What a Visit to an Unfinished Basilica Taught Me about Beauty
By Anonymous
An Encounter with Beauty in Barcelona “We have to go to the Sagrada Familia. Everyone says it is incredible,” my friend pleaded. “Okay,” I conceded. I had already seen approximately thirty Spanish medieval and gothic churches in the last four months while studying abroad. They were all beautiful, and they were all old. Internally, I rolled my eyes, thinking, How different could this church be from all the others?
But when I laid my eyes on the famous Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, my jaw dropped. Unlike any church I had seen before, I had stumbled into an enchanted forest scattered with biblical scenes. Twisting leaves, flowers, animals, and branches engraved in stone cover the entire façade of the church. On one side of the church, cool morning blue and green tones dance through the stained glass windows, reminding me of fresh dew drops on grass and a quiet bubbling stream running through a forest. On the other side, the light dazzles through the red-orange hues that almost seem to radiate the sun’s powerful heat. Inside the nave, the pillars that hold up the church resemble enormous, life-giving trees that look like they have withstood centuries. A giant crane towering between the steeples pronounces to the world that this basilica is a masterpiece still awaiting its completion.
The Work of a Century
According to Lisa Abend’s 2019 TIME article, “Inside Barcelona’s Unfinished Masterpiece,” the Sagrada Familia, on which construction began in 1882, remains unfinished 139 years later. Just around the corner is its long-anticipated completion date: 2026. The first architect of the basilica, Francisco de Paula del Villar, resigned after a year. Gaudí, the next architect, abandoned Villar’s original plans for a typical neo-gothic church. Innovative and original, Gaudí has been described as a master of modernism. “There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature,” Antonio Gaudí said. “Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.” According to scholar Joan Bassegoda Nonell in a 2015 National Geographic article, the world saw Gaudí as waving in the new frontier of modern architecture but, paradoxically, his guiding principle was that “Originality consists in returning to the origin.” He also said, “Man does not create...he discovers.” God, the creator of nature, was his divine inspiration.
When completed, the Sagrada Familia is projected to be the tallest church in the world. The only objects that will exceed the height of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona are the nearby mountain Montjuic, and the hill Tibidabo. Why didn’t Gaudí build the Sagrada Familia to tower over the natural features of the landscape? As Gaudí said himself, “The work of man must never exceed the work of nature.”
As Abend emphasizes in her TIME article, the work of the Sagrada Familia changed not only Barcelona’s landscape but Gaudí himself: “Gaudí was not a practicing Catholic when he received the assignment. But he became increasingly devout as he worked on it, eventually coming to see the very structure as a vehicle for Christian evangelism.” Acutely aware this project would extend past his lifetime, Gaudí created extensive 3D models for his vision. The number of models was so great, Abend says, that the completed project covered an entire city block. Gaudí worked on the Sagrada Familia for 43 years. A 2013 60 Minutes episode tells us that Gaudí was so devoted to this work that he moved to live in his workshop inside the Sagrada Familia towards the end of his life. He worked on the project until his death at 73, caused by an unexpected tram accident. According to an article in the Institute for Sacred Architecture, upon his death, the director of the Museum of Barcelona’s Archdiocese wrote an article calling Gaudí “God’s Architect.” The name has been commonly used in the century that followed. Abend details Gaudí’s legacy: “Only the crypt, the apse’s facade and a single tower were complete at the time of his death. Everything else, including the remaining 17 towers and the central nave, remained undone.”
A Lesson in Beauty
Gaudi’s deep devotion to the Sagrada Familia gave me a glimpse into his understanding of the transcendent nature of art and beauty. Stripping him of his ego, the Sagrada Familia was a work that was unable to be completed in a human lifetime. Yet Gaudí remained steadfast in his mission, knowing that he would never see the final product. It was a work that was directed less towards humanity’s selfish pride and more towards the Divine.
The day I visited his unfinished basilica, Gaudí taught me a lesson and beauty pierced my soul. The purpose of beauty itself struck me; the beauty here on earth always points back to Beauty itself, the Divine. While I may not be an artistic genius like Gaudí, just like his Sagrada Familia, any creation in my life should have telos—a purpose directed towards the Divine.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God’s activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but it is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man” (CCC 2501).
Like many good things, creation requires labor and sacrifice. It draws us out of ourselves and is a gift to the world. By creating, we place a small part of ourselves into the creation. In parallel, God created the world, and his beauty can be found throughout His creation. Through the creation of the world, God interacts with it, allowing us to be co-creators with Him. In this way, by creating within the means God gives us, we partake in the creative nature of God. How cool is that?
Participating in the Creative Work of God
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, finding ordinary beauty is more important than ever. Breaking divisions, beauty brings to humanity an innate joy that withstands the test of time and the barriers of disagreement. And yet, the virus has challenged us––piercing, intense, transcendental moments of beauty, such as my experience at the Sagrada Familia, seem even harder to come by.
To find the Divine in the mundane is both a challenge and a call. I am no artistic genius like Gaudí, but I imagine my simple hobbies through this lens. A quick sketch on a piece of paper, a song composed on the guitar, experimenting with a new recipe in the kitchen, an essay written for school can all become self-emptying gifts.
As I create within the means I have been given, I feel the Spirit of the ex nihilo creator––the One who created something out of nothing––surrounding me. As I labor, I ponder sacrifice for the glory of God. Each act of creation speaks to our irreplaceable, unique, God-given mission. Each becomes a humble prayer as we offer them to our Father. And each, like Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, through beauty, can be a tool for evangelization by showing others a glimpse of the Divine creator.
