Igor Stravinsky on Universality and Order in Music

[75] It just so happens that our contemporary epoch offers us the example of a musical culture that is day by day losing the sense of continuity and the taste for a common language.

Individual caprice and intellectual anarchy, which tend to control the world in which we live, isolate the artist from his fellow artists and condemn him to appear as a monster in the eyes of the public; a monster of originality, inventor of his own language, of his own vocabulary, and of the apparatus of his art. The use of already employed materials and of established forms is usually forbidden him. So he comes to the point of speaking an idiom without relation to the world that listens to him. His art becomes truly unique, in the sense [76] that it is incommunicable and shut off on every side. The erratic block is no longer a curiosity that is an exception; it is the sole model offered neophytes for emulation.

The appearance of a series of anarchic, incompatible, and contradictory tendencies in the field of history corresponds to this complete break in tradition. Times have changed since the day when Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi quite evidently spoke the same language which their disciples repeated after them, each one unwittingly transforming this language according to his own personality. The day when Haydn, Mozart, and Cimarosa echoed each other in works that served their successors as models, successors such as Rossini, who was fond of repeating in so touching a way that Mozart had been the delight of his youth, the desperation of his maturity, and the consolation of his old age.

Those times have given way to a new age that seeks to reduce everything to uniformity in the realm of matter while it tends to shatter all universality in the realm of the spirit in deference to an anarchic individualism. That his how once universal centers of culture have become isolated. They withdraw into a national, even regional, framework, which in its turn splits up to the point of eventual disappearance.

[77] Whether he wills it or not, the contemporary artist is caught in this infernal machination. There are simple souls who rejoice in this state of affairs. There are criminals who approve of it. Only a few are horrified at a solitude that obliges them to turn in upon themselves when everything invites them to participate in social life.

The universality whose benefits we are gradually losing is an entirely different thing from the cosmopolitanism that is beginning to take hold of us. Universality presupposes the fecundity of a culture that is spread and communicated everywhere, whereas cosmopolitanism provides for neither action nor doctrine and induces the indifferent passivity of a sterile eclecticism.

Universality necessarily stipulates submission to an established order. And its reasons for this stipulation are convincing. We submit to this order out of sympathy or prudence. In either case the benefits of submission are not long in appearing.

In a society like that of the Middle Ages, which recognized and safeguarded the primacy of the spiritual realm and the dignity of the human person (which must not be confused with the individual)—in such a society recognition by everyone of a hierarchy of values and a body of moral principles established an order of things that put everyone in accord concerning certain fundamental [78] concepts of good and evil, truth and error. I do not say of beauty and ugliness, because it is absolutely futile to dogmatize in so subjective a domain.

It should not surprise us then that social order has never directly governed these matters. As a matter of fact, it is not by promulgating an aesthetic, but by improving the status of man and by exalting the competent workman in the artist that a civilization communicates something of its order to works of art and speculation. The good artisan himself in those happy ages dreams of achieving the beautiful only through the categories of the useful. His prime concern is applied to the rightness of an operation that is performed well, in keeping with a true order. The aesthetic impression that will arise from this rightness will not be legitimately achieved except insofar as it was not calculated. Poussin said quite correctly that "the goal of art is delectation." He did not say that this delectation should be the goal of the artist who must always submit solely to the demands of the work to be done.

It is a fact of experience, and one that is only seemingly paradoxical, that we find freedom in a strict submission to the object: "It is not wisdom, but foolishness, that is stubborn," says Sophocles, in the magnificent translation of Antigone given us by André Bonnard. "Look at the trees. By embracing [78] the movements of the tempest they preserve their tender branches; but if they rear against the wind they are carried off, roots and all."

Let us take the best example: the fugue, a pure form in which the music means nothing outside itself. Doesn't the fugue imply the composer's submission to the rules? And is it not within those strictures that he finds the full flowering of his freedom as a creator? Strength, says Leonardo da Vinci, is born of constraint and dies in freedom.

Insubordination boasts of just the opposite and does away with constraint in the ever-disappointed hope of finding in freedom the principle of strength. Instead, it finds in freedom only the arbitrariness of whim and the disorders of fancy. Thus it loses every vestige of control, loses its bearings and ends by demanding of music things outside its scope and competence. Do we not, in truth, ask the impossible of music when we expect it to express feelings, to translate dramatic situations, even to imitate nature? And, as if it were not enough to condemn music to the job of being an illustrator, the century to which we owe what it called "progress through enlightenment" invented for good measure the monumental absurdity which consists of bestowing on every accessory, as well as on every feeling and every character of the lyrical drama, a sort of check-room number called a Leitmotiv—a [80] system that led Debussy to say that the Ring struck him as a sort of vast musical city directory.

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Source: Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, trans. by Arthur Knodel and Ingolf Dahl (New York: Vintage Books, 1947), 75–80.

The Duty to Understand Proper Liturgical Music

[44] But I hear some one say, "Modern Church music (Gounod's, for instance) stirs me, while Plain Chant and Palestrina do not. I understand and like the one, but [45] cannot make head or tail of the other." Surely this is a strange attitude for a Catholic to adopt. We are, forsooth, to import only such forms of art as we personally fancy, rather than make use of those which the Church has provided. If we do not "understand" Church art, so much the worse for us. The duty of endeavouring [sic] to do so is none the less ours. When the works of a Tchaikovsky or a Strauss come to Queen's Hall, we may not "understand" them at first, but we very quickly make the attempt to do so, if for no other reason than to bring ourselves into line with our musical friends. We do not like to admit ignorance, or lack of comprehension, concerning new or unfamiliar secular music, but we are not ashamed to admit both when the music of the Church is in question. It is true, certainly, that the Church's music sounds both new and unfamiliar to ears accustomed only to the music of the world. But is it not this very aloofness, resulting from the use of conventional forms, that gives to ecclesiastical music the atmosphere of the Church rather than that of the world? Even operatic composers recognise [sic] this. Everyone is familiar with Gounod's Faust. How does the composer get the proper atmosphere in the Church scene? By imitating, say, the lilting Kyrie of "Haydn No. II"? Is it not by music almost modal in its severity? (This remark must not be taken to mean that the severity is the result of the modality. In the same opera, the "King of Thule" song, although "modal," is anything but severe.)

But, again, some "conscientious objector" may say: "May not the conventions of to-day have been the novelties of yesterday? Was not Palestrina in his day as 'advanced' as Wagner in this?" Quite true, but with this important qualification: Wagner was a frankly secular composer, free to follow his art where he listed, and to present it in whatever form he chose. Palestrina was a church musician, trained in the bosom [46] of the Church, filled with the spirit of the Church, and devoted to the expression of the mind of the Church, in the Church's own forms. The basis on which the old composers built their music was the Church's own Plain Chant. With that as a groundwork they could bring to their art all the resources with which the musical science of their day could provide them, without danger of straying into individualistic or secular modes of expression. And in support of this statement let me quote from a most remarkable article—coming as it does from a non-Catholic source—which appeared in the Morning Post some months ago:

"One fact only has saved the musical part of the Roman service from becoming a mere affair of the circus. In most of the churches and in all the monasteries, abbeys, and convents, the old Plain Chant has survived. It links the present to the past as with bonds of steel; it is the full and perfect expression of the words to which it is set, and with which indeed it grew up; it prepares us for the change which is now coming over the services with the re-introduction of truly devotional music. Its melodies are lovely beyond description in words, often they are sublime, and in them the sincere spirit of an earlier day is incarnate. We are aware that many of us Anglicans, especially if we have been accustomed to what are called 'bright and cheerful' services, find these tunes dull and meaningless; and so much the worse for us. 'Brightness and cheerfulness' have their place in religion, but there are solemn moments when they are not wanted, and suggest only buffoonery. Much of the Plain Song is cheerful enough, but its cheerfulness is that of a stained-glass window, not of a cut in a comic paper; its subject is religious. It is the music on which Catholicism must depend more and more as it brings back its services into some sort of relation with its innermost spirit."

