The ‘Atelier of Spiritual Art’ of the Aletti Centre draws on the iconographic traditions of the Churches of both East and West.
Why the iconographic traditions of the East as well?
First of all, because these are apostolic traditions; and, in order to live in Christ more and more fully, we should never forget the Eastern apostolic traditions. Should we forget them, our vision would be incomplete, mutilated.
Second, because the Christian East’s rendering in pictures and colours of the mystery celebrated in the Church – that is, the divine-human mystery, God’s lordship and salvation for man – is definitely more comprehensive and informed by the Church than its Western counterpart, especially as far as the second millennium of the Christian era is concerned.
The Eastern language of figures and colours has undergone such a process of purification through the liturgy and prayer, that all that which was not an integral part of prayer and of the mystery celebrated, little by little has been done away with. Thus some mysteries of our faith – such as Christ in glory, His passion, His nativity – have been ‘tried and tested’ by the Church so much, that their iconographic rendering has come to include both dogma and the ecclesial experience, and personal devotion as well: the results are the fruit of an age-old tradition and practice. We follow these iconographic tradition and practice, which are the most vigorous and sound of all within the Church.
On the other hand we are Westerners and we live in the third millennium.
While in the Christian East the first millennium was highly characterized by a process of inculturation (and these artistic languages have been devised exactly during that period), in the Latin Church the process of inculturation was slower, so much slower that during that period she was under the influence of the East. Then, in the second millennium of the Christian era, the Latin Church has quickly made up for lost time, starting to dialogue with the new cultures, the new times and the new continents. Then, Latin liturgical art has undergone a new process of inculturation, due to which the divine-human relationship has been reconsidered, as well as the cultures which are close to or contemporary with us.

In order to understand the mosaics of the Atelier of Spiritual Art of the Aletti Centre, one should bear in mind that we are concentrating our efforts on restoring the ancient principles of liturgical art, that is, seeing everything with the eyes of ancient iconographers, while making use of contemporary languages. This can be achieved only by being thoroughly in communion with the memory of the Church, and at the same time by being acutely aware of the contemporary world.
Aletti Centre’s mosaics make use of a contemporary language. The secular art of the last 15 years has either been part of a virtual world, or has rediscovered matter and the physical world, at least as far as some artistic movements are concerned.
The Atelier of the Aletti Centre shares with them this consciousness: the problem of matter and colour as autonomous languages, a new concept of space and of bi-dimensionality, are all elements present in the artistic language of the Atelier. However, this feature is not juxtaposed in our work to the Eastern liturgical language. Indeed, we are trying to merge one with the other, so that they may give rise to a new organic language. We are trying to regard matter not as something which hinders the spirit, but rather as something which can reveal and convey the spirit. Then matter can become something relevant to our times, and our taste is reflected in the choice of stones, movement, change, brightness. There is nothing gloomy, oppressive, depressive in the way we make use of matter. On the contrary, it is an explosion of bright light.
At the same time we are trying to express the liturgical objectivity, founded upon the Bible, as well as on the tradition of the Fathers of the Church and of the saints. In fact, nothing is made up; everything comes from Tradition. Our main sources of inspiration are the early-Byzantine period, the pre-Romanesque and the Romanesque.
The works produced by our Atelier are fascinating and intriguing exactly because of these two features: on the one hand they are bursting with life and convey the immediacy of the Latin character, together with a sense of closeness, of the contemporary. On the other hand they convey something mysterious, that is, a strong theological message which is contemporary, but which is relevant to our times because one can find in its very depths the whole deposit of the living Tradition of the Church.