Volume 25, 2020
Jeff Koloze
Pages 87-100
When Culture Is Challenged by Art
Pro-Life Responses in the Art of T. Gerhardt Smith to Cultural Aggression against the Vulnerable
This paper examines three paintings by T. Gerhardt Smith as pro-life responses to the life issues of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia: Sorrow Without Tears: Post-Abortion Syndrome, Femicidal National Organization Woman’s Planned Parentless Selfish Movement, and Killer Caduceus. After identifying foundational principles of art aesthetics from a Catholic perspective, the paper determines that Smith’s paintings are consistent with ideas enunciated in St. John Paul II’s Letter to Artists (1999).