[229] Part Two:
The Fine Arts
[230] [An
illustration of Palestrina and Pythagoras]
[231] Chapter I:
The Matter of Works of Fine Arts
Why We Need Fine
Arts
Our Share in God’s
Creative Power
God
is our heavenly Father. He made all things by his creative power, and
now he rules over the world he has made so as to guide its
development until it is a perfect and finished work of art.
To
us men, whom he made in his own image, he has given a share in this
fatherhood. He said to Adam and Eve, “Increase and multiply, and
fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea,
and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the
earth” (Genesis 1:28).
Thus,
along with other living things, man has the power from God to
multiply, to increase and perpetuate his kind in the world. Yet this
share in creative power is more than the mere physical reproduction
which plants have. Even among animals the parents not only beget
their young, but they feed, shelter, and even train them. Human young
need to be carefully raised and guided for many years. A human father
begets his children and then he must provide for them. Not only must
he gather food from nature, but he must [232] cultivate food, and he
must invent means of clothing and shelter. Hence men develop the
useful arts by which to take the things provided by nature and
develop and modify them so that they better serve human needs.
When
man applies art to nature, he is only bringing nature to the
perfection which God has intended it should have. Man by his art
co-operates with God in perfecting nature. If, on the other hand, man
misuses his art to destroy nature or to turn it to evil uses, then he
is taking side with the devil, who above all desires to destroy God’s
work and to bring it to naught.
Our Share in God’s
Governance and Teaching
When
a father has provided his family with its material needs by his skill
in the useful arts, his task as father has only begun. Children need
food, clothing, shelter, and many material things, but they have far
greater need of education. The father educates them so that the image
of God which is in them may develop, and they may become not only
like their earthly father, but like their heavenly Father. “Be you
therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew
5:48).
A
father helps his children develop to perfect maturity in two ways.
First he helps them develop right habits of living, which we call
moral virtues, so that they are temperate, and brave, and
just. Without these virtues they would be weak and enslaved by every
temptation; with them a man grows up self-controlled, strong, honest,
and truly free. Without his father’s guidance, without his
encouragement, and sometimes his punishments, a child would find it
very difficult ever to develop such virtues. But his father knows how
to guide the child, because he himself has the virtue of prudence.
Prudence is like art, in that both help a father carry out his work.
Art, however, perfects material things, while prudence perfects human
beings in their actions. Thus prudence is the “art of life” and
greater than any useful art.
Secondly,
a father teaches his children not only to live rightly, but to know
how to live. It is the intellectual virtues which
are the developed powers by which we know things […]. Under his
father’s guidance the child learns the useful arts himself, [233]
and he also learns prudence to govern himself and others. These are
the practical intellectual virtues, and without them a child
could not become a father and help others. But the father also
teaches his child to know, not only the things which man can make and
control, but also the greater things which God has made, the universe
and man himself. Above all he teaches the child to know God, their
heavenly Father. The virtues by which we know these things are the
theoretical intellectual virtues of understanding, science,
and wisdom.
Civic Fathers and
Spiritual Fathers
Our
own earthly father, however, is not able to do for us everything that
he would wish. As a child grows he needs guidance that his family
alone cannot provide. Hence part of our moral development comes not
only from our natural father, but also from our civic fathers, the
officials of the government. By their laws and regulations the
President, the Congress, the Governor, the State Legislator, and all
the officials of the government help us to become good citizens. Even
when we are adults and have ourselves a share in government, we need
also the help of our fellow citizens and of their representatives to
guide our lives and help us become perfect in virtue.
Similarly,
we need not only to be taught by our fathers, but we need also wise
and learned men who have a profounder knowledge to teach us in order
that we might develop perfectly in wisdom. Our universities, our
scientists and writers, and our teachers in the lower schools, all
devote their lives to study of the truth and to teaching it to
others. Even when we ourselves become expert in some field of
knowledge, we will not be able to know everything for ourselves. We
will need to seek the help of those expert in some other field, and
we will need light form those great minds who see deeper into truth
than we.
