Redeeming Beauty: Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics (Ashgate Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts)

164 Pages·2007·0.81 MB·English

by  Aidan Nichols

REDEEMING BEAUTY
Redeeming Beauty explores the richness of orthodox Christian tradition, both
Western and Eastern, in matters of ‘sacral aesthetics’ – a term used to denote the
foundations, production and experience of religiously relevant beauty.
Aidan Nichols investigates five principal themes: the foundation of beauty in
the natural order through divine creative action; explicitly ‘evangelical’ beauty as
a quality of biblical revelation and notably at its climax in Christ; the legitimacy
of making and venerating artworks; qualities of the self in relation to objective
presentation of the religiously beautiful; and the difficulties of practising a sacral
aesthetic, whether as producer or consumer, in an epoch when the visual arts
themselves have left behind not only Church but for the greater part the public as
well. The thought of theologians such as Augustine, Aquinas, Balthasar, Ratzinger,
Bulgakov, Maritain and others is explored.
Ashgate Studies in Theology,
Imagination and the Arts
Series Editors:
Trevor Hart, St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, Scotland
Jeremy Begbie, Ridley Hall, UK
Roger Lundin, Wheaton College, USA
What have imagination and the arts to do with theology? For much of the modern era, the
answer has been, ‘not much.’ It is precisely this deficit that the proposed series will seek to
redress. For, whatever role they have or have not been granted in the theological disciplines,
imagination and the arts are undeniably bound up with how we as human beings think, learn
and communicate, engage with and respond to our physical and social environments and, in
particular, our awareness and experience of that which transcends our own creatureliness.
The arts are playing an increasingly significant role in the way people come to terms with
the world; at the same time, artists of many disciplines are showing a willingness to engage
with religious or theological themes. A spate of publications and courses in many educational
institutions has already established this field as one of fast growing concern.
This series taps into a burgeoning intellectual concern on both sides of the Atlantic and
beyond. The peculiar inter-disciplinarity of theology, and the growing interest in imagination
and the arts in many different fields of human concern, afford the opportunity for a series
which has its roots sunk in varied and diverse intellectual soils, while focused around a
coherent theological question: How are imagination and the arts involved in the shaping and
reshaping of our humanity as part of the creative and redemptive purposes of God, and what
roles do they perform in the theological enterprise?
Many projects within the series have particular links to the work of the Institute for
Theology Imagination and the Arts in the University of St Andrews, and to the Theology
Through the Arts programme in Cambridge.
Other titles in the series:
The Passion in Art
Richard Harries
Faith and Beauty
A Theological Aesthetic
Edward Farley
Baptized Imagination
The Theology of George MacDonald
Kerry Dearborn
Redeeming Beauty
Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics
AIDAN NICHOLS, O.P.
John Paul II Lecturer in Roman Catholic Theology,
University of Oxford, UK
© Aidan Nichols 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Aidan Nichols has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Nichols, Aidan
Redeeming Beauty: Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics. –
(Ashgate Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts)
1. Christian art and symbolism. 2. Aesthetics. I.Title
246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nichols, Aidan.
Redeeming Beauty: Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics / Aidan Nichols.
p. cm. – (Ashgate Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts)
Includes index.
1. Aesthetics – Religious aspects – Christianity. I. Title.
BR115.A8N53 2007
230–dc22 2006018459
ISBN 978-0-7546-5895-5 (hbk)
ISBN 978-0-7546-6001-9 (pbk)
This volume has been printed on acid-free paper.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
PART 1 Foundations, in Creation and Grace 1
1 Aesthetics in Augustine and Aquinas 3
Introduction 3
Conclusion 18
2 The Origin and Crisis of Christian Art 19
Introduction 19
Iconography and the Bible 21
Christian iconography in the early patristic age 27
The crisis of early Christian art 32
Ecumenical resolution: Nicaea II and the reception
of its dogmatic definition 38
Conclusion 46
PART 2 Twentieth-Century Theologians of the Image 51
3 Hans Urs von Balthasar on Art as Redemptive Beauty 53
Introduction 53
A theology of beauty 55
A theology of the image of God in man 59
A theology of the saving Incarnation as centre
of the revelation images must serve 61
A philosophy of the image at large 63
A Neo-Iconophile theology of the artist 64
The content of Christian art 66
4 Sergei Bulgakov on the Art of the Icon 71
Introduction 71
Attitude to Nicaea II and the Iconophile doctors 71
A theology of beauty 74
A theology of the image of God in man 76
A theology of the saving Incarnation 78
A philosophy of the image at large 79
vi Redeeming Beauty
A Neo-Iconophile theology of the icon 80
The content of iconography 84
Coda: icon and blessing 87
5 Benedict XVI on Holy Images 89
Introduction 89
The Christological perspective 89
The liturgiological perspective 95
Conclusion 100
PART 3 The Difficulties of Practice 103
6 The French Dominicans and the Journal L’Art sacré 105
The project 105
The protagonists 106
The context 108
The establishment of L’Art sacré 111
Policy or policies of the Dominicans of ‘L’Art sacré’ 112
A caveat 115
‘La querelle de l’art sacré’ 118
Conclusion 121
7 The English Uses of Maritain’s Aesthetics:
Eric Gill and David Jones 125
The virtue of art 126
Maritainian craftsman extraordinary: Eric Gill 128
The nature of beauty 133
David Jones: Maritainian artist of the sign 137
8 Conclusion: Christ and the Muses 143
Index of Names 151
Preface
For many people in modern British society beauty is perhaps the only available way
into metaphysics and religion, as an atheist Provost of King’s College, Cambridge
acknowledged when he proposed to close the Chapel outside hours of service with
a view to protecting visitors from ‘irrationality’. Beauty, whether in nature or art,
provides an intimation of the transcendental order. That is a fact, whatever difficulty
philosophers may have in furnishing a satisfactory account of it. Some of the material
presented in this book throws light, I hope, on this obscure subject.
The present writer is a historical theologian, not a constructive metaphysician.
But here weakness in one respect might be strength in another. The Christian
tradition, Western and Eastern, has vast conceptual and imaginative resources for
coming to terms with this subject. The ‘sacral aesthetics’ of my subtitle means
both an approach to beauty in the natural ontological order, and exploration of the
iconologies generated when that order has been lifted above its own communicative
capacities by divine grace. It is appropriate that a world surmised to be already
gift should contain further surprises. Biblical revelation is in its own modalities
‘beautiful’ too: ‘redeeming beauty’. Its prolongation in Christian iconography is not
especially easy to achieve in our time. There are resources here for an ampler ‘art of
the Church’ as well. This is chiefly a study of the beauty which when seen pleases. In
my Conclusion, however, encouraged by – especially – Maritain, I cast the net wider
to take in by analogy other arts besides.
Blackfriars, Cambridge
Memorial Day of Saints
Basil and Gregory, 2006
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Acknowledgements
The author and publisher are grateful to: Peeters of Leuven for permission to re-use
in chapters 3 and 4 some material already published in W. van den Bercken and J.
Sutton (eds.), Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity
(Leuven, Paris, Dudley, MA, 2005); the editors of Nova et Vetera for permission to
use an earlier version of chapter 5 published in Vol. 5, No. 2 (2007); the editor of
New Blackfriars for permission to use an earlier version of chapter 6 published in
Vol. 88, No. 1013 (2007).
They are especially grateful to the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, for permission to reproduce as the cover image of this book Marlay
cutting It. 13A: Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (1339–1399), ‘The Presentation in
the Temple’, historiated initial from a Gradual dated 1371–1375.