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Source: Richard R. Terry, Catholic Church Music (London: Greening & Co., 1907), 44–46.

Repost: "A First Encounter with the Traditional Mass"

Source: http://sthughofcluny.org/2017/03/a-first-encounter-with-the-traditional-mass.html

Visit the original post to see pictures!

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We have heard, endlessly repeated over the decades, that the Traditional mass constitutes a barrier to those “outside”: the young, those not practicing their faith and non-Catholics. It is supposed to lock these devoted to it in an inaccessible “ghetto.” Is this true? A now obscure episode of German literary history enables us to test these claims – almost under laboratory conditions.

In the summer of 1793, while the French revolution and its wars were ravaging Europe, the young law students Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder and his friend Ludwig Tieck set out on a series of journeys from the South German university town of Erlangen. They would have an epochal effect on German culture. They traveled through the wild, hilly uplands of Franconia – deep valleys, mysterious caverns, ruined castles and bizarre mountain formations – helping to ignite the Romantic enthusiasm for nature. They explored the winding streets and many medieval monuments of the ancient, almost fossilized but still intact city of Nuremberg, rediscovering the Middle Ages. In palaces, churches, monasteries and cities they studied paintings and sculptures, launching a cult both of the Italian Renaissance and of the age of Albrecht Dürer. But what concerns us is another trip, this time by Wackenroder alone, to investigate not nature or the artifacts of the past, but the Catholic world of his own time. He undertook a journey to the nearby city of Bamberg.

Although a little over 26 miles removed from Erlangen, a trip to the Catholic world of Bamberg was to Wackenroder much the same as a journey to Afghanistan or Burma might be to us. Such was the consciousness of the religious divide in the Germany of that era. Moreover, Wackenroder and Tieck both hailed from Berlin, a stronghold of Protestantism and of the Enlightenment and the most extreme antipode to the Catholic principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. Wackenroder himself seems to have started his journey with no great knowledge of Catholics or liking for them. Indeed, he was of the opinion that Catholics were biologically distinguishable from Protestants:

The character of the Bambergers, in general, is supposed to be ingenuous, dull, and superstitious – and involve frequent beer drinking. As in all Catholic countries, the numerous holy days invite laziness. The general Catholic national physiognomy is very striking and characteristic especially of the women. They are mostly small, anything but beautiful and have a snub nose.

However, the Catholic Church that Wackenroder encountered in 1793 was not that of the desiccated services of the post-Pius X reforms, let alone the cold minimalist rituals we see Bamberg today, attended by only a handful of worshippers. No – it was the Catholic Church bathed in the last golden glow of the setting baroque sun. It was a world of processions, relics and devotions, of overflowing public and popular piety, of splendid masses accompanied by orchestras, gunfire salutes and trumpet blasts! Bamberg was at that time a separate principality of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a prince-bishop (an institution so characteristic of the old German Empire!). In Wackenroder’s day, “enlightened” bishops had recently taken steps to reduce the number of processions, to cut down on holydays and to restrain the popular enthusiasm. But much still remained!

He was struck by the superabundance of art in the Cathedral:

Inside, the cathedral contains an indescribable richness of old paintings, tombs and reliefs. One finds similar things in all Catholic churches but not always in such abundance….One can study these all the easier because all Catholic churches are usually open the entire day except in the afternoon; and one doesn’t disturb the few people who are praying at different times in the churches.

Wackenroder continues:

In this cathedral so curious and ancient for me, I attended with the greatest interest on the feast of Saint Henry (the patron saint of Bamberg- SC) High Mass that was held on Sunday from 9 to 10 after the preaching, and on every major feast…. In the streets, flowers were on sale everywhere, which everyone brought into the cathedral. Before the church a woman sat, selling rosaries and scapulars. I bought for myself a rosary for three Kreuzer and a scapular. 

As I entered the venerable church I found it already almost full. I pushed forward up to the main altar and waited now for the solemn scene. Oh! – truly I had not expected very much. Everything was new for me. The ceremonies, which every minute always changed, made an ever stronger and wonderful impression on me the more they were mysterious and unintelligible. I was standing among nothing but Catholics: men, women and children. Some were constantly reading prayer books; others prayed the rosary while standing, yet others reverently knelt right next to me. 

Here I found proved so clearly what Nicolai relates: that fixed raising of the gaze in prayer, which suddenly blazes up to heaven without resting on earthly objects; the making of the sign of the cross in holy zeal; the heartfelt firm striking of the breast which, with expressive glances towards heaven and with deeply felt sighs, shows such special depth of feeling. …One is totally initiated into the Catholic faith here and almost driven to participate in all the ceremonies. 

Now on the high altar, adorned in red, a mass of candles was lit. Everyone who passed this altar genuflected. Now four or five clerics in splendid vestments, embroidered with great flowers in green and gold, with red and white, appeared on the steps of the altar and began the High Mass. It was entirely in Latin, but is available to the people in German translation. The High Mass itself consists of a great number of ceremonies, precisely organized but unintelligible to me. Now this or that cleric sang, with a hoarse, monotonous and unpleasant voice, prayers or selections from the bible – now before the altar, now from a pulpit across from the altar. There, lower clerics in simple choir robes with black collars stood at his side, carrying candles. Now a cleric did this or that on the altar; now they changed places, knelt here or there, on this or that step, now the organ interrupted them at every second or third word and accompanied their chant, of which I could understand only isolated words that were often repeated: a “dominus vobiscum” and an “in saeculo saeculorum.” 

Now, accompanied by violins, etc, arias and choruses were sung in other parts of the church; now the Host on the altar was incensed with a silver thurible hanging from chains; now a cleric took the Host to the other end of the church and returned, always preceded by a soldier with his musket. For, right next to me on the high altar stood four soldiers. On the sides sat the canons in white choir robes and red collars; the cleric with the thurible also approached them, swung it upwards before them and incensed them – which impressed me greatly. 

The most solemn moment, however, was when another cleric showed to the people the monstrance (a gleaming crystal case in which the Host resides). At this moment a bell was rung, the soldiers presented their arms, took off their hats and fell to their knees. The whole congregation fell down and crossed itself, blaring trumpets rang out, which were lost amid the long drawn out sounds of horns. I also fell to my knees, for otherwise I certainly would have exposed myself to the indignation of the people; moreover it would indeed have taken an effort to remain standing in isolation, for a whole world knelt down around me, and everything prompted me to the highest devotion – to do otherwise would have been as if I didn’t belong to the human race.

