The only way forward for conservatives is unabashed courage and an utter refusal to continue to accept the status quo that says we are not valuable in culture, academia, and polite society. We must remember who we are and live with conviction. We are the harbingers of joy, hope, sacrifice, and humanity! This week has [...]
Portraying the souls of the faithful and those of the damned, “The Last Judgement” of Michelangelo serves as a powerful reminder of the theology of grace and of the importance of one’s own volition in accepting and actively cooperating with the grace which God so freely gives to men. The Last Judgement When [...]
When the modern city enshrines the temporariness of facelessness as a permanently utilitarian way of life, then something has gone dreadfully wrong. The Aesthetics of Architecture by Roger Scruton (320 pages, Princeton University Press, 2013) One of the principal observations of Sir Roger Scruton about the modern city is an architectural observation. Modern architecture expresses [...]
In the center of Giorgione’s painting, “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” two shepherds genuflect before the Child, connecting the two worlds of the scene, the natural and the supernatural. The shepherds are the first men to recognize the divinity of Christ. While we are unlikely to identify with the Magi, those royal wise men, we [...]
“Beauty will save the world.” That remains to be seen. But beauty has saved me, and continues to do so. My experience is that I need saving; it is not a luxury. Just when I am about to succumb to the sadness and living death of nihilism, some piercing ray of beauty breaks open my [...]
Some of my best and oldest friends are paintings. They have accompanied me down the years. They lift my heart every time I see them. I never tire of them. They always remain fresh and new, as long as I allow them to refresh and renew me whenever we meet. Here are some of them. [...]
I remember the excitement the day the crates arrived and were carefully opened, and what emerged was overwhelming. What was beginning to happen was a unique partnership combining all the art forms: poetry, painting, music, and theater into one evening’s performance. She was British-chilly until I brought out the gin: one ice cube and a [...]
The world has long sought to explain the mysteries of madness and genius and has largely failed to do so. Perhaps the better idea would be simply to allow madness and genius to go on explaining the world’s own mysteries to itself. “A post-mortem examination of the brain of Nietzsche might conceivably show us the [...]
There are some valuable lessons to be learned from the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment and the various neo-medievalist movements which were its fruits. The most important is that society is not progressing inexorably in one “progressive” rationalist direction. The eighteenth century was a time of religious skepticism which seemed to foreshadow the eclipse of [...]
Impression: Sunrise What are we to make of impressionism? According to Chesterton it was “another name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to the universe”. These are damning words, which will not be accepted very readily by those who admire impressionist art. One does not look at a painting by [...]
The “beautiful violence” of Old Masters painting—a magnificence rooted in the study of Light and Dark as technique, as style, but most of all as a symbolic representation of the very essence of life on earth—remains timeless for its sublime understanding of that which for each human soul cannot be explained. “To define art is [...]
The beautification of life, the highest “household art” of making people happy and places pretty, also encompasses the adornment of the soul. Because life is more than work, economics, and money, the life of the heart and spirit need constant replenishment. What do decorating a room, wearing tasteful clothes, expressing cheerfulness, offering friendship, enjoying Mayday, [...]
The fine arts are rightly classed among the noblest activities of man’s genius; this is especially true of religious art and of its highest manifestation, sacred art. Of their nature the arts are directed toward expressing in some way the infinite beauty of God in works made by human hands. Their dedication to the increase [...]
Art and technology are both forms of sub-creation. They reflect an aspect of what it is to be human which we call the imago Dei. Like the God in whose image he is made, man is creative. He uses his imagination to make new things from other things that already exist. Laughter has its place [...]