These
governors and teachers did not give us physical life as did our own
father, and yet they are truly our fathers, since they give us the
perfection of our moral and intellectual life. But this is still not
enough. For our heavenly Father has willed that we should be
prepared, not only for this life, but for life with him in heaven.
There we will come to know him face to face, and we will see that he
is [234] three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our
education would never be complete unless we were prepared also for
this.
For
this reason our heavenly Father sent us his Son to redeem us from sin
and to begin on earth his heavenly kingdom, the Church. Our Lord is
both a King to govern us in developing the supernatural moral virtues
which culminate in the theological virtues of hope and charity, and a
Teacher to help us develop the supernatural intellectual virtue of
faith which should grow into wisdom. In order to carry out
this mission in his Church as it grows here on earth, he has given us
the Pope as our spiritual ruler and teacher, and under him the
bishops and all whom they commission to guide and teach us. Thus the
bishop and priest is most truly our father, for in baptism he gives
us spiritual birth, and by his teaching and guidance and through the
other sacraments he educates us supernaturally for life with God.
Pleasure and
Happiness
Our
heavenly Father and our earthly fathers beget and provide for us and
educate us because they love us. Because they love us they wish us to
be happy. True happiness is not something that can be merely
given to us; it is something which we must earn and possess for
ourselves. Even our heavenly Father does not give us the joy of
heaven until we are prepared for it by a life of merit. Happiness is
a reward and it completely pays for all the effort we have undergone
to earn it. The way to happiness, however, is only by effort and by
striving, and hence by suffering.
Our
heavenly Father and our earthly fathers, therefore, do not pamper us,
or keep us from work and effort and suffering just because they love
us. To keep us from these hardships would also keep us from earning
true happiness. Nevertheless, because they love us, they try to make
the way of effort as easy as possible for us, although it can never
be without pain. When God made Adam and Eve he intended that the road
to heave should be very easy for them, and still he gave them a test,
the test of obedience and of sacrifice. Because they failed that
test, he had to subject them to a harder way.
The
way in which God makes our way as easy as possible is by giving us
pleasures as the reward of efforts, just as an earthly father
[235] gives his children little treats when they do well. Pleasure is
not happiness, because it is a passing thing, while happiness
endures; but pleasure is like happiness. It is the foretaste of
happiness that should lead us on to the real thing.
If
we review the various things a father does for his children, we will
see that each ahs its reward of pleasure. Thus the physical
activities of eating, drinking, of begetting children, of sleep, of
comfort, even of physical exercise, all are pleasant, and this
pleasure makes it easier for us to perform them. How tedious having
to eat three times a day would be, if there were no pleasure attached
to it! When these activities are carried out reasonably and
moderately they can make life very pleasant and healthful, but when
they are indulged in to excess they make us sick, or they so enslave
us that we are unable to seek true happiness. The man, for example,
who has become a slave to food, or drink, or sexual pleasure may tell
us that he is happy, but truly he is miserable; and happiness can
never be his, neither in this world nor the next.
The
useful arts, therefore, not only make useful things for us,
but they also try to make these things pleasant. The cook not only
makes food to nourish us, but also to be attractive both to our eyes
and our taste. The furniture maker not only makes a bed in which we
can sleep, but strives to make it one in which we can sleep with
comfort and which is attractive to see. All this is good and a part
of civilization. If God has made the physical world not only useful
but very, very pleasant, then we also should strive to make our works
of useful art not only useful but pleasant. Yet it is important for
us not to become soft and luxurious. The nation that spends too much
effort in making life easy and pleasure soon is enslaved to physical
needs and cannot gain true freedom and happiness.
Recreation
A
wise father not only makes a home a pleasant place to live but he
also uses pleasure in a child’s education. He teaches the child
moral virtue by obedience and discipline, but he also permits a child
to play. The freedom of play is very pleasant. This pleasure
is not merely physical like that of food and drink which even a tiny
infant enjoys. The pleasure of play comes also from our imagination,
[236] skill, and intelligence. A child only
gradually learns how to play, and when he plays he is very much awake
and using his imagination and mind. More complicated games are
possible only for youths and grown men.