We will pass over the other artistic experiences and investigations of Wackenroder in Bamberg. But we must mention his participation on subsequent days in public processions, which impressed him greatly. On one such occasion, one of the natives raged at him for not taking off his hat – something like that can befall young ladies today who walk into certain Traditional masses wearing trousers…

Wackenroder’s impressions of individual Catholics and their clergy, however, were mixed. One day (in a subsequent visit to Bamberg with Tieck):

A procession of Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans and Capuchins left the church. I saw some venerable and really ideal old men among them.

Several Catholic clerics and other friends, moreover, were very kind and helpful hosts to Wackenroder during his stay in Bamberg. Yet:

The Catholics that I knew were not orthodox and themselves smiled over the peculiarities of their religion.

Wackenroder himself had to endure the company of one insufferable enlightened character who yearned to break out from Catholicism.

On a second journey to Bamberg, Wackenroder and companions wanted to experience the Benedictine life in the nearby monastery of Banz. To their distress, they quickly found that, in that stronghold of the Catholic enlightenment, the traditions of medieval hospitality had vanished….

Among our author’s most positive experiences of an individual Catholic was a visit to a school for girls, where Wackenroder admired a sister of the order of the “English Ladies” conducting a class.[1]

Four years later, in 1797, appeared Wackenroder’s Outpourings from the Heart of an Art-Loving Monk – the title alone reads like a fantastic Romantic manifesto. In this book Wackenroder alludes several times to his experiences in Bamberg, above all in one crucial chapter describing a young German painter encountering the Catholic mass. Wackenroder shifts the time from that of his era to the early 16th century, the place from Bamberg, the “German Rome,” to the real one, and the church from an early Gothic cathedral to the Pantheon. Instead of the sober, almost scientific prose of the accounts of his travels, the style is florid, exalted, and enthusiastic – in a word, Romantic. (Indeed, my edition claims the following passages were actually written by Tieck; the two friends often contributed to each other’s works.)

I went recently into the rotunda [of the Pantheon] for it was a great festival and a splendid Latin music was going to be performed – but really above all to see my beloved again among the praying crowd and to hover in the presence of her celestial devotion. The splendid temple, the huge mass of the people that again and again pressed in and surrounded me ever closer, and the dazzling preparations – all this induced in my soul a wonderful attentiveness. I was most solemnly disposed. Even if I wasn’t thinking clearly and lucidly, as usually happens in such a tumult, my very soul was stirred as if something very special was about to happen within me. At once everything grew quieter. Above us began the all-powerful music – slowly, fully, expansively – as if there blew an invisible wind above our heads. Like the sea it surged forth in ever-greater waves, and its sounds drew my soul completely outside of my body. My heart pounded, and I felt a mighty yearning for something great and sublime that I could embrace. The full Latin chant that, rising and falling, forced its way through the tones of the music like ships sailing through the waves of the sea, raised my soul ever higher. And, while the music pervaded my entire being and ran through all my veins, I, who had been sunk in thought, raised my eyes and looked about me. The entire temple appeared alive before my eyes – the music had intoxicated me so! At that moment the music stopped, a priest advanced before the high altar, raised the host with an enthusiastic gesture and showed it to all. Everybody fell on his knees, trumpets blared out indescribable, all-powerful sounds and solemn prayers resounded everywhere. All those pressed tightly around me fell to their knees. A secret miraculous power drew me too to the floor, and I couldn’t have resisted with all my might. 

And now, as I knelt with bowed head, and my heart soared within my breast, an unknown power lifted again my gaze. I looked around me, and it seemed clearly as if all the Catholics, men and women, who, kneeling, now meditated, now gazed up to heaven, crossed themselves reverently, struck their breast and moved their praying lips – as if all were praying to the Father in heaven for the salvation of my soul, as if all the hundreds around me prayed for a lost one in their midst and drew me over to their faith in silent worship but with irresistible force. Then I glanced to the side at Maria, and I saw a great holy tears spring from her blue eyes. I didn’t know what was happening within me, I couldn’t stand her gaze any more, I turned my head sideways, my eyes fell upon an altar, and a painting of Christ on the cross looked at me with indescribable melancholy. The mighty columns of the temple rose, worthy of reverence, before my eyes like saints and apostles, and looked down on me with their capitals full of dignity. The endless vault of the dome bowed down like the all-embracing heaven over me, and blessed my pious resolutions. 

I could not leave the temple after the end of the celebration, I fell down in a corner and wept, and then passed with a contrite heart all the saints, all the paintings – it seemed that only now could I really contemplate and revere them. I could not resist the force within me – dear Sebastian, I have now crossed over to your faith, and my heart feels happy and light. It was art that had all-powerfully drawn me over, and I can say that only now can I understand and grasp art.

It’s clear that here Wackenroder has built upon the details of what he himself saw in Bamberg but has transfigured them in a new literary form. The emphasis, moreover, has shifted not so subtly from religious ritual to the aesthetic power wielded by art: the architecture, the paintings and above all the music – even leading to a conversion! There is romantic subjectivity too, as the artist’s tearful beloved becomes a Madonna figure leading to Christ. But let’s not be critical: didn’t Vladimir Soloviev point out that St Vladimir chose the Orthodox faith for Russia because the beauty of the ceremonies of St. Sophia impressed him so? And, aside from any aesthetic experiences, the unforgettable impression made on the writer by the open and unashamed devotion of the simple Catholic faithful is the same both in this story and the original account.

Other than what we can surmise from these writings, we know of no conversion in the case of Wackenroder himself. He died in 1798, aged only 24. But he has left for us a marvelous description of a Catholic liturgy, which on one special day made such an indelible impression upon him. For this Mass, so foreign to him, and that he could not “understand,” had clearly communicated to him the most profound sense of worship and of the Divine. Such is the transformative power, both in 1793 and today, of this Mass – the Mass of Tradition!

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All the quotations are from Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, Werke und Briefe (1967 Verlag Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg) (reprint of the 1938 edition with the inclusion of one additional letter).

Footnotes:

1. “English Ladies” (Englische Fräulein) a order of teaching sisters founded by Mary Ward in the 17th century but by far more widespread in Germany than in England.

Repost: The Immaculate Conception in Christian Art

[197] The thought of Mary's sinlessness from the first moment of her earthly existence has caused Christian genius to picture her in a form which abstracts from her maternal relations and presents her simply as the highest ideal of virginal womanhood. If the image of the "Mother and Child" leaves upon us the impression of her sympathy, and awakens confidence in her maternal care, the chaste beauty of Mary's lightsome figure as the Immaculata amid the stars of heaven is calculated to lift up our hearts with admiration, and to elicit the desire that it might be given to us some day to live in the sweet companionship of her sublime virtue.

