a thought on Beauty

[theculturewarrior]

I recently visited a cultural arts center in a large city in Texas. It was Latino-themed, and they were discussing issues of discrimination, and the challenges posed to their center by a white-dominated field. There was a lot of anger. There was a lot of disagreement. Somebody said that they should keep politics out of art, and then somebody retorted that art is politics, art is propaganda.

I would not have any artist censor themselves from any political message they may have, but I quietly took exception to that, and I am thinking now that one of the worst facets of our decaying civilization is that we have lost our sense of what Beauty is.

Taste is subjective, but Beauty is Universal. Beauty endures. It is eternal. Every culture and every religion has a sense of Beauty, and it is enduring. The Muslims believe that each feather on the wings of Angels sings to the glory of Allah, and I've heard that in Pakistan and India, the animals gather to listen to the music that shepherds play. Arabs will recite poetry to eachother on the streets, and Buddha was the only other enlightened one who made sense out of suffering.

I love my Church, and I belong wholly to Her, but I think if I took the time to understand it, the worship rendered to Allah in mosques must be one of the most beautiful things on this planet. And when I hear Buddhists chanting in Vietnamese, I think that too must be exceedingly beautiful. And the native music of India has always been fascinating to me. Even in communist Russia, they produced works of art that were so beautiful, and spoke so much to the people of Russia, that their suffering, if only for a brief moment, made sense.

I think that every culture is hungry for Beauty. We are hungry for Truth and Justice and Love, and every culture finds these needs met by the artists who know what Beauty is. You do not need to be Catholic to have an intuitive sense of the Beautiful. The light Jesus shines through His Church illuminates the whole world, and artists are drawn to it, like a moth to the windows of Heaven. And the artist who wants to imitate the Beauty of God, looks for themes that appeal to the whole of humanity. Suffering, love, death, injustice, separation, poverty, and the Sacred. The highest vocation an artist has is to elevate the mind and the senses to the Sacred. That is, to reveal the Truth through the Beautiful.

Woodie Guthrie, though a communist, had an intuitive sense of Justice, as did Bob Marley. Malcolm X and Gandhi, though not artists, also had a profound sense of Justice, and all of these people lived lives and produced works of art (auto-biographies, in the latter two instances), that raised the mind to hope for a better life.

I was looking at some of the theatre auditions at the cultural arts center and they were caricaturing White American culture much like the Amos and Andy skits of the past. I wasn't offended as a Caucasion. I was more let down as an artist. Politics is here today, and gone tomorrow. Who still watches "the Birth of a Nation?"

[corban711]

have you ever read The Evidential Power of Beauty by Fr. Dubay? it is awesome. I would also recommend "The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty" by John Saward. Both are available from Ignatius Press. I think that Aesthetics had kind of been left behind and forgotten for a little bit, but people like Von Balthasar and others have tried to bring it back. what other Faith has the beauty of ours? look at our cathedrals, our ancient hymns...there is none that can compare to our sculptures. it is so tragic, that Beauty is being forgotten and the arts abandoned. the arts are one of the best means of evangelization and formation of a Catholic Culture. pray for the arts!

[argent_paladin]

"Saint Thomas, who was as simple as he was wise, defined the beautiful as that which, being seen pleases: id quot disum placet. These four words say all that is necessary: a vision, that is to say, an intuitive knowledge, and a delight. The beautifull is what gives delight--not just any delight, but delight in knowing; not the delight peculiar to the act of knowing, but a delight which superaboundds and overflows from this act because of the object known. If a thing exalts and delights the soul by the very fact that it is given to the soul's intuition, it is good to apprehend, it is beautiful."

"If beauty delights the intellect, it is because it is essentially a certain excellence or perfection in the proportion of things to the intellect. Hence the three condiditons Saint Thomas assigned to beauty: integrity, because the intellect is pleased in fullness of Being; proportion, because the intellect is pleased in order and unity; finally, and above all, radiance or clarity, because the intellect is pleased in light and intelligibility."

"There is beauty for him [Thomas] the moment the shining of any form on a suitably proportioned matter succeds in pleasing the intellect, and he takes care to warn us that beauty is in some way relative--relative not to the dispositions of the subject, in the sense in which the moderns undsertand the word relative, butto the proper nature and end of the thing, and to the formal condidtioins uner which it is taken. "

-From Art and Scholasticism. Translated by Joseph Evans. New York: Scribner and Sons, 1962

[Socrates]

The degeneration of art into political agitation or propaganda is part of what has killed art.

Today, most of what passes as "art" (and is funded by the NEA) is simply crude in-your-face political propaganda (invariably Leftist), or cheap stunts designed to offend "conservative" sensibilities.

