beauty

Angelism – II

Angelism – II on February 18, 2012

Alert readers of these “Comments” may have picked up on an apparent contradiction. On the one hand the “Comments” have repeatedly condemned anything modern in the arts (e.g. EC 114, 120, 144, 157, etc.). On the other hand last week the Anglo-American poet T.S.Eliot was called an “arch-modernist,” and praised for launching a new style of poetry more true to modern times, certainly chaotic.

As the “Comments” have often said, modernity in the arts is characterized by disharmony and ugliness, because modern man chooses more and more to live without or against the God who has planted order and beauty throughout his creation. This beauty and order are now so buried beneath the pomps and works of godless man that it is easy for artists to believe they are no longer there. If then their art is to be true to what they perceive of their surroundings and society, only an exceptional modern artist will convey anything of the divine order underlying the disordered surface of modern life. Most modern artists have given up on order and, like their customers, wallow in the disorder.

But Eliot was born and reared in the late 19th century when society was still relatively ordered, and he received in the USA a good classical education when only a few secret villains yet dreamt of replacing education with training in inhuman subjects. So Eliot may have had little or no access in his youth to true religion, but he was well introduced to its by-products since the Middle Ages, the classics of Western music and literature. Sensing and seeking in them an order missing around him, Eliot was thus able to grasp the deep-down disorder of the rising 20th century, a disorder which merely burst out in the first World War (1914–1918). Hence the “Waste Land” of 1922.

But in that poem he is far from wallowing in the disorder. On the contrary he clearly hates it, showing how empty it is of human warmth and value. So the “Waste Land” may bear little trace of Western religion, but it does finish on scraps of Eastern religion, and as Scruton says, Eliot was certainly tracking the religious depths of the problem. In fact a few years later Eliot nearly became a Catholic, but he was scared off by Pius XI’s condemnation in 1926 of the “Action française,” a condemnation in which he recognized more of the problem and not its solution. So out of gratitude to England for all it had given him of traditional order, he settled for a solution less than complete, combining Anglicanism with high culture, and a Rosary always in his pocket. However God does write straight with crooked lines. How many souls in search of order would have stayed away from Shakespeare or Eliot if they thought that either of them, by being fully Catholic, had answers only pre-fabricated, not true to life.

That is sad, but it is so. Now souls may well be deceiving themselves in one way or another if they shy away from Catholic authors or artists on the grounds that these are untrue to real life, but it is up to Catholics to give them no such excuse. Let us Catholics show by our example that we do not have minds made cosy by artificial solutions necessarily false to the depths of the modern problem. We are not angels, but earthy creatures invited to Heaven if we will pick up our modern cross and follow Our Lord Jesus Christ. Such followers can alone remake the Church, and the world!

Kyrie eleison.

Virtuous Pagans

Virtuous Pagans on October 22, 2011

On reading (EC 221) how the music of Brahms is proof of a certain greatness of soul, a young Brazilian reader asks if the wick smouldering in Brahms was not smouldering better than it does in a lukewarm Catholic (cf. Mt.XII, 20). The contrast is designed to highlight the virtue of the pagan and to question the virtue of “warm, lazy” Catholics. Of course pagan virtue is praiseworthy and Catholic lukewarmness is blameworthy, but a greater question lies behind: just how important is it to be a believing Catholic? How important is the virtue of faith? The answer must remain, it is as important as eternity is long.

That faith is a virtue of supreme value is evident from the Gospels. How often does Our Lord, after working a miracle of physical or spiritual healing, tell the person involved that it is their faith that obtained for them the miracle, e.g. for Mary Magdalene (Lk.VII, 50). Yet Scripture makes it equally clear that this meritorious faith is something deeper than just an explicit knowledge of religion. For instance, Roman centurions can have known little to nothing of the true religion in its day, the Old Testament, yet of one of them Our Lord says he has not found so great faith in Israel (Mt.VIII, 10), another of them recognizes as the Son of God the crucified Jesus whom the experts in religion had done nothing but mock (Mt.XXVII, 41), while a third, Cornelius, blazes the trail for all Gentiles who will enter the true Church (Acts, X, XI). What did these pagan centurions have that the priests, scribes and ancients did not have, or no longer had?

From beginning to end of all men’s life on this earth, pagans and non-pagans alike are constantly confronted with a variety of things good, all coming ultimately from God, and of things evil, coming from the wickedness of men. But God himself is invisible while wicked men are all too visible, so it is all too easy to disbelieve in the goodness or even existence of God. However, men of good heart will believe in the goodness of life while discounting, relatively but not absolutely, the evil, whereas men bad of heart will discount the good that is all around them. Now neither may have any explicit knowledge of religion, but whereas good-hearted men, like the centurions, will pick up on it as soon as it crosses their path, the bad-hearted will scorn it, more or less. Thus the innocent Andrew and John picked up immediately on the Messiah (Jn.I,37–40), whereas the learned Gamaliel took rather more time and persuading (Acts V, 34–39). Let us say then that at the heart of the explicit and knowing virtue of faith lies an implicit trust in the goodness of life and in whatever Being lies behind it, a trust that can be undermined by false doctrine or shaken for instance by scandal.