Why
do we need play? Because it gives us pleasure and rests us from
serious work and effort, and yet it is not mere rest and idleness,
for it, too, contributes to our power to make a greater effort. When
a soldier is being trained to fight, from time to time he is allowed
to play some game. This is both because it is relaxation after his
intense training, and because even while playing he is hardening his
muscles for further effort. Thus recreation is a pleasant form of
activity which rests and restores us for renewed effort. Children
play hard. The young athlete plays hard. Yet for both this is a
preparation for something more serious, or it is not true recreation.
Recreation
is of two kinds, corresponding to the two kinds of education and the
two kinds of serious human activity. Moral activity with its
constant effort at carrying out one’s duty and responsibilities has
its counterpart in the kind of recreation we ordinarily call
games—whether physical sports, or intellectual games like
cards or chess. In all such games we find the element of a contest,
either against an opponent, or against one’s own score. In this way
our emergency or fighting emotions, which are so constantly required
in carrying out our moral duty, find rest in a game in which we have
the pleasure of winning, without threat of losing anything really
serious. Thus games are character-building for the youth, teaching
them courage, responsibility, and fairness, and for the mature man
they provide a suitable recreation from his duties in which he can
still maintain his health.
There
are also mental games which have the element of a contest:
chess and checkers, cards, puzzles, etc. These do not have the same
advantages for physical health, but when played with moderation they
are good for the health of the mind.
The
second kind of activity is the enjoyment of truth or contemplation.
Many people are hardly aware that such an activity exists. To them it
might seem a mere waste of time. Yet it is the highest of all
activities and the source of every other activity which is fruitful.
God himself rests forever in contemplation, and yet he has [237]
created the entire universe and governs it every minute. The author
of Genesis, knowing how quick man is to ignore this activity of
contemplation, teaches us about it by showing that at the end of the
six days in which he created the world, “God rested.” It is to
keep this alive in our life that we are commanded to abstain from
servile work on Sundays and holidays, so that we may give some time
to rest in the vision of God’s truth.
All
recreation, whether physical, mental, or contemplative, is a
preparation for further activity. It rests and renews our strength.
But contemplative recreation is more than just recreation; it is a
foretaste of contemplation, and contemplation is not a preparation
for activity, but the highest activity of all, the goal and end of
every other activity.
The Fine Arts
The
fine arts produce works which are not only useful but beautiful.
Something is beautiful when it delights us merely to look at it.
Hence works of fine art have their value, not in being used, but in
being contemplated. When a piece of music is played, or a
movie shown, or a novel read, we do not do anything with it, but
simply listen and look and enjoy.
Thus
the fine arts provide us with recreation, but it is a special kind of
recreation. It is not primarily physical, like sports, nor is it a
mental contest, like chess or cards. It is a contemplative recreation
through which we begin to learn what contemplation is, and why it is
so delightful. The pleasure we get from the fine arts helps us to
understand what God’s happiness and the happiness of heaven are
like, where eternity passes in the vision of God’s perfect beauty.
The man or woman who does not appreciate beauty can never conceive
how heaven is a place of perfect happiness, because they have never
experienced any pleasures except those of the body or of competitive
activity.
Making
a work of fine art is a combination of all these forms of recreation.
It takes physical skill like a sport. It also is a kind of puzzle in
which the artist struggles with his material to give it the form he
has conceived for it. Finally, it is a kind of contemplation, because
the artist has always before him the beauty which he wishes [238] to
produce. Hence, of all recreations, the making of something beautiful
by singing, dancing, painting, writing, or acting poetry is the most
inclusive.
Where the Fine Arts
Lead
The
contemplation which we first taste in the fine arts is not, however,
the end of contemplation. It is only the opening of a road. Works of
art represent reality, but they are not the greatest realities. Once
art has opened up to us the beauty of the world about us, we want to
know that world better. It is no accident that the Babylonians, the
Egyptians, the Greeks, all of whom were great artists, also became
great students of natural science , nor that the advance of science
in the Middle Ages also brought an advance in the fine arts. In
natural science we come to contemplate the order of God’s world, as
Adam did when he first looked on it.
