Greek art, Hegel says, brings art to its summit. This presents a difficulty: The greatest sensuous artistic form occurs within a polytheistic, inadequate religion. In Jean-Marie Schaeffer’s summary, Hegel resolves this by pointing to the very brokenness of the bodily form of Christ in . . . . Continue Reading »
A few selections from Hegel, “Oldest System Programme of German Idealism” (1796; name given by Franz Rosenzweig in 1913); from Simon Critchley, Very Short Introduction to Continental Philosophy (Oxford, 2001) “I should like to give wings again to our physics which is progressing . . . . Continue Reading »
RG Collingwood has a whale of a time excoriating individualistic conceptions of art. He recognizes a theological motif behind the post-romantic notion of the isolated artistic genius: “Individualism conceives a man as if he were God, a self-contained and self-sufficient creative power . . . . Continue Reading »
Toward the end of “On Seeking God,” Nicholas of Cusa has this to say: “when an artists seeks the face of a king in a block of wood, the artists rejects everything else that is limited except the face itself. For the artist sees in the wood, through the concept of faith, the . . . . Continue Reading »
Jean-Marie Schaeffer ( Art of the Modern Age: Philosophy of Art from Kant to Heidegger (New French Thought Series) has a blast pointing out the contradictions in Kant’s aesthetics. Most of them arise from Kant’s insistence that the judgment of taste is founded on “the form of a . . . . Continue Reading »
Evidence that Hamann had Kant right: In explaining taste as a common sense, he notes that this common sense of beauty can be arrived at by a process of stripping off whatever belongs to our perception and prejudice. That is, we put “ourselves in the position of every one else, as a result of . . . . Continue Reading »
Steven A. Walton provides an illuminating summary of the scholastic incorporation of mechanical arts into philosophy and theology. John the Scot first used the term artes mechanicae in the ninth century, and monasteries preserved and improved upon ancient technologies, but “they did not . . . . Continue Reading »
A question from a philistine: Is this personage in the chiffon sheer off a picture window supposed to be God? Or Eve? Or what? You’d think that “Adam Sleeping” would be a relatively simple narrative to represent, but apparently not. On second thought, I think that must be God. . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s an image to ponder: Crucifixion as blood-type test. And just think how fabulous it’ll look over Jody’s sofa. [Rating: -27.3 out of 100]from . . . . Continue Reading »
Go cast your vote in The Crescat’s Visually-Appalling Church Art contest.Then take the I&C Church . . . . Continue Reading »
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