reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

The pilgrim church of San Biagio, Montipulciano.

A general view of the Church of San Biagio, Montipulciano:

San Biagio, Montepulciano: The High ALter equipped with retro-sacristy, and flanking double sacristy doors :

San Biagio, Montepulciano

San Biagio, Montepulciano, the bell tower

A line from one of those thretises on aesthetics, this time from Hans Urs von Balthsar:

“We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past — whether he admits it or not — can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love” (p. 18).

@Praxiteles wrote:

A line from one of those thretises on aesthetics, this time from Hans Urs von Balthsar:

and now, thanks to wikipedia, anyone can know a little bit about even the most obscure 20th century theo-philosopher.

Was it not particularly cruel that this guy was called to the pearly gates two days before the pope would have bestowed on him a cardinal’s hat? Some people might conclude that this was pay-back for inflicting a 16 volume treatise on aesthetics on the world.

This isn’t my field, but I getting the sense that the further one travels up a philosophical cul-de-sac, the more florid becomes one’s descriptions of one’s surroundings.

@Praxiteles wrote:

Quote from Balthasar:

“We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past — whether he admits it or not — can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love” (p. 18).

How many more of these guys are there? . . . . I see there really was a guy called R(h)abanus!

Here is a bit on Rhabanus:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabanus_Maurus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabanus_Maurus

“This isn’t my field, but I getting the sense that the further one travels up a philosophical cul-de-sac, the more florid becomes one’s descriptions of one’s surroundings”.

I am not inclined to think that reflection on the conceptual foundation of “beauty” is a useless task – or at least no more so than a reflection on truth (philosophy) or the good (ethics).

And here is another one, Jacques Maritain, the subject of a conference held in Louvain three years ago:

Jacques Maritain’s Neo-Thomist Aesthetics
and European Modernist Art Circles
during the Interwar Period

International Conference, 12-13 May 2006
Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Sciences of Belgium
Paleis der Academiën, Hertogstraat 1, 1000 Brussel

In recent literature on cultural history and art theory, modernist art of the first half of the twentieth century has not been viewed purely as a product of rationalism. That all too simplistic reading has been replaced by a dissection of the cultural, social and also religious background of modernist aesthetics. For modernist artists, a belief in instrumental reason, order and functionalism did not preclude the importance of myth, history and spirituality. Less well known is the fact that, besides esoteric mysticism or theosophical movements, a traditional religious frame of reference as Catholicism – often in a non-conformist version – appealed to the imagination. This is evident in the influence wielded by the French philosopher Jacques Maritain [1882-1973] on many European modernists. In the 1920s and 1930s, his cultural criticism [Antimodern, 1922, Religion et Culture, 1930] and certainly his reflections on aesthetics [Art et Scolastique, 1921] enjoyed wide interest in artistic and intellectual circles.

The Neo-Thomist philosophy promoted by Maritain, and specifically his philosophy of art, seems to have spoken to many modernist artists. The composer Igor Stravinsky consulted Maritain before formulating his theory of art and considered converting to Catholicism. The French poet, writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau did also that in the 1920s. For the painter Gino Severini, a pioneer of Futurism, and otto Van Rees, one of the first Dadaists – both converts – Maritain played the role of spiritual counsellor. And when the promoter of abstract art Michel Seuphor embraced Catholic faith in the early 1930s he, too, had extensive contact with Maritain. For these artists, the dictum of the Irish modernist poet Brian Coffey, once a doctoral student under Maritain, applied: modern art needs a Thomist conceptual framework. However, besides admiration, Maritain also provoked irritation with his theories. He was accused by some of being a charlatan who sought to appropriate the work of others, and for this reason surrounded himself with artists in his house in the Paris suburb of Meudon. Maritain, so the story went, was out to place modern art under the glass bell-jar of Catholicism.

The fact that Maritain met with both praise and vilification speaks volumes. It reveals how the Catholic religion continued to be an important factor within the development of modern art. The protest and the adoration that arose around the figure of Maritain lays bare a crucial debate about the role of religion in modern art [and art theory]. In order to arrive at an understanding of the main issues and the development of that debate, Maritain’s conceptions must be approached from a double perspective. This entails the analysis of the networks [friendships and his indirect aderents] that he developed through Europe, and of his criticisms [views of criticasters]. Maritain can function as a lense for examining, comparing and understanding a number of crucial dimensions of the aesthetic theories and religiously-inspired cultural criticism of European modernists.

Research into the reception and the perception of Maritain not only tells us something about Maritain the person; an analysis of the many kinds of perception and reception which Maritain’s ideas met, can also shed light on the hybrid character of the modernism of the first half of the twentieth century. To begin with, it can be shown that modernist art often depended on a metaphysical conception of beauty. In the second place, an insight can be gained into the fact that within modernism, a regressive utopia, based on neo- Thomism, was able to make its presence felt. Archaic, even reactionary elements such as an interest in the pious Middle Ages, were seen to be compatible with a belief in progress. An analysis of the reception and perception of Maritain therefore offers the opportunity to re-write the history of modern art and culture by relating it to aspects that are too often separated from it.