Halsey and the cultural appropriation of Catholicism

I can’t say I have a terribly favourable view of the modern music industry. But when I heard that pop artist Halsey’s latest album If I Can’t Have Love, I want Power had an album cover inspired by Jean Fouquet’s Virgin And Child Surrounded By Angels, taken from the right wing of the Melun Diptych, I wondered if I’d find a sequin on the threadbare fabric of popular taste. Alas, I shouldn’t have got my hopes up.

The American singer’s album was released last week and the cover depicts her and a baby in a pose resembling Fouquet’s Virgin and Child, bare boob and all. Aside from the grandiose nature of this gesture – to put oneself in the place of the Mother of God requires some hubris – such role play is not, in and of itself, first-degree blasphemy. Of course, girls and women worldwide play the role of Mary – just think of the school hall Christmas nativity.