What Christian art can teach us about COVID-19

The Three Living and the Three Dead by Jean Le Noir. Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

(OPINION) At a time when being quarantined is the fate that has befallen so many people around the world as a coronavirus outbreak spreads, my urge has been to look at what history can tell us about events like the one we are all currently experiencing.

Italy, for example, remains on lockdown after the contagion rapidly spread there over a span of just a few weeks. Birthplace of the Renaissance, Italy is a resilient place. It has endured thousands of years of conquest, turmoil and strife. Something like COVID-19 isn’t even the first time disease has ravaged its people.

The threat of infection has united citizens in many ways behind the frequent washing hands and buying of toilet paper. At the same time, religious people seeking sacred spaces have found that spiritual desire a potential health hazard. The events of the past few days remind me of The Met Cloisters, a museum located in New York City. Nestled in the northern most tip of Manhattan, The Cloisters is the closest thing to visiting Europe’s past and not having to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Why focus on this place in the time of COVID-19? As a noun, cloister means a covered walk in a convent with a wall on one side and a colonnade open on the other. As a verb, it means to go into seclusion. The connection between a monastery — during Lent when Christians around the world prepare for Easter — and self-isolation makes The Cloisters more relevant than ever.

The museum, which resembles a castle perched on a hill, contains a large collection of medieval art and is centered around four cloisters — the Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont and Trie — that was moved from France to New York in 1931 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Thanks to philanthropist John D. Rockefeller who bankrolled the move and purchased the land that would house the museum, The Cloisters remains a cultural gem that allows visitors the chance to see paintings, illuminated manuscripts and tapestries from the Middle Ages. It was announced Thursday that The Cloisters would temporarily close due to the deadly virus.

As a child, my parents would take me every summer to Italy, the country of their birth, to visit family. This ancient country has seen its share of hard times. Two world wars and earthquakes have combined to kill thousands of people — and that was in the 20th century alone. The center of the Roman Empire and later Christianity (the Vatican is now its own city-state within Rome), Italy has been brought to its knees by COVID-19 after the outbreak spread there from China.   

It isn’t the first time. The Bubonic Plague — also known as The Black Death — devastated much of Asia and Europe for three hellish years starting in the year 1347. The plague, which resulted in the death of 100 million people around the world , was an unprecedented human tragedy in Italy after spreading up the peninsula to the rest of the continent. As a result, it marked an end of an era in Italy and resulted in wide-ranging social, economic, cultural and religious changes, according to noted historian Jacob Burckhardt, author of The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.

The blog DailyHistory.org noted how the virus quickly spread:  

The Black Death spread to Italy from modern-day Russia. Genoese merchants spread the plague while fleeing a Mongol attack on their trading post in Crimea. The plague was carried and spread by the fleas that lived on the Black Rat and brought to Italy on the Genoese ships. The population of Italy was ill prepared for the spread of the disease. There had been a series of famine and food shortages in the region, and the population was weak and vulnerable to disease, and furthermore, the population did not have any natural resistance to the disease. Italy was the most urbanized society in Europe, Milan, Rome, Florence and other Italian centers among the largest on the continent.

Sound familiar? While not exactly how COVID-19 spread, the similarities are eerily similar. The art and architecture on display at The Cloisters denote the years before and during this catastrophe befell the West. The same blog post — citing the book, The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History — added the following:

Initially, in Italy, the plague led to a revival in religion among many. The middle ages was a time when people believed that events are a result of God’s will. Many viewed the plague as punishment for God for the wickedness and immorality of the people. There was an upsurge in religious observance, and many sections of the public became swept by religious fervor, as many sincerely believed that the Black Death was a sign that the end of the world was coming. Religious fanaticism spread throughout the peninsula and many men and women performed in extreme religious practices, such as the flagellants. The flagellants whipped themselves into a frenzy to atone for their sins. The Church suffered greatly during the plague, many priests and especially monks died. The monasteries proved ideal breeding grounds for the plague while many priests contracted the sickness as they gave the last rites to the dying.  

What the Black Death ultimately did was disrupt Italian society forever. It ultimately helped spawn the emergence of the Renaissance, the greatest time in human history when it comes to art and architecture.

When an earlier plague hit Rome in the 6th century, then-Pope Gregory the Great had a vision of the archangel. As a result, a statue was erected in commemorate that moment. That statue served as a symbol of God’s love and stands tall overseeing the now-empty streets of Rome. In a subsequent plague hit Venice, its citizens built a church in 1592 that stands to this day. I wonder how many citizens of those two cities will look to these same symbols for solace during and after this pandemic.  

This deadly virus may ultimately change how we live going forward — much like the Sept. 11 attacks did nearly two decades ago. Maybe we won’t ever shake hands again or demand even more personal space in public areas than usual. It may even lead to a religious revival. In a secular world where places like the Cloisters are more museum than religious site, it is something to ponder. It happened in Italy so many centuries ago. It could happen again.

I suspect that lots of people may also be praying as they wash their hands. It is fascinating how art can transcend time. Art also talks to us in different ways depending on what is presently happening around us. A piece at The Cloisters, like the 14th century piece The Three Living and the Three Dead by French artist Jean Le Noir, may mean little in good times, but it speaks to us now given the current pandemic. Throughout the 14th century, the memento mori theme highlighting the macabre in church art was commonplace as a result of the plague and a reminder of the afterlife.

Will COVID-19 ultimately trigger another renaissance? The optimist in me wants to look forward to a bright future. But there are so many questions:

Is this virus as big a deal as the media says?

When will it end?

When will life get back to normal?

These are all questions with no answers at the moment. In the Christian tradition, a monastery was the living quarters of men who dedicated their lives to prayer in preparation for the afterlife. These days, COVID-19 could mean we have to cloister ourselves as the only way to beat this pandemic. History does have a way of repeating itself. The past few days are a reminder of it.

Clemente Lisi is a senior editor and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged. He is the former deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.