Art
also opens up to us an understanding of human life. Through plays and
novels, music and painting, our experience is broadened and we begin
to appreciate the sufferings, struggles, and joys of other human
beings, the drama of the rise and fall of nations and empires. Hence
the fine arts lead us on to the social or moral sciences.
Finally,
from the fine arts we wish to come to know Beauty himself, God the
Holy Spirit. It is God’s beauty which is reflected in the beauty of
our world. It is his love and mercy which are reflected in the story
of human life. It is when we come to meditate about God in the light
of faith and with the love of charity that we come to know him, and
that we arrive at true contemplation. The saints like St. Dominic and
St. Francis of Assisi were so fascinated with the beauty and drama of
the world that they thought of God every moment of their lives. So
absorbed were they in thinking of him that they spent many hours in
prayer, sometimes whole nights and days. When we see a movie, we are
absorbed in the story for an hour or two and then we grow tired. What
a marvelous vision St. Dominic and St. Francis had that held them
enthralled for days at a time!
The Liturgy and Fine
Art
The
saints enjoyed this contemplation as the fruit of many years of
effort to achieve it. In order that all of us might learn to pray
[239] to God in this way, the Church with the most wonderful art has
perfected the liturgy, which is a sacred drama wherein all the
fine arts are employed to assist us in prayer. The Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass is the great prayer of Christ in which, through the priest,
he offers himself for all of us. In it is the great prayer of the
Catholic Church which publicly unites itself with Christ in this
Sacrifice. Hence it is carried out with all the beauty of a drama, in
a noble setting, with rich vestments and solemn music.
Unfortunately,
in the crowded life of today where men are so often starved for
contemplation, or filled with the cheap and monotonous
“contemplation” provided by television, the liturgy is often not
celebrated with full solemnity. We become accustomed to a low Mass
crowded into a half-hour, and people often avoid the High or Solemn
High Mass where the liturgy is celebrated with its full rites. One of
the most important things in education is to learn to appreciate the
Solemn High Mass, to be able to sing it, and to learn to co0operate
with its celebration by the making of vestments and the serving of
the altar.
The
diagram on the next pages shows how all the arts are combined in the
liturgy and how historically they grew out of it.
[240-241]
Liturgical Drama:
Sacrifice to God by
a visible sign, with explanatory story.
-
Final Cause: Catharsis (The quieting of emotions by delight in 1) an imaginative or sensible sign which 2) leads to contemplation of God as end of human life).
-
Formal Cause (object of imitation)
-
Imitation
-
Principally of human action or plot (story of human life in relation to God)
-
Secondarily
-
Of thought (deliberation about action)
-
And of character (person who thinks and acts)
-
-
-
Mathematical order, easily perceptible in an imaginative or sensible sign
-
-
Material Cause (means of imitation)
-
Principally by words (which alone can directly represent thought) – Poetics
-
Secondarily by
-
Sound (which represents emotion, the key to character) – Music
-
Sight (which represents exterior action)
-
Principally by motion of body – Dancing and Acting
-
Secondarily by place for action (setting)
-
Architecture and Crafts
-
Sculpture and Painting (images of superhuman actors)
-
-
-
-
-
Efficient Cause
-
Composer
-
Principal (God as Inspirer acting through angel or other intermediary—the “Muse”)
-
Secondary
-
Artists having Liberal Arts of Poetics and Music
-
Artists having Servile Arts of Dancing, Architecture, Sculpture, or Painting
-
-
-
Executor: A performer who is not a composer
-
Audience or critic: One who gives an interpretation to the work
-
[239] The Matter
of the Fine Arts
Is There a
Dictionary for the Fine Arts?
In
Part One, Chapter 1, on the Art of Storytelling (pages 25-58),
we have seen that the matter used by the storyteller is words.
In the diagram [above] we see that the other arts use sounds
and sights for their material. Words we can find in the
dictionary. Is there a dictionary of sounds and of sights?
