And Why the Cultural Elites Who Deride Him For Doing So Are Wrong
Essays on a Catholic Approach to Ecology - A Response to Anti-Human Environmentalism
Largest Church in Kansas to be Built in Romanesque Revival Style at a Cost of $30M
The Frescoes at St Francis of Assisi, Baddesley Clinton, England, Part 3 - the Chancel Arch Images
My hope is that every person in this parish is catechized so as to understand the images they see. Then, when people visit the church to see the paintings, as they surely will, any parishioner can be a docent who takes them on a tour of the church and in so doing becomes an evangelist for the Faith.
The Frescoes at St Francis of Assisi, Baddesley Clinton, England, Part 2 - the Schema of the Sacred Art
Recently Completed Frescoes by Martin Earle, Baddesley Clinton, England, Part 1
Are Film Scores Contemporary High-Art Music?
There is no such thing as music for music’s sake, just as there is no such thing, despite what we are told, as art for art’s sake. The very fact that a composer or artist decides to create something means that it must have some purpose in his mind. Beautiful music and art are so because they fulfill a noble purpose.
St Thomas Aquinas on the Value of Self Love, and Its Place in Airline Safety Protocols
Orchestral Works by English Composer Tony Banks
The Sherborne Missal and the 14th-Century Artist Who Suffered for His Art
What Christianity Reveals About the Success of Breaking Bad
Byzantine Ressourcement #2: How Did They Reform the Liturgy and Avoid Ugliness and Rancor?
New Full-length Movie with Screenplay by Pontifex University Faculty Member, Caleb Brown
Blue Ridge - rent the movie, watch the trailer. A murder in a sleepy town at the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains shocks the community and refuels a longtime feud between two families. Screenplay by Caleb G. Brown; Starring: Johnathon Schaetch, Sarah Lancaster, Graham Greene.
Join the Pontifex Forum - an Online Community of Catholic Artists and Patrons on a Pilgrimage of Beauty
Holiness Inspires Greatness In Others - Fr Vincent McNabb's Impact on Belloc and Chesterton
Lectures on How Modern Music and Modern Art Corrupt the Faith: Anthony Esolen and James Patrick Reid
The Institute of Catholic Culture is scheduling in September two interesting looking talks, available to all for free, on the intersection of modernity and culture.
The first is given by artist James Patrick Reid and is called Corrupted Concepts: Modern Art & the Philosophy of Nature it is offered online on September 1 at 8:00 PM EST.
The second is by Anthony Esolen and is entitled Music & the Corruption of Catholicism on September 15 at 8:00 PM EST
You can enroll online through the links above.
Pablo Picasso
St Cecilia by Artimisia Gentileschi
Matisse
King David by David Clayton
Byzantine Ressourcement? Liturgical Reform in the Orthodox Churches, as a Model for the Roman Rite
Five Reasons the Modern World is Ugly
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the iconoclasm of the leftist protestors in our cities. There is one tragedy in this phenomenon that I didn't mention. That is, that on the whole, they are destroying beauty, and creating ugliness and disorder (the two are intimately connected).
As if to make the point, here is a video from Alain de Botton at the School of Life entitled 5 Reasons the Modern World is Ugly (h'/t Pontifex University student, Ron Gaudio). I have one or two quibbles with his arguments, but broadly, I agree with the arguments he makes, although I am perhaps less inclined to make classicism the main cause of beauty in the West, I would say that classicism's integration with Judeo-Christian values is the driving force, with Christianity being the primary driver.
In this, he clearly lays the blame on 'modernists' such as the Austrian architectural theorist Adolf Loos, who, as de Botton puts it 'forget human nature'.
Adolf Loos' essay, Ornament and Crime was influential in pushing modernism into architecture
This is charitable, I suggest that they do not forget human nature, rather they deny it. At its root is the same materialist worldview that drives the leftists. He also points out how the ideas of the elites were seized upon by property developers who took the opportunity not to have to worry about building beautifully while being immune from criticism. The tragedy is that in their search for a ‘pure’ utility, they couldn’t even guarantee that. A modernist, flat-roofed building is more likely to let in the rain than a modern design.
Ironically, as he points out, this has led to the situation that only the old buildings are beautiful, and the demand for them is so high that only the elites, such as university intellectuals and property developers who can afford to live in them.
What is gratifying about this video is that de Botton is using rational arguments to support a traditional culture of beauty, but is not to my knowledge Christian or a believer in God (this is, perhaps the reason for his tendency to overemphasize, as I see it, ancient Greece and Rome as the primary driver of traditional beauty rather than Christianity). It suggests a growing clamor for an end to our sterile, grey city centers.
A cursory look at the School of Life, which produced this and a whole range of other videos has the following stated aims:
At The School of Life, we're devoted to helping people lead calmer and more resilient lives. We share ideas on how to understand ourselves better, improve our relationships, take stock of our careers, and deepen our social connections - as well as find serenity and grow more confident in facing challenges.
It seems that when human happiness - which is essentially what they are seeking - is the goal then, as de Botton puts it, beauty is 'as much as a necessity as a functional roof'.
The corollary is also true when the goal is discord, violence, and misery, - as it is for Marxists - then ugliness is as much a necessity as a dysfunctional roof.
The Divine is in the Detail
There is a saying, the devil is in the detail. Well, God can be in the detail too. Here is a detail in the array of visual art in Shrewsbury Cathedral that will be seen by only the priests in confessional. Therefore, by the impact on the priest and in turn, indirectly on the penitent it has the potential to affect many for the good in the diocese. Beauty can save the world!
