a revival of liturgical art it would be safer to turn to geniuses without faith than to believers without talent." Couturier missed one point: the improvising geniuses of an age weak in formal faith can scarcely be expected to rival those of the distant past, who possessed both the strength of faith and the assurance of an accepted style. Though Christian art is not quite dead today, any comparison with Van Eyck's vital and assured 500-year-old masterpiece can make it seem so.