As
a matter of fact, there are color-charts and
color-dictionaries which give us an orderly arrangement of all
the colors, and there are phonograph records and tapes
which give us samples of all the kinds of sounds that can be produced
by the human voice or by a full symphony orchestra. We will here
consider only in a very elementary way some of the characteristics of
sounds and sights which are the matter of the fine arts other than
poetry.
[242] Common Matter
The
artist begins his work by wishing to form something out of matter. He
wishes to carry out the command of God which gave Adam power over
material creation. When man molds and forms and arranges material
things according to some idea in his mind, he is using this God-given
power. When he does this for a good purpose, to produce something
which is useful or beautiful, then he is imitating God himself, who
made the world in its original state and gave it to man that man
might help him bring the world to its final perfection. Thus the wise
artist is God-like, but he remains God-like only when he respects the
matter with which he works and uses it as God wishes him to use it.
Proper Matter
These
various materials, however, are not chosen by the artist because of
all their qualities, but only for certain ones needed in the work of
art itself. Hence they are only the media or bearers of the qualities
which the artist actually uses as the matter of his art. What are
these proper qualities? They may be any of those qualities which we
can directly sense: color, sound, texture, hardness or softness,
temperature, smell, taste—all of which we call the proper
sensibles. Actually, however, only color and sound have an
importance place in art, because only hearing and seeing give us a
distinct impression, and without such clarity beauty is not
possible.
It
will be readily granted that taste, smell, heat, and cold play little
part in works of fine art, although they may have some importance in
poetic works. However, the sense of touch as it makes us aware of
textures, figures, tensions, and motions, does seem to be a real
factor in both the musical and the visual arts. We feel the
impact of the beat of a drum, and we would like to touch the smooth
curves and volumes of a statue. Even in painting, the roughness or
smoothness of the paint has a definite effect upon us. Again, in
watching a dancer we seem to feel in ourselves the motions of the
dancer’s limbs. This “in-feeling” is called empathy, and
we experience it even when looking at buildings which appear to us
very massive and heavy, or light and soaring. Everyone knows how the
[243] designers of automobiles try to make the lines of their cars
suggest a feeling of speed.
The
reason that touch plays this role seems to be because it is the most
certain of the senses and the one which makes us aware of the actual
presence of things. (Did not St. Thomas the Apostle want to
touch our Lord after the resurrection to make sure he was really
there?) Thus sensations of touch reinforce and confirm what we know
more clearly, but less certainly, by our sight and hearing. Hence a
play on the stage is somehow more exciting than a movie or television
play, because the actual presence of the actors affects us.
Nevertheless, although touch reinforces sight and hearing, the
information it gives us by itself is too vague to constitute a
principal material of a work of art.
Characteristics of
Colors and Tones
Color
has three aspects: (1) hue; (2) purity; (3) brightness.
In hue colors range through the spectrum or rainbow, in which
we see clearly the four primary colors (red, yellow, green,
blue) and two secondary colors (purple and orange), and colors
which are transitions between these.[1] Of these latter red-green, yellow-blue, purple-orange seem to form
contrary pairs called complementaries. In purity, the
colors of the rainbow are (approximately) pure. By adding white to
them, a tint (pastel color) is produced, by adding black a
shade. White, black, and their mixture grey, are neutral
colors, that is, white is a blend of all colors, black a negation of
all colors, grey a mixture of white and black. In brightness,
colors may range from very dim to very bright, but dim colors
appear as shades, and very bright colors tend to look whitish. Pure
yellow is very bright, pure purple very dark; the other hues are
intermediate.
Similarly
sound has three aspects: (1) pitch; (2) quality or
timbre; (3) volume or loudness. In pitch,
tones range evenly from very low to very high, but in such a way
that any tone sounds very similar to those tones which have 2, 4, 8,
etc., times as many vibrations per second as itself. Some similarity
is felt between a tone and any [244] higher tone (overtone) which is
related to it by a simple ratio between the number of vibrations of
each (1:3, 1:5, etc. […]). In timbre, tones have different
qualities owing to a mixture of the lowest tone with various of its
overtones. Thus the quality of a violin is similar to the human
voice, but very unlike the sound of an oboe or French horn. When a
tone has no distinct pitch but is an unrelated cluster of sounds it
is called a noise. When it has a definite and sustained
fundamental tone it is called a musical tone. In loudness,
tones range from very faint whispers to very loud crashes.
