Artistic creativity has its foundation in God in virtue of his incarnate Word. Christ is the beginning in which everything was created; through him the entire creation was called into being. God created man in his own image.(37)
Thus, according to the words of Archbishop Dr. Christoph Schönborn, "the renewal of Christian art will depend on a turning towards Christ, the God-man, in whom God has given us the most perfect image of himself."(38)
"The uncircumscribable Word of the Father has circumscribed himself out of you, O Mother of God. And in restoring the stained image in its original form, he permeated it with divine beauty. Confessing the redemption, we depict this image in works and words."(39)
Hence in Christ, God is artist in the most perfect way, and in this manner he is both Creator and "Image" in absolute perfection and the measure of all Christian sacred art.
The above holds true for works of any art whatsoever, but it is applicable in a very special way to sacred art. In the case of an artist producing sacred art, his inner relationship to the Catholic faith and its liturgy is added as well as his profession of the faith.
"Having emerged with the Christian community, ecclesiastical art has its own aims, which are to be precisely kept, and its own ever-binding task."(40)
Sacred art receives its consecration and transfiguration exactly in its confession of God, the Creator and Redeemer; in its witness to communion with Christ; and in its testimony to the liturgy of the Church. What is at stake here is not an anthropocentric private art, in which the artist merely expresses his own ego, his own ideas, sentiments, and desires. Rather, we are dealing with a great Theo- and Christocentric concern; we are dealing here with a work of art produced in the Christian community and for the Christian community, a work that leads the community to Christ and by which the community consecrates to him the most noble thing it possesses.
"Sacred art is true and beautiful when its forms correspond to its particular vocation: anticipating and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God-the surpassing, invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ...."(41)
In its ideal form sacred art is a reflection of the coming glory, shining through the provisional character of the earthly. It "renders present, as it were, Christ and his mysteries of salvation."(42)
For sacred works of art to meet this high demand, quite apart from the above-mentioned general artistic criteria, they also have to fulfill ecclesiastical laws: They have to correspond to the traditional faith, the Gospel, and in their form and execution they need to breathe "the sacred," i.e., they have to avoid profane motifs and devices and everything that stands in overt opposition to Christian dignity and devotion or everything offensive to an authentically religious sense.(43)
Drawing from the original source of Christian life, the Eucharist, the artist engaged in sacred art will be very discreet, putting aside his own opinions and drawing his motifs from the divine source of religion, so as to preserve the faith in its purity and to be accountable to the Christian community.
"The soul can only perform living works when it receives the benefit of the light of grace from the sun, that is, from Christ, and when it obtains the intercession of the moon, namely of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ, and when it imitates the examples of the saints. In the cooperation of all these there ensues in the soul the living and perfect work."(44)
Sacred works of art are determined by the communio sanctorum, the supernatural communion of all members of the mystical body of Christ; they are determined by common worship, by the faith, by prayer, and by the life of the community, gathered around Christ, who is mysteriously present in sacrament and mystery.
Given this concern, the arts must combine their efforts and unite in order to form one "integral work of art," in which every picture and every statue has its concrete function and its essential significance in the whole.