Praxiteles
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Hidden masterpiece uncovered
Friday, June 19, 2009Catherine Deshayes
Pope Benedict XVI is to unveil a hidden Michelangelo masterpiece restored to its former glory during a private ceremony at the start of July…
The Pauline Chapel, which serves as the parish church of the Vatican, will reopen for business after seven years of restoration, Vatican Museum Director Antonio Paolucci has announced.
Writing in an article in the Catholic daily L’Osservatore Romano, Paolucci said the pope would oversee an opening ceremony on July 4th.
He added that the restoration work had finished ahead of an original June 29th, 2009 deadline, although considerable extra efforts had been made over the last 18 months to ensure this was met.Cleaning and restoration work on the chapel, which is just down the corridor from the more famous Sistine Chapel, got under way in 2002.
It is best known for housing Michelangelo’s last frescos, ‘The Conversion of Saul’ and the ‘Martyrdom of St Peter’.
The massive works flank each side of the chapel, which is strictly off limits to the public,
The chapel is usually only used by the pope and those closest to him for private masses although it has also been used for conclaves of cardinals when the Sistine Chapel is not available.Commissioned by Pope Paul III in 1537 and completed in 1540, the chapel’s design and construction was overseen by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
Michelangelo had decorated most of the Sistine Chapel 29 years earlier but had returned to the site to add The Last Judgment, which he finished in 1541.
A favourite of the pope and considered a master frescoist, he was the natural choice for the Pauline Chapel, which he started work on the following year and completed at the age of 75 in 1550.
He lived another 14 years working as chief architect on St Peter’s Basilica but the Pauline Chapel works were his last ever frescos.
The Holy See has used its restorers and experts to repair the Pauline Chapel, which will remain a hidden Vatican treasure, even after the restoration.
The cost of the cleaning has largely been funded by private donors.
Published today on the Vatican webpage: a press release announcing that on Tuesday, 30 June at 11.30 a press conference will be held in the Sala Regia to present the restoration and re-reordering we have been waiting for this past while – that of the Cappella Paolina. Like Westminster, this is another important and highly significant re-reordering in which, we are told, the rubbish of the 1970s has been dumped and the original High Altar re-erected. The chapel returns to use on 4 July 2009.
AVVISO DI CONFERENZA STAMPA
Si informano i giornalisti accreditati che martedì 30 giugno 2009, nella Sala Regia del Palazzo Apostolico Vaticano (ingresso Portone di Bronzo), alle ore 11.30, avrà luogo la Conferenza Stampa di presentazione dei restauri della Cappella Paolina, in vista dell’inaugurazione presieduta dal Santo Padre il 4 luglio p.v.
Interverranno:
Em.mo Card. Giovanni Lajolo, Presidente del Governatorato (Stato della Città del Vaticano);
Prof. Antonio Paolucci, Direttore dei Musei Vaticani;
Ing. Pier Carlo Cuscianna, Direttore dei Servizi Tecnici del Governatorato (Stato della Città del Vaticano);
Prof. Arnold Nesselrath, Delegato del Direttore dei Musei per i Dipartimenti scientifici ed i Laboratori.
On the need to reform the Roman liturgy:
” A renewal of liturgical awareness, a liturgical reconciliation that again recognizes the unity of the history of the liturgy and that understands Vatican II, not as a breach, but as a stage of development: these things are urgently needed for the life of the Church. I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to be conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not He speaks to us and hears us. But when the community of faith, the world-wide unity of the Church and her history, and the mystery of the living Christ are no longer visible in the liturgy, where else, then, is the Church to become visible in her spiritual essence? Then the community is celebrating only itself, an activity that is utterly fruitless. And, because the ecclesial community cannot have its origin from itself but emerges as a unity only from the Lord, through faith, such circumstances will inexorably result in a disintegration into sectarian parties of all kinds—partisan opposition within a Church tearing herself apart. This is why we need a new Liturgical Movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council.â€
— Excerpt from Milestones: Memoirs 1927–1977—The Regensburg Years. San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1998. Aus meinem Leben: Erinnerungen 1927–1977. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1998And here we have news of another (highly significant) re-reordering. This time it is the Westminster Metropolitan Cathedral in London. The temporary altar raised on a wooden platform which was installed in the choir immediately in front of the sanctuary has been removed and the celebration of Mass returns to the High Altar.
A further significant re-reordering is expected to be inaugerated in a couple of weeks time. This is the restored Cappella Paolina in the Vatican Palace.
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 PeriodInternational Conference, 12-13 May 2006
Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Sciences of Belgium
Paleis der Academiën, Hertogstraat 1, 1000 BrusselIn 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.
Here are a couple of more – mentioned in the article on medieval aesthetics in Wiki..
Western medieval aesthetics
Surviving medieval art is largely religious in focus, and typically was funded by the State, Orthodox or Roman Catholic church, powerful ecclesiastical individuals, or wealthy secular patrons. Often the pieces have an intended liturgical function, such as chalices or churches.
Medieval Art Objects were made from rare and valuable materials, such as Gold and Lapis, the cost of which was often superior to the wages of the maker.
Art and aesthetic philosophy was a continuation of ancient lines of thought, with the additional use of explicit theological categories. St. Bonaventure’s “Retracing the Arts to Theology†discusses the skills of the artisan as gifts given by God for the purpose of disclosing God to mankind via four “lightsâ€: the light of skill in mechanical arts which discloses the world of artifacts, as guided by the light of sense perception which discloses the world of natural forms, as guided by the light of philosophy which discloses the world of intellectual truth, as guided by the light of divine wisdom which discloses the world of saving truth.
Saint Thomas Aquinas’ aesthetic theory is arguably more famous and influential among the medieval aesthetic theories, having been explicitly used in the writing of the famous writer James Joyce as well as many other influential 20th century authors. Thomas, as with many of the other medievals, never explicitly gives an account of “beauty” in itself, but the theory is reconstructed on the basis of disparate comments in a wide array of works. His theory follows the classical model of Aristotle, but with explicit formulation of beauty as “pulchrum transcendentalis” or convertible with being among the other “transcendentals” such as “truth” and “goodness.” Umberto Eco’s The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas identifies the three main characteristics of beautiful things in Aquinas’ philosophy as: integritas, consonantia, and claritas. Aristotle identifies the first two characteristics, with the third being an “innovation” of Aquinas in the light of Platonic/neo-Platonic and Augustinian thought. In sum, medieval aesthetic, while not a unified system, presents a unique view of beauty that deserves an in-depth treatment in the history of art.
As the medieval world shifts into the Renaissance, art again returns to focus on this world and on secular issues of human life. The philosophy of art of the ancient Greeks and Romans is re-appropriated.
Here is the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic#Western_medieval_aesthetics“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).
Here is a sort of bibliography of von Balthasar:
Here is a bit on Rhabanus:
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).
San Biagio, Montepulciano: The High ALter equipped with retro-sacristy, and flanking double sacristy doors :