True art expresses beauty and truth, but this idea has been lost in much of the modern "art" world. Anyone can make a political statement or protest, or do something to offend. This does not take any real talent and is not art (and will be forgotten as soon as the "shock" has worn off).

Great timeless works of art, such as classical Greek art, or the works of Leonardo or Michaleangelo, can be appreciated for their beauty and skill, without any political reference.

[corban711]

from my friend's blog....

[quote]Some thoughts from other thinkers that seem to apply here:

"Beautiful things are those which, when seen, please." (St. Thomas Aquinas)

"Beauty is the word that shall be our first." (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

"You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity." (Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics)

Beauty is "the glow of the true and good irradiating from every ordered state of being." (Josef Pieper)

"[B]eauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man." (von Balthasar)

"The form as it appears to us is beautiful only because the delight that it arouses in us is founded upon the fact that, in it, the truth and goodness of the depths of reality itself are manifested and bestowed, and this manifestation and bestowal reveal themselves to us as being something infinitely and inexhaustibly valuable and fascinating." (von Balthasar)[/quote]

[theculturewarrior]

I'm writing something beautiful.

I'm writing an epic poem/medieval style collection of short stories for an American audience. It was actually a project I had set aside, but I have a much clearer vision for it now.

Also, I started the Life of St. Juan Diego and it's okay but I might scrap the intro for a something with a more universal and aesthetic style. I'm just not sure how to go about it. I only know I need to research.

And I'm still working on my conversion story. In my mania, I sent my conversion story to all of my coworkers, and they seem to think it is silly. I suspect, though, that when I finish, it will endure. ¿Quien sabe?

[theculturewarrior]

would it be idolatry to say that Beauty is the God I serve?

[daugher-of-Mary]

oh so very, very true, tcw! Those gifted with artistic talents have a grave responsibility to preserve beauty and in doing so, reflect the image of their Creator who is Beauty Himself.

[theculturewarrior]

I have no doubt that the beautiful things I'm writing now, will be loved, read, maybe even studied, generations from now, if the sun still rises and the grass still grows. I could be wrong, but if my goal was not eternal beauty, I would find another hobby.

Nowhere is the image of God more complete than in the creative minds of artists. He created us, and we create our art, and if our art is good, if it is eternal, it praises Him as we praise Him.

I have nothing left to say but: And if I sound full of myself, I apologize, but I am! I am praising God for the gifts he has given me.

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jun 26 2005, 03:38 PM']The degeneration of art into political agitation or propaganda is part of what has killed art. 

Today, most of what passes as "art" (and is funded by the NEA) is simply crude in-your-face political propaganda (invariably Leftist), or cheap stunts designed to offend "conservative" sensibilities.

True art expresses beauty and truth, but this idea has been lost in much of the modern "art" world.  Anyone can make a political statement or protest, or do something to offend.  This does not take any real talent and is not art (and will be forgotten as soon as the "shock" has worn off).

Great timeless works of art, such as classical Greek art, or the works of Leonardo or Michaleangelo, can be appreciated for their beauty and skill, without any political reference.
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Oh thank you God.

This post is a blessing and it's so refreshing to read what I've been thinking for years.

I'm an artist working in the field, and I'm tired of all the "agenda" garbage which for the most part I view as pure pretentiousness. When I was in school (in the 90s) people made stuff that looked like dead baby guts and cigarette butts, and called it "art."

But then again maybe I just wasn't at a school with a strong art program.

[theculturewarrior]

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with breed
of marble men and maidens overwrought,
with forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty, that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I found this while reading the preface to the Bhagavad Gita.

[Cathurian]

It's the one with Gandhi's commentary, isn't it?

[Ash Wednesday]

I love this thread. Can we keep it around so that we can be arty, and discuss beauty and beautiful things and glorify God?

We have enough debates, sarcasm, drama, fluff, grievances.

Bring on the beauty. I'll bring the peacock feathers.

:hearts:

[Ash Wednesday]

"You have rightly chosen," said God, "for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me."

Oscar Wilde makes me cry.

[theculturewarrior]

I'm going to write a litany for artists.

[theculturewarrior]

[quote name='Cathurian' date='Jun 29 2005, 09:22 PM']It's the one with Gandhi's commentary, isn't it?
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[/quote]

I didn't realize he did that. No, this one is prefaced by a man named Juan Macaro. I'm realizing that there's so much truth and beauty in Hinduism, they are so close. They are this <-> close to the Truth, but there is still a gulf between us.

Did Gandhi also annotate the Vedas? I want to read those next.

[photosynthesis]

Art doesn't have to be beautiful.

[theculturewarrior]

please extrapolate.

[theculturewarrior]

keepin' the thread alive.