Maritain, Brann, & Raphael: Seeking Bridges to Beauty in Art

By |2023-05-22T21:56:56-05:00May 22nd, 2023|Categories: Art, Beauty, Culture, Eva Brann, Philosophy, St. John's College|

Beauty is found in art when there is connectedness to something beyond novelty and originality. This connectedness must exist between the artist and the source of what inspires the particular medium of art. Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.[1] Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever [...]

The​ ​Shattered​ ​Image of the Thirteenth Century​

By |2023-05-14T15:53:05-05:00May 14th, 2023|Categories: Art, Christianity, Culture, History, Science, St. Thomas Aquinas, Timeless Essays|

We did not discard most of the image of reality from the Middle Ages. The lovely whole image was smashed like stained glass under the hammer of zealots, but later people recovered fragments and used them to create the world in which we live. C.S. Lewis wrote a book of profound scholarship, The Discarded Image, [...]

What Is the Meaning of Michelangelo’s “David”?

By |2023-04-12T17:19:22-05:00April 12th, 2023|Categories: Art, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Timeless Essays|

In the “David,” we see what Christian humanism can accomplish, and in contemplating the gigantic little boy we can remember that God always uses the little things of the world to confound the mighty. Last week I was in Florence, and while jostling with other sightseers to get a glimpse of Michelangelo’s David, I recalled [...]

Benedict XVI and the History of Art

By |2023-03-31T16:54:58-05:00March 31st, 2023|Categories: Art, Beauty, Catholicism, History, Pope Benedict XVI|

“No sacred art can come from an isolated subjectivity,” Benedict states. Ultimately the beautiful is inseparable from the good and the true. If we will not have virtue and verity, caritas and claritas, we will not have beauty either. In his masterful book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI defended the beauty and [...]

Traditional Worship: A Compendium of Culture

By |2023-03-24T20:43:27-05:00March 25th, 2023|Categories: Architecture, Art, Beauty, Catholicism, Christianity, Culture, Dwight Longenecker, Senior Contributors|

It would be wrong to compare the Mass too closely to a stage production, but in a traditional celebration of Mass there is what I call a “compendium of culture”: a combination of art, architecture, literature, logic, rhetoric, drama, poetry, metalwork, textile art, and woodwork. Why does this matter? It matters because matter matters. The [...]

Caspar David Friedrich & the ‘Reliturgification’ of the West

By |2023-02-01T18:00:39-06:00February 1st, 2023|Categories: Art, Beauty, Culture|

Through their art, Romantic painters sought to restore the sacramental bond between the heavenly and the human. And among these artists, none was more focused on the lost liturgy of Western culture as Caspar David Friedrich, whose paintings—almost exclusively concerned with the subject of landscapes—at first glance seem to have little or nothing to do [...]

Remembering Who We Are: The Conservative’s New Fight

By |2023-01-29T17:28:34-06:00January 29th, 2023|Categories: Art, Audio/Video, Culture, Music, Timeless Essays|

The only way forward for conservatives is unabashed courage and an utter refusal to continue to accept the status quo that says we are not valuable in culture, academia, and polite society. We must remember who we are and live with conviction. We are the harbingers of joy, hope, sacrifice, and humanity! This week has [...]

Aquinas & the Theology of Grace in Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement”

By |2024-01-28T07:51:09-06:00January 27th, 2023|Categories: Art, Christianity, Culture, Heaven, St. Thomas Aquinas, Theology, Timeless Essays|

Portraying the souls of the faithful and those of the damned, “The Last Judgement” of Michelangelo serves as a powerful reminder of the theology of grace and of the importance of one’s own volition in accepting and actively cooperating with the grace which God so freely gives to men. The Last Judgement When [...]

Roger Scruton on the Aesthetics of Architecture

By |2023-01-19T16:48:50-06:00January 19th, 2023|Categories: Architecture, Art, Books, Christianity, Christopher Morrissey, Featured, Roger Scruton, Timeless Essays|

When the modern city enshrines the temporariness of facelessness as a permanently utilitarian way of life, then something has gone dreadfully wrong. The Aesthetics of Architecture by Roger Scruton (320 pages, Princeton University Press, 2013) One of the principal observations of Sir Roger Scruton about the modern city is an architectural observation. Modern architecture expresses [...]

Christmas Story in Art: Giorgione’s “Adoration of the Shepherds”

By |2022-12-25T14:32:32-06:00December 25th, 2022|Categories: Art, Christmas, Culture, Timeless Essays|

In the center of Giorgione’s painting, “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” two shepherds genuflect before the Child, connecting the two worlds of the scene, the natural and the supernatural. The shepherds are the first men to recognize the divinity of Christ. While we are unlikely to identify with the Magi, those royal wise men, we [...]

Beauty: A Necessity, Not a Luxury

By |2023-08-04T09:27:45-05:00November 27th, 2022|Categories: Architecture, Art, Beauty, Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Essential, Featured, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Language, Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

“Beauty will save the world.” That remains to be seen. But beauty has saved me, and continues to do so. My experience is that I need saving; it is not a luxury. Just when I am about to succumb to the sadness and living death of nihilism, some piercing ray of beauty breaks open my [...]

Transcendent Vision: Brigid Boardman, Francis Thompson, & R. H. Ives Gammell

By |2022-10-01T18:20:50-05:00October 1st, 2022|Categories: Art, Beauty, Poetry|

I remember the excitement the day the crates arrived and were carefully opened, and what emerged was overwhelming. What was beginning to happen was a unique partnership combining all the art forms: poetry, painting, music, and theater into one evening’s performance. She was British-chilly until I brought out the gin: one ice cube and a [...]

The Mysteries of Madness and Genius

By |2022-09-05T14:54:03-05:00September 5th, 2022|Categories: Art, Beauty, Culture, History, Imagination, Marcia Christoff Reina, Philosophy, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

The world has long sought to explain the mysteries of madness and genius and has largely failed to do so. Perhaps the better idea would be simply to allow madness and genius to go on explaining the world’s own mysteries to itself. “A post-mortem examination of the brain of Nietzsche might conceivably show us the [...]

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