No school of artists has ever realized the beauty of this virginal concept so well as the Spanish painters of the sixteenth century; and among them Bartolomé Murillo stands as leader and prince. It is pleasant to think that his genius for painting sweet pictures of the Immaculata was developed by American [198] traders from Mexico and Peru, who bought the young painter's small canvases exhibited in the booths on the grand piazza of Sevilla. They knew that they could readily dispose of these pictures to the converts in the cities of the New World, and they felt that it would bring a blessing on their trade to spread the devotion to the Madonna. But back of this demand for pretty pictures of the Virgin Queen of Heaven there was another influence which formed the "Painter of the Conception" and the school to which he belonged. These Spanish artists of the sixteenth century lived in an atmosphere of inspiring traditions. Murillo's father, as well as Juan de Castillo, a relative and his earliest instructor, were contemporaries of the great Spanish saints. They could tell the youth of the wondrous things said and done by Peter of Alcantara, John of Avila, Teresa, John of God, Francis Borgia, Louis of Granada, Bartolomio of the Martyrs, and, loveliest of all, by the little Luigi, Count of Gonzaga. Luigi, the devout boy from Lombardy, was one of the comely pages that attended Princess Donna Maria at the Spanish Court; and those who had seen him in Madrid remembered the evening hours of May in the chapel, where he might be seen kneeling on the altar steps before the statue of the sweet Madonna. And the missionary Fathers who returned to Sevilla from the far-away land of Peru too could tell young Bartolomé of a maiden Saint, Maria Rosa of Lima, who had gone to heaven the very year of little Murillo's birth, all enamored of the Madonna, so that the Indians spoke of her as an angel of the Virgin Queen.

This breath of a sainted atmosphere throughout the Castilian domain seemed to act upon the temperament of the whole nation, and produced that delicate perception of Mary's beauty as the Immaculata, which not only characterized the art of painters like Murillo, but may be recognized also in the artistic and literary products generally of that age. They carry our vision into the region of mystic beauty, creating a unique halo which surrounds the figure of Mary and lends to it a character distinct from her dignity as the Queen of Mothers.

Murillo's picture of the "Immaculate Conception" is probably the most familiar and at the same time the most perfect presentation of the subject which we can imagine. He painted the same [199] theme on a large scale more than twenty times. The best copies, with slight variations in form, are in the museums at Madrid, Sevilla, and Paris. It is said that his daughter Francesca, who afterwards became a nun, served him as a model; but we know how the beauty of her mother had first captivated the artist's fancy whilst he painted the altar-piece in the church at Pilas.

Some writers have seen in Murillo's picture of the Immaculate Conception throning upon the crescent a suggestion of the triumph of Christian virtue over the Moorish power symbolized by the half moon. But it is clear that the leading motive of the picture is suggested by a passage in the Apocalypse of St. John.[1] The beloved disciple, wrapped in prophetic vision of the future Church of Christ, sees in the heavens the magnificent image of "a great sign"—of "a woman clothed round about with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Simultaneously he describes a serpent, or rather a dragon lying in wait for the offspring of the woman that he might devour it. The whole scene is presented to St. John as if it had occurred before the creation of man, in the midst of the angels, who thereupon began to be divided in their allegiance to God. "And there was a great battle in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon . . . who seduceth the whole world." Then the holy seer hears a voice: "Now is come salvation and strength . . . and the power of Christ."[2]

Like all prophetic allusions of the Sacred Text to the Church of Christ, this vision finds a most ready application to our Blessed Lady. Hence the Immaculate Conception is represented in form of the Virgin modestly composed, her hands gracefully crossed upon her chaste bosom, the whole figure clad in a white robe, with the blue mantle suggesting "heavenly protection" lightly wrapped around her, and a golden flood of celestial brightness flowing down upon her. She is apparently supported by the crescent floating amidst the clouds, whilst her foot is set upon the head of the serpent which writhes on the earth beneath. All these notes are symbolical and point to the sinless conception of Mary, to her singular power over Satan and earthly concupiscence [200], and to the exalted position which she holds in consequence of these prerogatives among devout Christians. Mgr. Malon, Bishop of Bruges, has very elaborately explained the details of these elements to be found in most pictures of the Immaculate Conception.[3] He shows that true artistic sense forbids the introduction of any symbol that indicates the ordinary virtues which we honor in the saints. Hence there are not to be found in these pictures such emblems as the lily, or the crown (except the twelve stars), or the Holy Child.

The white robe indicates the immaculate purity of Mary's life. The blue mantle, which lightly floats about the figure, caught by the breezes of heaven, expresses her separation from earthly attachments; she was wrapt up, so to speak, in the azure mantle of heavenly contemplation, which bore her aloft under the gentle breath of Divine inspiration.

The twelve stars about her head denote her special dignity, which unites in itself all the gifts of the Prophets of the Old, and of the Apostles of the New Law. If the just, that is, the saints, are to shine like stars, she is to shine with a brilliancy surpassing them all, for she is the Queen of Saints, of Prophets, and of Apostles, who represent the combined perfection of the heavenly host. Murillo omits this halo of stars; but he does so without prejudice to the beauty of his subject, for the golden splendor of the light with which he surrounds our Blessed Lady would make the brightest star to pale away. Other painters, though they might, like C. Müller, match Murillo's Madonna in the sweetness of expression, fail in this power of suffusing a heavenly light about her fair form that makes her transfigured body float into the celestial realms on a rich translucent atmosphere.

Murillo also omits the image of the dragon which has served other artists to emphasize the contrast between the chaste sinlessness of the Immaculate Queen and the wiles of Satan, who was the cause of the first transgression. But here too Murillo is superior to the ordinary master. His Virgin Queen is born aloft by a throng of joyous angels, child-like figures that suggest the sinlessness [201] of early innocence. The only suggestion of contrast comes from the dark clouds that form the lower background of the picture, and thus supply the artistic element represented by the dragon without marring the happy atmosphere which the figure of the Immaculate, "all fair," inspires. For this reason Murillo's pictures have sometimes been called the "Ascension of the Virgin," to distinguish them alike from the image portrayed in the Apocalypse and from the "Assumption," in which latter the Eternal Father or Holy Trinity is frequently presented in order to express the act of receiving our Lady into heaven, whilst the symbols of the crescent and the serpent are omitted. No painter has ever so completely exhausted this difficult theme, preserving at the same time absolute simplicity of composition, as did Murillo, the devout lover of our Blessed Lady. There have been critics, like Cartier, who have found fault with the drawings of Murillo's figures, and others who have failed to realize the lofty concept which from the religious point of view the picture presents; but there is only one opinion regarding the marvellous [sic] effect of his coloring, which gives to his pictures of the Immaculata an almost supernatural character: the whole image seems as if it were melting away, so to speak, from the earthly to the region of the purely ideal and heavenly.

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Footnotes:

1. Ch. 12: 1.
2. Ibid.
3. Iconographie de l'Immaculèe Conception de las très Sainte Vièrge Marie, ou de la meilleure manière de rèpresenter ce mystère. Par Mgr. J. B. Malon. Bruxelles: Goemaere. 1856.

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Source: "The Immaculate Conception in Christian Art," American Ecclesiastical Review 27 (August 1902): 197–201.

Stefan Molyneux on the Truth about Makeup

Fr. Benedict Ashley on the Form of Fine Art

[247] Chapter II: The Forms of Works of Fine Art

The Notion of Form

“Form” Is an Analogical Term

If we are ever to think clearly about the problem of “form” in art we have to realize that this word has many meanings; it is an analogical, not a univocal term.

In the broad sense of the word, “form” is relative to “matter,” so that whenever we have some sort of material, some elements or parts put together in a sort of an order, arrangement, or structure, we may call that structure “form.” In this broad sense, all the nine kinds of accidents […] are “forms,” because all of them give some kind of order to the thing in which they exist.

