IB TOK class: What Pope Francis saw in Caravaggio

This article picked by a teacher with suggested questions is part of the Financial Times free schools access programme. Details/registration here.

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Specification

An FT article, in which ‘cradle Catholic’ Enuma Okoro discusses why the late pope was a fan of artist Caravaggio, and the role art plays in helping us understand the human condition. 

Subject links Visual arts, Religion, History, Language

Essential terms Deeper prophecies, Power of the arts, Multiplicity of truths, Human condition, Redemption, Judgment vs. grace, Doubts

Key concepts Values, Perspectives, Interpretation, Truth 

Themes & AOKs The arts, Religion, K&K, History 

BQ Perspectives, Values, Spin

Read the article and then answer the questions below:

What Pope Francis saw in Caravaggio

• What relationship exists between the arts and religion? 

• Why did Pope Francis believe in the “power and necessity” of art and artists?

• In what ways were Caravaggio and Francis’s outlooks on life similar: for example, the themes dealt with in the painting, The Calling of St Matthew? Why might some people be offended by this “beautiful perspective”? 

• How do the arts help us to understand that there are a ‘multiplicity of truths’ about being human?

• To what extent does religion support this approach?

Link to mini-lesson here

Michael Dunn, theoryofknowledge.net