Blog #1 — Theology, Worship and the Arts

In October of 2019, I began a trip of a lifetime during Fall break of my semester abroad in London. In hindsight, this trip truly was once in a lifetime, and I will cherish it forever.

I planned a trip to Turin for a weekend so I could watch my beloved Juventus for the first time in person. I arrived at the stadium several hours before the match would kickoff, and when I first saw the pitch from the inside, I felt as if all time had stood still. The architecture of the stadium from the inside, along with the entire atmosphere from start to finish of the match, moved my heart more than any piece of art I have come across before. The sight truly brought tears to my eyes.

A bold move to choose this for my art work — but I am interpreting architecture loosely here.

Hans-Georg Gadamer describes three characteristics in all art that allow us to recognize its beauty: play, symbol, and festival. The aspect of play highlights movement and reason in a work of art, upholding the idea that every aspect of an artwork is intentional and directed at some goal. Symbol establishes a familiarity in things, something we can recognize others and other things by, and helps to form a wholistic experience. Festival expresses the importance of the temporal aspect of art, the journey of stepping back and gazing, pondering and wondering. Through festival we can appreciate the beauty we see before us as pure gift.

I noticed throughout the entire complex, the intentionality in its design. The aspect of play brought out beauty from the onset. From the outside the stadium is all white, with a small triad of green, white and red stripes making a ring around the top of the dome to symbolize Italy. On the inside the backs of seats were a mix of white, black and yellow. This is done on purpose, as the backs were easily detachable, which can allow the groundskeepers to make designs inside the stadium, visible only when the stadium is mostly empty, however. The black and white seats symbolizing the colors of Juve, while the yellow seats were arranged in 3 big stars across one end of the pitch, symbolizing Juve’s 30+ league titles. On separate match days, the seats are arranged differently, with new designs that could either be a pattern, or send a message. When I entered into the stadium early, I could see the arrangement so well, and was amazed by the foresight in design that allowed the stadium to be dynamically beautiful.

The design also feeds into the aspect of symbol. The bianconeri (Juventus’ nickname) are defined by their white and black colors, just as the stadium’s design portrays. The stadium not only symbolically represents the club, but the fans inside as well. Inside the stadium fans could get a small black and white face paint, and underneath my seat I had found a complementary black and white blanket. The atmosphere created by the colors of black and white, from the fans and stadium together, symbolized everything Juventus is. The stadium was both unveiled and veiled, I could see the beauty from the outset, but all throughout the match I was discovering more. Gadamer explains that we must change our perspectives, our lives sometimes, in order to get the most out of art, to see all the beauty it has to offer.

And I think soccer, especially in Europe, is the most pure example of festival in the world, outside of a religious context. For many people world-wide, this is their livelihood, what they look forward to most, something they are able to celebrate on a weekly basis, year after year. The matches week after week create a culture, something to look forward to. It doesn’t matter what day of the week the game is being played. Gadamer argues the time doesn’t usher in the celebration; rather, the celebration is what defines the time. Pieper would build on this idea as the festivities of watching soccer is a tradition to most fans, and to some, it even presents itself as borderline worship. These matches have the joy, fun, and definitely riotousness that festivities call for, as Pieper argues. In its simplest form, the fans attend matches to celebrate their teams.

Professor O’Malley explained in his lectures the criticisms baseball sometimes receives. Soccer too receives criticism for its occasional slow pace, weird rules, and low-scoring outcomes. These aspects of soccer do not matter to me, especially when watching live in person. The entire time in the stadium was a temporal experience. There was nothing else for me to do but sit back and enjoy the show. All the while, I gazed and admired the skillful dribbles of Cristiano Ronaldo, the technical passing of Miralem Pjanic, the roars of the fans of both Juve and Bologna alike. The entire time my experience was being shaped and formed by what I saw. Gadamer would say that “Joey Football” in Texas, probably couldn’t care less about a soccer match in Italy. But this makes sense for art and festivity. I myself was able to find the beauty in celebrating the festivities of the match, because I was actually taking part in the festival itself.

The festivity of being in the stadium was enough to move me to tears. It embodied the words of Josef Pieper, who argues that festivity is meaningful in itself. “True festivity cannot be imagined as residing anywhere but in the realm of activity that is meaningful in itself” (9). He states that in the contemplative nature of festivity, we step back and gaze with wonder, and receive what is presented to us as a “pure gift.” The goal of the game was to win, and Juventus did, fortunately. But the beauty I saw that day, that I experience and lived first-hand, would not have changed had we lost. This quote from Pieper exemplifies the previous sentiment beautifully, “the concept of festivity is inconceivable without contemplation… it means a relaxing of the strenuous fixation of the eye… the field of vision widens, concern for success or failure falls away, and the soul turns to its infinite object… reality as a whole” (17). This game was meaningful for me, and the fans around the world who watched. It was meaningful in itself because it is something we truly love.

I did not want the game to ever end, but unfortunately when it did, I lingered in the stands as long as I could, avoiding ushers and moving to new locations that weren’t being evacuated yet. Looking back, this trip was not for leisure, it was festival. I wasn’t escaping during my Fall break to get away from the “extremely difficult” abroad courses. I was looking to appreciate an aspect of my life first hand, to receive the live performance of my favorite soccer team as pure gift.