Why the Church glorifies God through paintings and sculpture

A snippet from the site, way of the (Church) Fathers

Some Church Fathers called Christmas the Feast of the Incarnation.

Incarnation comes from a Latin word that means “enfleshment.” What sounds to English-speakers like a rarefied theological term is really just a statement of fact: God took on flesh. When that happened, flesh itself became something holy, something to be celebrated with paintings and statues and Christmas cards.

Yet in the eighth century, a faction arose in the Church calling themselves “Iconoclasts,” Greek for “picture-smashers.” The iconoclasts tried to “purify” and “spiritualize” Christian life by obliterating all artistic representations of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. They seized and destroyed most of the religious images in the Eastern Roman Empire, and they cut off the hands of those Christians who would not part with their icons. God, they said, could not be represented in a picture; any attempt to do so was rank idolatry. But this is how St. John of Damascus answered them: “In former times, God, being without form or body, could in no way be represented. But today, since God has appeared in the flesh and lived among men, I can represent what is visible in God. I do not worship matter, but worship the creator of matter Who became matter for my sake . . . and Who, through matter, accomplished my salvation.”

In other words, the Incarnation makes art, too, a holy thing, just as it made the body a holy thing. The artists who have painted the Nativity throughout the centuries were not creating idols. Their visible representations are hymns of praise to the invisible God made visible.

Look at any of the classic Nativity paintings and marvel at the care taken with the tiniest details. Every animal in the stable is an individual creature; every straw in the manger seems to be drawn with infinite care. Of all the biblical scenes artists have loved to paint for centuries, the Nativity is the one that seems to provoke the most thorough delight in the simple pleasure of drawing things. It seems as if God is in every detail.