amy: In Venice

Can anyone really be shocked, at least within modern day culture, about the conflict of religion and art? Art has almost taken on its own religion within the 21st century. Unfortunately, religion has taken on a pious reputation which is unable to accept innovation and new ideas. Due to religion’s unchanging values, the art world has seen the religious community as rejecting everything art, fashion and culture stands for: a continual revolution and overturning of the normal for the abnormal. As we travelled from city to city, I feel as if each city spoke a different story of this confused battle. In Venice, it seems the city was too busy to ponder over miniscule trifles like art versus religion. They seemed to naturally flow in and out of one another, more concerned as a whole with merchandise and trade rather than philosophy. No doubt, this conversation is still felt today with the extensive amount of tourist shops and businessmen ready to take advantage of the visitor as a wolf waiting for the sheep. I think it is this mentality that keeps and kept the religious conflict away. In Venice, it felt as though one is assumed to either be an artist or a seller. To try and enforce a certain degree of piety would be uncharacteristic to the majority of those living there. And yet…religious enforcement still has a say in some of the most beautiful buildings standing in Venice through its dress code, almost foreign in America. In a way, this is the silent protest in the small square that is still belongs to the church.