The Ara Foundation aims to promote contemporary religious art by helping to restore the value and significance that Christian art has held throughout history. For centuries, the pinnacle of artistic achievement in every era has been religious art; and we can see that this phenomenon has manifested itself across all artistic disciplines: architecture, sculpture, music, and so on. This makes sense, because if religious art aims to bring us closer to the transcendence of the divine, it is reasonable that, in this human endeavour to attain it, we should encounter a glimpse of the infinite Beauty that is God Himself. The approach to the sacred often takes place through the aesthetic; for this reason, the Catholic Church regards the via pulchritudinis as a sublime way of accessing an experiential understanding of the divine Mystery and of exerting a beneficial influence on the other spheres of our existence.

In this day and age, we are witnessing incredible advances in a wide range of fields; however, religious art has been sidelined. We aim to offer high-quality contemporary works across all aspects of religious art: architecture, painting, sculpture, gold and silver work, decorative arts, design, music, poetry, etc., as well as to contribute to the training and guidance of artists working in these fields, and to collaborate in the conservation of our artistic heritage.

We believe it is essential to showcase the marvellous works that Christian art has produced over the course of twenty centuries, in order to highlight the significance of the artistic legacy we have inherited and to encourage those working across the many strands of art to continue enriching that heritage. In this endeavour, the website will serve as a key and open platform: a site we hope to establish as a leading reference for Christian art, thanks to its quality and content, which we aim to cover all facets of art, not just the visual arts, but also other forms of human expression, such as music and poetry. The images will be accompanied by expert commentary to facilitate a better understanding of these works.

Establishing a dialogue between historical heritage and contemporary works of religious art will provide a comprehensive overview of what is currently being produced. We have included a number of projects, entitled ‘Proposals for the 21st Century’, through which we aim to suggest ideas that may serve as inspiration to those working in the field of religious art. It is also necessary to highlight the principles or characteristics that should be evident in religious art, supplementing the liturgical guidelines with writings by Christian thinkers. In this way, artists will be able to understand the purpose that religious art should fulfil: to inspire piety, to reflect the beauty and transcendence of God and his love for every human being.

To promote contemporary religious art, it is necessary to bring together the contributions of many individuals and institutions. We wish to collaborate with all those who share our interest in religious art—both individuals and institutions; to award grants and scholarships for training, study and research; to take part in charitable activities and projects related to Christian art in developing countries; and to engage in cooperation projects with public and private organisations.

The website is currently under construction. In fact, we are in the early stages of a decidedly ambitious and exciting project, which we will develop as and when we have the necessary resources. Thank you for visiting this page; we hope you will soon be able to find new content here.