The
human power to distinguish the fine differences of colors and tones
is very great, but we must train ourselves by constant observation to
make these discriminations. Look at your hand and see how many
different tones of color there are in flesh. Note the color of its
shadows. Place it in different positions and in different lights to
notice how these colors shift and change. Listen carefully to the
voices of others. Can you tell just why you recognize the voice of a
friend? What is peculiar about its pitch, its timbre? It is by
learning to discriminate colors and tones that we make ourselves
sensitive to what the artist is doing, and by studying the work of
the artist we come also to be more sensitive to color and tone.
Quantity in Matter
Besides
color and tone (and other proper qualities), our senses also perceive
aspects of things that are common to more than one sense
(technically called the common sensibles). These are quantity,
position, figure, and motion. Quantity and position, we
know, are distinct categories. Figure is a species of quality,
closely related to quantity, since a figure is simply the boundary
of a quantity. Position results from the relation of one part
of quantity to another next to it. Motion is found in every
category. To these we might also add time, which is the
measure of a motion and which is known by sensing motion of some
sort. Thus we can see the size (quantity) and figure of a colored
square, but we can also know these aspects of the square by touching
them, although we cannot tell its color except by sight. We can see
the motion of a fan, and we can also feel and hear it.
[245]
These common sensibles are all quantitative and measurable,
while the proper sensibles are qualities. From one point of
view, it is this quantitative aspect which is most important for art,
since it makes design possible […]. But we must also remember that
unless such designs were presented vividly in color or tone they
would lack something of beauty, since they would not be so clear to
our power of knowing which is rooted in external sensation.
The Matter of
Poetics
If
we consider the words out of which poetry is made as sounds, then
they are the same tones we have already discussed. But words are also
conventional signs which bring to our mind something other
than themselves […]. What comes to our mind when we hear a word?
First of all, the essence or nature for which it stands (some words,
however, stand only for grammatical relations) which is known by our
intellect; for example, the nature of a dog, the moon, or a flower.
Hence the matter of poetry is, first of all, objective concepts
(things known […]), just as the matter of logic, dialectics, or
rhetoric. But along with this concept there also come to mind the
images or phantasms connected with it, as well as other
concepts and images similar to or contrasted to it, which follow it
by the law of association (recall and memory). Hence a single word,
like the word “rose,” may bring to our mind a flood of ideas, all
of which are matter for the poet.
Poetry
is different from all the other arts because
-
It lacks a direct appeal to the external senses, but it can appeal to our interior senses of imagination and memory. Hence in a way it can include the matter of all the arts.
-
It has the power explicitly to present to us intellectual concepts, while the other arts can only imply these.
Thus poetry by
reason of its matter is the most perfect of all the arts and in a way
includes them. On the other hand, it has certain defects which
prevent it from replacing the other arts:
-
It lacks a direct appeal to the external senses. That is why we try to make up for this by combining poetry with music (the sound of poetry spoken or sung, or even of prose) or acting, as in the theater.
-
It represents imagery in a vague way so that it cannot form a true design with mathematical beauty. The poet may talk of the beauty of the moonlit landscape, or of music, but he cannot convey to us their actual beauty of pattern.
1. This is a simplification of color theory which is quite complex.
Green is regarded by some as secondary color blended from yellow and
blue. Neither pure purple nor pure red are actually found in the
spectrum and can be obtained only by a mixture of lights.
---
Source: Fr. Benedict M. Ashley, The Arts of Learning and Communication: A Handbook of the Liberal Arts (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 229–245.
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Source: Fr. Benedict M. Ashley, The Arts of Learning and Communication: A Handbook of the Liberal Arts (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 229–245.
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