Among the accidents, however, the one which most truly deserves the name of “form” is quality, the category which answers the question, “What kind of thing is it?”

Hence among the kinds of quality the proper sensible qualities of things which directly affect our different senses may be called “forms.” Color is the form of things perceived by our eyes, sound the form of things perceived by our sense of hearing. Of these, [248] color and sound especially deserve to be called “forms” because it is by sight and hearing that we can best discriminate one kind of thing from another.

In the last chapter (see page 242) we saw that color and sound are forms of the common matter of the fine arts; the reason for this is that they give different qualities to paint, or glass, or stone, or to vibrating strings and columns of air. But although they are forms of the common matter, they are themselves the proper matter of the fine arts.

The Most Proper Sense of the Word “Form”

Although the term “form” may be used in these broad senses to apply to any accident, and particularly to any kind of quality, in the strictest sense it belongs only to one species of quality, namely, to figure.

If we ask most people what “form” means, they will spontaneously answer: “shape” or “figure”; and they will probably be thinking of the shape or figure of a beautiful woman. Thus “form” means “figure.” If we wish to distinguish the connotations of the two words, we may say that “form” means a perfect regular figure. Figure and form are kinds of qualities, but they are qualities very closely related to quantity, and may be defined as follows:

Definition: a figure is a quality which is the boundary of a quantity.

Thus in geometry we construct and study such figures as the straight line, the curved line, the triangle, the polygon, the circle, the cube, and the sphere. Each of these is a quantity having a definite boundary. For example, the circle is an area (quantity) bounded by a curved line equidistant at every point from the center. These boundaries of quantity are its figure, and this figure is not itself quantity but a quality of quantity; it is a form of the quantity.

Closely connected with quantity and figure are four other categories: place, position, vestition, and timing […]. If I draw the figure of a triangle on a sheet of paper, I can put it in various places on the page. I can also turn it in various positions; for example, with the vertex upward or downward. Similarly, the human [249] figure may be in various places, and in various positions (sitting, standing, lying down), and it may also be clothed (vestition) in “form-fitting” or in baggy garments. Finally, as the hands of a clock move through various positions on the dial, we can mark out parts of time to correspond with the parts of the circular figure; or as a runner speeds to his goal, we can mark off parts of the time to correspond with his progress along a straight line. Thus timing and the other categories we have just mentioned are closely related, and we can think of a series of events in time as arranged in a sort of pattern or figure.

Thus “form” strictly means figure, but it may also be applied to other categories closely connected with quantity. Quantity and the other categories which we have just mentioned all provide a foundation for the various relations […] of equality and inequality, similarity and dissimilarity, nearness and distance, before and after, so that in describing figure we must also take into account these various relations.

We often refer to figure in painting, sculpture, or architecture as a “pattern” or a “design.” In music the analogous arrangement of different tones in time may be called by the same names.

Design Is Essential to Fine Art

It should now be evident that a work of fine art that does not have form in the sense of good design could not possibly achieve its purpose. A work with poor design would lack the most basic type of beauty. It might have expensive materials, beautiful colors, or rich sounds; it might portray an interesting subject, or tell a moving story, but it would lack form. It would be the material of a work of art as a pile of bricks is the material of a building, but it would not be the completed work. A girl may be healthy without being very beautiful.

Oddly enough, many people miss this point. Girls are sometimes admired for beauty who really do not have it. A girl with bright eyes, a glowing complexion, or a pleasant manner is often thought beautiful, although actually she does not have regular features nor a good figure. Similarly, in judging works of art many people are inclined to think that a work of art is good if it has bright colors, or if [250] it is about some subject that they personally like. A man who likes hunting is likely to think that a brightly colored photograph of the woods is a fine work of art; and a woman who likes children is likely to think that a picture of a sweet baby painted in lovely pastel shades is a masterpiece.

This is not unnatural, and we need not object to people enjoying bright colors and pleasant subjects. But we must recognize that it is not the work of art itself they are enjoying, but merely something accidental to it. That is why the opinions of the public and the opinions of experts in matters of art sometimes seem so far apart. The public cannot understand why a prize at an exhibition should be given to a rather dull looking picture of some apples on a table cloth, while a flashy picture of a beautiful girl is passed over by the judges. The difference is principally in the fact that the judges are looking for the form of a work of art, and in the picture of the apples they find a most complicated and interesting design, while in the flashy picture of the girl they find very little design at all.

The public, on the other hand, has perhaps not learned to look for design and probably does not even realize that it is the very essence of art. Good design may be greatly aided by brilliant, beautiful colors, and it should tell us something interesting and human (as we will see below); but without it all the colors and subject-matter in the world cannot produce a work of art. The same is true of music; brilliant or rich sounds, or easily memorized tunes, or a great deal of lively and noisy rhythm does not make a good piece of music, nor does the fact that the music is patriotic, or romantic, or tells a clever story. Without musical form or design such music is like a collection of pretty silks and laces that has not been cut and sewn to make a dress. It is the possible material of a work of art and nothing more.

Abstract Art

It is the growing recognition of this true conception of art that has led to the surprising development of abstract painting and pure music in the last fifty years, a development which has outraged the public and which they find it very difficult to regard as anything but “insane art,” or “boiler-factory music.” In an abstract painting [251] or sculpture the artist gives us a pure design which seems devoid of all meaning (“What in the world is it supposed to be?”) and which frequently is devoid of appeal in color or careful finish (“A child could do as well!”). By giving us a work which seems “crude,” sketchy, unfinished, the artist is trying to get us to forget about the mere superficial qualities of color and neatness, and by not picturing anything definite he is trying to get us to concentrate on the pattern. It is rather like a football coach deciding that the crowd is becoming more concerned about the hot-dogs, the pennants, the chrysanthemums, the marching bands, the majorettes, the cheer-leaders, and the mascots than about the game of football itself; so he decides to cut them all out and give the spectators nothing but a hard-played game by a team in dirty uniforms. The public would not like that, but the real sport fans wouldn’t mind at all. They would be happy to concentrate on the game. In similar fashion abstract art and pure music are intended to be works of fine art cut down to the essentials with little appeal to the ignorant public, but with a very direct and strong appeal to those who really know what art is all about.

Significant Form

We have just given the case for abstract art, but we hasten to add that the public is not altogether mistaken in its astonishment at this type of art. The figure or shape or design of things is only an accident. The human mind, however, is made to know reality, and the accidents of things, although real, are only the most superficial aspect of reality. Reality consists of things, of substances which exist in themselves. Accidents cannot exist in themselves but have reality only because they exist in substances. Until our mind penetrates accidents and grasps the substances of things it is unsatisfied. Perhaps at a circus or fair you have bought a paper cone full of pink “cotton-candy” spun out of sugar, and you remember that when you bit into it you found it was hardly more than slightly sweet air. The world of accidents is just as unsubstantial to the appetite of our mind.

Accidents are the natural signs […] of the substantial nature in which they exist. A man’s color, height, shape, weight, [252] etc., are the outward signs of his human nature. When our senses take in these accidents our mind at once begins to try to read their meaning and to discover what they signify. Of all the accidents those which are most significant to us are the figure, the sounds, and the motions of things. If we see the shadow of a dog, hear its bark, or see it streak across the lawn after a rabbit, we recognize it immediately and we understand what its nature is.

