Understanding John Paul II’s communication with the contemporary world on the example of Joanna Sobczyk-Pajak’s painting

Abstract

KULTURA – MEDIA – TEOLOGIA 39/2019 ABSTRACT The process of interpersonal communication as understood by John Paul II is a reality based on establishing mutual relations and cooperation. Communication requires a specific medium, and in this context the image becomes the communication medium, because the communication of John Paul II is presented on the plane of the image. That is why the papal painting made by Joanna Sobczyk-Pajak is a communication of beauty. John Paul II in a painting, fascinates at every step and in the way in which he amazed the world during his lifetime. Of course, art is such a dimension of human life that it can pose questions or answer them. Everything depends on the imagination of the artist and the recipient himself. It seems, however, that the painting by the Cracow artist from Podłęże is a call for basic values that make human life beautiful and meaningful. There is no pressure in this painting. Talking to the audience through the painting and serving them manifestations of papal communication, he asks people living today about the values in their lives, about the sense of beauty, about the liberation of harmony in the heart. In this way, the essence of communication becomes the meeting with people.