There is a real sense of the elven magic and Arthurian romance in John William Waterhouse’s painting, "The Lady of Shallot," which unites it aesthetically with Tennyson’s poem. It is other-worldly, suggestive of other-worlds beyond the merely mundane. It takes us out of ourselves to a realm beyond the confines of the ego. Such is [...]
In a world that tells us that truth is relative and subjective and self-expression is king, aesthetics teaches us to draw meaningful distinctions, to make value judgments, to admire form and reject formlessness. Aesthetics helps us understand what is unique, beautiful, and pleasing in the things that surround us. Aesthetics is generally understood to be [...]
Who completed Mozart's unfinished Requiem? The masterpiece that we know today was the work of many hands. But who wrote which parts? And how much did Mozart actually write? "The last movement of his lips was an endeavor to indicate where the kettledrums should be used in his Requiem. I think I still hear the [...]
A few weeks ago, I imagined which ten volumes I would select for my personal library were I to find myself locked up in a prison cell or perhaps washed up on a desert island. More recently, I offered a handful of poems for Halloween. Now, I have selected six paintings for the walls of [...]
Conservatives must preserve and pass on the riches of the past, but we must also be aware of and open to the opportunities of the present, so that the proper fusion of old and new will inspire and enable truly great art. From time to time I publish on Twitter my view of the social [...]
Watanabe Sadao never made art for popes and presidents. He made art for the humble Christian home. His simple style was not an affectation, but a true expression of his Christian faith. Like his father’s hymns, Watanabe’s prints were for living a Christian day, not for achieving artistic glory. Anyone who lived through the last [...]
Communists know that the strength of their regime is measured in terms of ideological uniformity. This is what makes the pervasiveness of COVID kitsch so unnerving. The coordinated censorship of opposing viewpoints, both scientific and conspiratorial, is creepily reminiscent of 20th-century excess. Sabina, the headstrong artist in Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being, is haunted [...]
The sheer variety of economic schools and methods suggests that there must be something influencing researchers before they even begin to address their questions. Economic literature expresses a set of pre-existing convictions, a vision of the social world, in the same way art does. Economists often complain that no one takes their advice, yet it [...]
Set in the period after the completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the film, “Sin,” paints a rounded characterization of Michelangelo rather than the hoary cliché of the solitary misanthropic genius holed up in his studio. This episode of the artist’s career has never been so dramatically or so convincingly told. Il Peccato (Sin), the [...]
The left has long understood the power of the arts in furthering radical ideas, in a way conservatives have largely failed to grasp in defending theirs. Conservatives with the financial means must increase their support of conservative artists for the sake of a culture in immediate need of the wisdom that a long intellectual, cultural, [...]
Girl With A Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer Look at me not, Yet I persistently stare. Eye contact would be fatal: Flush flesh would freeze into rough rock. Perseus thought he slayed me — That was a myth. […]
Fra Angelico’s art, like his personality, is poised between the charm and grace of the Gothic and the realistic spirit of the Renaissance. That’s why he is the best model for the Christian artist, indeed any artist who is guided by higher principles and universal truth. The Annunciation One of the recurring themes [...]
She has disturbed the complacency of the canvas. Pulsing paintstrokes and palping pigments Have birthed her from the beating, Bleating conscience of the artist. The heart enchants his hand, thus altérant la réalité. Behold. […]
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” remains one of the best-crafted sonnets, as much for its vivid description as for the breadth and depth of its meaning. It is about much more than the futility of tyranny: It is about the power of art. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is one of his shortest works, but also one [...]