So habitual is it for us to read the natures of things through their figures that when we sit idly watching the shifting forms of the clouds or the fire, or when a psychologist shows us an ink-blot, we immediately see in these random shapes the likeness of animals or human faces. The same is true of sounds, for if we listen to the wind or the waterfall for some time, or the sound of the wheels of the train on the track, they may begin to suggest words and voices to us. The tendency of children or of insane or delirious adults to see figures in the shadows and hear voices in the wind is only an exaggeration of a universal human tendency to seek for meanings in every shape and sound.

A form which quickly reveals a nature and which thus acts as an effective sign is a significant form, in contrast to one which seems meaningless. The reason we resent abstract painting and music is that it seems to promise a meaning which we can never discover. Purely abstract art is inhuman, because it offers us a mere surface, a flow of phenomena instead of the reality we naturally crave.

It certainly is legitimate for the mathematician to abstract from all reality except the accident of quantity, because he is a scientist, and science sometimes gains by sacrificing depth for the sake of exactitude […]. The artist, too, may feel that by making his picture very mathematical he is gaining in clarity of form what he is losing in richness of content, but this sacrifice becomes too great when nothing but mathematical pattern is left. The history of art shows that cultures like that of the Jews or the Mohammedans (who, for fear of idolatry, banished the use of representation in art and confined themselves to abstract designs) did not achieve artistic greatness.

[253] The Function of Emotion

Emotion and Abstraction

As a matter of fact, the abstract art of today is really not so abstract as it appears. Most of it actually has some meaning or significance because it conveys emotion. Very little music has even attempted to reproduce natural sounds (except as an incidental novelty); yet music does convey emotion, and has a rich emotional meaning. In an analogous way, visual design which seems to resemble nothing in particular may have a definite emotional content, and may convey a sense of joy or gloom, agitation or serenity. If it were not so, then architectural designs would not convey any mood to us—and they obviously do. Who has not felt the sense of serenity in the façade of the Parthenon, or the sense of prayer in the interior of the cathedral of Chartres? Abstract painting is a visual design which signifies emotion in somewhat the same way as music does.

What then about pure music, which seems to be free of any obvious emotional content? When we listen to the music of Bach, we do not sense, to be sure, the same violent and obvious emotions as in a piece by Tschaikovsky [sic], or Wagner. We say that the music seems “intellectual.” The reason for this lies in the fact that there are two kinds of emotion. Some emotions are so violent that they carry us along, blinding our intelligence and clarity of thought. Other emotions are controlled, measured by our intelligence, kept in balance and harmony by our thought. Such emotions do not blind us, but rather sharpen our intelligence and help us to think more acutely.

This is not a difference in the intensity of emotion, but in its discipline. Controlled emotion can be much more profound and intense than sentimental, dissipated emotion. Many people who compare the music of romantic composers like Wagner to classical composers like Mozart and Bach at first find the classical music “cold,” “intellectual,” a mere pattern of sounds; but after they know it better they come to see that it signifies most intense and deep emotion.

How Can a Design Have Emotional Significance?

Granted that “abstract” designs and musical patterns often signify emotion, it is rather difficult to explain how this can be. We need to recall what an emotion is:

Definition: An emotion is a movement of our sense appetites toward an object presented to the imagination as pleasant or away from an object as presented to the imagination as unpleasant, with an accompanying physical change.

So, for instance, when we imagine a delicious dish of food we have a hungry impulse that moves us toward it, and we feel our stomach begin to get active and our mouth begin to water. […]

In order to signify these emotions by a musical pattern we need to produce a series of notes that move toward or away from sounds that are pleasant and unpleasant. A pattern of concordant or related notes seems pleasant, a pattern of unrelated notes seems unpleasant. The pleasant pattern seems restful and suggests a state of bodily relaxation; the unpleasant pattern is disturbing and indicates bodily tension. When a design is suggested but not completed, then we are in a state of anticipation and tension until it is completed. In this way a piece of music is a constant alternation between the building up and tearing down of a musical design, and this movement to and from an expected pattern or order signifies the emotions. If we see an expected design dissolving or incomplete, the emotions of sorrow are signified; if we see it building up in spite of obstacles, the emotions of joy are signified.

In dancing we have a similar alternation of visual patterns. In painting, sculpture, or architecture there is no actual movement, and at first it might appear that they could never signify the flow of emotion. But every motion begins and ends in rest, and in a static design it is possible to indicate that a motion is about to begin, or has just ended, by showing a design which is not quite complete, but suggested. Hence a picture in which a design seems to be dissolving or ready to fall apart suggests something sorrowful, and a picture in which the design seems just to be arriving at completion suggests triumph and joy.

[255] Ugliness and Beauty

We can now understand why a work of art, if it is to have emotional meaning, must not be simply a perfect geometrical design or pattern; why it must contain something which is imperfect, incomplete, ugly, and disordered. It is not possible to present the pleasant in an effective and intense way without also suggesting the unpleasant, or at least the less pleasant. A piece of music which was all sweet chords, or a picture which had a perfect balance of pure colors, would seem emotionally empty because they would not suggest to us the movement of emotions from the unpleasant to the pleasant. A story with no villain, no conflict, no danger is bound to be insipid. That is why good works of art at first sight sometimes seem shocking or strange or depressing. It is because we have noticed the unpleasant element, and have not yet perceived how this unpleasant element is present only as a means to intensify the emotional movement toward the pleasant. The apparent disorder exists only to bring us to a profound order, just as in the universe sin and sorrow exist only to awaken us to the pursuit of true happiness.

This does not mean, however, that there must always be something ugly for there to be something beautiful. God is Beauty without ugliness of any sort because he is Eternal Beauty. But creatures arrive at beauty and goodness only by a long journey, and every journey not only has a goal, but also a place of departure. We journey toward Beauty only by leaving ugliness behind.

Natural Signs of Emotion

It may appear very surprising that we are able to read the emotional meaning of a piece of music or a design just by looking or listening to it, even when we have had no training in these arts. And yet people spontaneously understand the joyfulness or sadness of a great deal of music and design. The reason is that we are naturally inclined to read this visual or musical language of the emotions because the appearance of our bodies and the sound of our voices are natural signs of our emotional states.

Even a small child soon learns to read its mother’s emotions from her facial expression, from her calm or nervous gestures, and from the tone of her voice. When we watch a fine actor we are amazed to [256] see how his body and his voice seem to reveal his interior feelings by their slightest changes. Thus the human body in its movements, postures, expressions indicates the interior tension or repose that accompany emotion (see definition above, page 254), and so does the human voice which is so affected by the muscular tensions of the face, throat, and chest, and by our breathing.

When our body is in repose (standing or sitting easily), it forms a perfect symmetrical pattern; and so, in a similar state, does our face. When we are moved by emotion, this pattern is disturbed and goes through a series of shifting appearances until we return to repose. In dancing or acting we see this alternation of repose and movement. The voice also has its rest and repose, silence or a clear, even tone. When we are moved, the voice rises or falls, grows stronger or weakens, and then returns again to repose. It follows, then, that the pattern of design or of music of which we have been speaking is natural to man, so from our acquaintance with the human body and voice we quickly come to read this natural language.

Imitation in the Fine Arts

Art as Imitation

We can now understand the famous saying of the great Greek philosopher, that art is imitation. In Greek the word is mimesis, the same word from which comes our word “mimic.” No doubt Aristotle particularly had in mind the actor who mimics or imitates a character in a story. He says, however, that music also is imitative (Politics, VIII, 1340a, 19), because it so subtly portrays the emotions. By this he means that the work of art is a significant form, as we have already explained, not that it is a photographic copy of the appearance of something. If he had meant the latter he certainly could not have cited music as an obvious example of imitation, since music is no obvious likeness of anything.

Some have argued that “imitation” was taken by Aristotle to mean that the artist does for his work of art what nature does for the things it produces. According to this theory, just as nature helps the seed to grow into a beautiful tree, so the artist develops a design from [257] some germinal idea and embodies it in his material. It is perfectly true that human art does imitate nature in this way, but this is true of all arts—of farming, of medicine, of engineering, of teaching—and would not be especially characteristic of the fine arts. Yet Aristotle uses the term “imitation” as the specific difference of the fine arts to define them in contrast to these other arts.

Aristotle tells us himself (Poetics, IV, 1448b, 4 ff.) that the fine arts are imitations in the sense that they lead us to knowledge. By comparing the work of art with the thing it imitates we come to know something which we did not know before. How is that possible? How do we come to know by comparing the picture of a man with a man?

We can understand the answer to this question if we recall that we human beings learn to define things by comparing similar things and then noticing the differences. It is in this way that we come to distinguish between what is essential and important and what is accidental and insignificant. Hence when an actor “imitates” or mimics someone else, we first make a comparison between two persons who are unlike each other (the actor and the one he imitates) and then we notice their similarity, the tricks of gesture, gait, expression, and pronunciation which make them startlingly similar.

When we recognize this similarity we are very interested, because previously we had never realized the distinctive personality of the person who is being imitated. But when we see these traits put on by an entirely different person, we see them plainly and clearly and appreciate them as we never appreciated them before. The mimic has said to us, so to speak: “Here is the very essence of Mr. So-and-So. Now you know what Mr. So-and-So is really like, although you never realized it before.”

An imitation, therefore, is just the opposite of a photographic copy. The photograph is the unselective reproduction of the mere appearance of a thing. An imitation is the selection of a significant form, of those appearances which reveal the nature or essence of something. A photograph is made by a machine that is without intelligence. An imitation is the work of an intelligent man who sees through the accidents to the substantial reality of things and produces a sign that enables us to do the same. That is why a melody, [258] or an abstract painting, can be a true imitation, although they are far from a mechanical reproduction of anything. Between the melody or the design and the emotion which they imitate, there is a real similarity, a selective and interpretative likeness of movement and pattern existing in utterly different materials.

The Scope of Imitation

Emotion and Action

Up to this point we have shown how even when works of painting or music seem very abstract or “non-objective” they may actually imitate the emotions. But emotions do not exist of themselves, they exist in human beings. It is the human being who is a substance, and emotion is only one of his activities. Nor is it the highest human activity. Man fully lives, not merely in feeling and suffering, but rather in thinking, willing, loving, choosing a course of action, and executing it. Furthermore, it is not merely in some passing experience that he truly lives; rather it is in his habitual, deliberate way of life that his character and personality are truly realized. If art were confined to imitating man’s emotions, it would be able to show us only a very fleeting and superficial aspect of reality.

Hence it is that in poetic works, which are the fullest and most complete type of art, the writer does not merely portray emotion (this is paramount only in lyric poetry, see page 216), but deals with human action, that is, with human life as a whole. The scope of the imitation of a poetic work, therefore, extends beyond emotion to the whole of man’s nature and life, and to the world in which he lives.

The Scope of Music

Is it possible for the arts which do not use words to go beyond emotions in their work of imitation? It would seem that music cannot go further, unless it is united to words or drama as in a song or opera. Music represents emotion, and in that emotion we sense the control of reason and of virtue which gives that emotion its own balance and symmetry. But music alone can never tell us the objects of these emotions (the thoughts), nor the characters that feel them, nor the situation that provokes them.

[259] In hearing a piece of music we witness someone’s noble sorrow, or exultant joy, but we do not know who it is that feels these emotions, nor why. On this account music is very limited in its scope, although it compensates for these limitations by its extreme subtlety and power in imitating what it can imitate. The words of a poet or the expressions of an actor fall far short of music when it comes to imitating the shades and changes of feeling.

It is for this reason that music is so often used in connection with other arts, along with words, or as an accompaniment to acting or dancing. This is also the reason why it has such intense appeal to people of deep emotions, while it may seem tedious and empty to those who are more interested in the other aspects of life.

Limitations of the Other Arts

Architecture, which has been called “frozen music,” has even narrower limitations. It cannot show the shift or changes of emotion, but only a certain mood or atmosphere of grandeur, or peace, or comfort, or whatever it may be. It may be said to imitate a habitual state of character or emotion, rather than the emotion itself. Abstract design has these same limitations, and in spite of the great fashion at the moment for such designs, we may be sure that people and artists will soon tire of so limited a medium. Abstract design has neither the power of music, nor the scope of representational art.

Why is it so popular at present? Partly, it would seem, as a reaction to the mechanical, materialistic, photographic ideal of art which is so prevalent in our mechanical age, but mainly because the artists of today are very ignorant of the fulness [sic] of reality. Like so many experts, they are narrow specialists and they find nothing to imitate which they know well except their own emotions. It is well known that among writers lyric poetry is the one field in which the young writer can excel, since it requires a minimum of knowledge and experience with life, and only a sufficient sensitivity on the part of the young poet. Abstract painting and sculpture are the lyric form of the visual arts, and today’s artists, cut off from the fulness [sic] of life by their lack of education and general culture, tend to devote themselves to it. This is by no means all their own fault; it is largely due [260] to the fact that in modern life the fine arts have lost their social function and have become very narrow […].

Acting and dancing have a much wider scope, since vision is the most informative of all our senses. Before the “talking picture” was invented, the silent movies had proved that it is possible to go very far in telling an effective story without words. Nonetheless, everyone is aware that the silent movies were very limited in their dramatic scope. Without words it was difficult to express the shades of motivation, and the story had to be confined to very broad simple effects. The same is true of the ballet which can tell a simple story and express the related emotions very clearly—more clearly than can a play. Yet a ballet becomes confusing if the story takes on any complication or subtlety of plot, character, or thought.

In painting and sculpture even motion is eliminated. Hence these arts cannot effectively tell a story. The efforts of some painters to suggest a story in a picture is more clever than successful. To be sure, the technique of the comic-strip may be tried. In Chinese painting, in illustrations for manuscripts and books, in some primitive Italian and Flemish painting, and in certain large groups of mural paintings, successful efforts have been made to portray the separate incidents of a story in a succession of pictures. Even here, however, each picture has to have an interest of its own, and a single picture conveys a story only feebly.

The Imitative Function of These Arts

What these arts can do is to portray the repose that completes precedes action, and by showing this repose as imperfect to suggest the action which is coming to rest or about to begin. In the famous Greek statue of the discus thrower, for example, we see the athlete poised to release the discus. In Michelangelo’s statue of Moses we see the great lawgiver just about to rise from his seat in righteous anger. In the “Winged Victory” in the Louvre we see the goddess of victory just coming to rest on the prow of a ship and ready to fold her wings, and in Michelangelo’s Pietà we see Our Lady gazing in silent grief after receiving the body of her Son. The history of Egyptian and Greek sculpture or of the painting of the Renaissance shows the gradual development of the art by which the artists learned to [261] suggest, in a static design, this beginning or coming to rest of motion. In the later periods of Greek and Renaissance art this skill was so abused that the static design was destroyed by motions too violent for successful portrayal without actual acting or dancing.

The Matter of the Arts as Limiting Principle

In fine, each of the arts tends to be limited in its scope by the effective possibilities of the matter. It pertains to the perfection of these arts to widen their scope, but not to do violence to it. The great musician tries to give a dramatic and intellectual quality to his music. The painter and sculptor attempt to suggest action in repose. The poet seeks to give a vivid pictorial and sound impression in his poem. All, however, if they respect their own art, will not attempt to compete with the other arts, nor try to do within the limits of one material what could be better done in another.

The musician who tries to paint a picture or tell a story, the painter who tries to turn his poem into a piece of music or a painting—all are striving to do the impossible, and thereby violating the nature of their own art.

Objects of Imitation

Since an imitation receives its form from the object imitated, we need now to ask: what objects are imitated by the fine arts? The answer must be given in terms of two principles:

1. An artist should seek to imitate what is most beautiful in itself insofar as he can.

2. But he is limited in this by the kind of matter he uses.

The Beauty of the Divine

If we consider the first principle, then, of course, the most beautiful of all things is the One God in the three divine Persons. God’s Being is seen especially in the Father, his Truth especially in the Son, and his Goodness in the Holy Spirit. Since beauty is a kind of goodness (namely, the good of knowledge), the Beauty of God is seen especially in the Holy Spirit. Since beauty is the splendor of truth, it is especially especially as the Holy Spirit is the very splendor of the Word of God that he is Beauty.

[262] After God the most beautiful reality is the Triumphant Church (taking its Head and its members together) as it will be after the last judgment. This Church will then include all glorified rational creatures and the whole glorified physical universe as its temple. The damned in hell will remain to render this glory more clearly, in the same way that something of ugliness remains in a work of art as the sign of the catharsis achieved. In this Church our divine Saviour [sic] and Our Lady are most beautiful. By reason of his human nature, our Lord, who is a divine Person, is fitted to our knowledge, and is thus most beautiful to us. But even more evident than the beauty of our Lord as man is his sublimity, whereas his beauty is found most clearly for us in Our Lady, who so perfectly resembles him. Our Lord’s beauty appears especially in his actions, his life, since it is by these that his Person is manifested to us. For this reason the history of the Church (and in it the story of our Lord’s life) is the most beautiful of dramas. The life of Christ is also strongest in its catharsis, since we can completely identify ourselves with him who has become our brother, and his life moves from the extremes of sorrow to those of perfect joy. It is in the Sacrifice of the Cross and in the Resurrection that this catharsis attains its goal.

The Beauty of the Human

Among other human beings, the saints, who most resemble Christ, are most beautiful; and their heroic actions, especially martyrdom, share the tragic power of his own life. But it is particularly in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (which is a sacramental imitation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, truly re-presenting it) that this beauty is found at its highest.

It is also found, however, in the humble life of the home where he lived in Nazareth, and in his daily contacts with weak humanity. In these incidents is found the comic spirit, ranging from the burning satire of his exposure of the Pharisees, to the gentle humor with which he dealt with his disciples. The sublime sorrow of his life, however, prevents the comic from being seen there fully, but it is fully evident in the life of his members in the Church, who alone of men can afford to laugh at themselves. The sublimity of our Lord’s life, on the other hand, is fully seen only in the entire panorama [263] of history outlined in the Bible and filled in by the details of secular histories.

The Chief Object of Imitation

Thus it is human action (whether tragic or comic) which is the chief object of imitation in fine art. For this is the highest object which appears perfectly adapted to our understanding and sympathy, and hence the one which produces in us the most perfect purification of our emotions (catharsis, see pages 152 ff.) and the most perfect contemplation of the beautiful. Divine things and cosmic things are represented, but as they are reflected in human action, as its law and goal. When we see human life in relation to its ultimate consequences beyond this life, in its relation to God and the society of the universe, we have a tragic vision. When we see human life in relation to the less consequential affairs of everyday life in human society, we have the comic vision. In the former the catharsis is more profound, because it is a lasting joy attained by conquering sorrow. In the latter the joy attained is less perfect and final; it is the commonplace joy of daily life.

When we consider things below man we consider them as ordered to man and reflecting human life, as similar to man and sharing in his beauty or ugliness. Sometimes they appear as obstacles to his action (hence as ugly), sometimes as the instruments and appropriate setting of his action (hence as beautiful). Such humble things also have a sublime aspect, since they reflect the cosmic order of which man is not the highest part. They suggest to us man’s subordination to the Creator who made both man and ant. Thus in looking at apples on a table, not only do we see a design, but also a reflection of man in his daily domestic life, and, further still, a reflection of the mystery of the universe in which man finds himself as a part. Seeing the reality of the apples in sunlight we realize that the world is not our work, but the work of someone greater than ourselves whose art is infinite.

Consequently, the landscape painting, the still-life, the picture of animals, the poetic description of the weather, are subordinate and minor objects of imitation in art which take their meaning from their relation to human life and to God.

[264] The Division of the Fine Arts

Since human action is the principal object of imitation in the arts, especially as it reflects the divine action, we can now consider how we can give a classification of the fine arts. We can do this by seeing the ways in which this object can best be imitated in the different materials of words, color, or musical tone, which we have seen are the proper matter of the fine arts. The division rests on the three possible objects of imitation: action, character, thought, and on the three possible kinds of matter: words, musical design (which includes both melody and rhythm), and visual design (spectacle). Words and musical design must include movement, but visual design may be either moving or static. Words have their significance by convention, musical and visual design by the natural expressiveness of the human voice and body.

Finally, the difference between the dramatic and non-dramatic manner is basically a difference between the joint use of the arts to produce a synthetic work (in which human action is represented on the stage in all its aspects) and the individual work of poetics (where the other arts are omitted). Thus Aristotle’s division of the arts (Poetics, I) according to objects, means, and manner is observed in the following division:

Classification of the Fine Arts

A. The synthesis of the fine arts, the drama:

Definition: The drama is a work of fine art whose form is the representation of human acts in their relation to divine and human law, along with the characters who act and their thoughts about their acts,

and whose matter is words, along with moving musical and visual designs whose significance is derived from the natural significance of the human voice and body in repose and motion.

B. The individual fine arts, each of which produces a part of the drama but which may produce independent works:

I: Literature (poetics):

A poetic work excels in representing the element of thought by means of conventional signs or words, along with spoken musical design.

II: Music:

A musical work excels in representing character as it shows itself in emotion, by means of a pattern of sounds.

III: Visual Art:

1. Dancing excels in representing character as it shows itself in the movements of the human body, by means of a visual design using such movements.

2. Painting and sculpture excel in representing character as it shows in the repose of the human body, by means of a visual design using this repose.

3. Architecture and the crafts provide an appropriate setting or instruments for human motion or repose, by a visual design adapted to these.

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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), 247–264.