If we return to the case of Brahms, the question then becomes, did he have at least this implicit trust in the goodness of life and of the Being behind it? Surely the answer is no, because he spent the whole second half of his life in what was then the capital city of music, Catholic Vienna. There the beauty of his music must have led numerous friends and even priests to urge upon him the explicit fulfilment of that beauty in the profession and practice of Vienna’s religion, but all such appeals he must have refused. Therefore it seems all too possible that he did not save his soul . . . God knows.

Nonetheless we thank God for his music. As St Augustine marvellously said, “All truth belongs to us Catholics.” Likewise all beauty, even if crafted by pagans!

Kyrie eleison.

Atheists’ Theism?

Atheists’ Theism? on October 8, 2011

There is a fascinating quote of the famous German composer, Johannes Brahms (1833–1899), which shows how a man may have no religious faith at all, yet still recognize that there is an objective order. Such a recognition is a handle on reality, and it gave to Brahms access to a great deal of beauty, shown forth in his music. The crisis of countless modern souls is that they are convinced that there is nothing objective at all. They are imprisoned within their own subjectivity, which makes for a very bare prison, and for suicidal music!

In 1878 Brahms wrote for an outstanding violinist, his friend Joseph Joachim (1831–1907), one of his loveliest and most beloved works, the Violin Concerto in D. When he heard Joachim play it, he said, “Hmm – yes . . . it could be played that way.” In other words while Brahms was composing the Concerto, he had been hearing it in his mind’s ear being played in such and such a way, but he recognized that the somewhat different use that somebody else might make of his composition was also legitimate.

Now undoubtedly there are ways of performing the Concerto which Brahms would not have accepted, but so long as a performer made use of his composition to approach by a different way the goal he had himself approached in composing, then Brahms felt no need to insist on his own approach. The objective goal mattered more than the subjective approach, so that if by composing he had provided all kinds of performers with an access to that goal, then – within certain limits – they were all of them welcome to play the Concerto how they liked. Object above subject.

Ultimately that means God above man, yet Brahms was no believer. The Catholic Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak (1841–1904), friend and admirer of Brahms, once said of him, “What a great man! Such a great soul! And he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!” Brahms was no Christian – he deliberately left out of his German Requiem any mention of Jesus Christ. Nor did he admit to being any kind of believer – he said that the Bible texts he had used in the Requiem were there for their expression of feeling rather than for any profession of religion. Subject above object. And to this professed disbelief on the part of Brahms corresponds, one may hold, the lack of a certain spontaneity and joy in much of his music.

But how much autumnal beauty it contains, and carefully crafted order! This craftsmanship and reflection of the beauties of Nature, for instance in the Violin Concerto, call to mind Our Lord saying how there are souls that deny him in word but honour him in deed (Mt.XXI, 28–29). Today when almost all souls deny him in word, how many there are that still in some way or other, for instance in music or in Nature, honour at least the order that Our Lord has planted throughout his universe. Such faithfulness is by no means yet that Catholic Faith which alone can save, but it is at least that smouldering wick which should not be extinguished (Mt.XII, 20).

Let all Catholics gifted with the fullness of the Faith have discernment for such souls around them, and let us have compassion on the multitudes being led away from God by his enemies, in music and in all domains (Mk.VIII, 2).

Kyrie eleison.

Truth Liberates

Truth Liberates on December 11, 2010

The argument of the last three numbers of “Eleison Comments” (175–177), has been merely provoked by the French painter Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), because he is by no means the worst of modern artists. That argument has not been that God exists, so modern art is “bosh” (see Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited,” I, 6). Rather it has been, modern art is bosh, so God exists. There is an important difference here between descending from the cause to the effect and climbing from the effect to the cause.

If I start from the existence of God as a given, and reason downwards to the wrongness of, for instance, modern art, modern music, modern opera productions, etc., firstly God and his existence are not thereby proved, and secondly his religion can seem to come down on us like a wheel-clamp upon our liberty. Now I am me, and whatever it is that is me wants to be free to choose what art I like. But here comes a Traffic Warden supposedly from Heaven to clamp that freedom? No thank you!

If on the other hand I start out from my own experience of modern art, I am firstly starting out from what I directly know. And if my experience of it is, honestly, dissatisfactory – that is not necessarily the case, but if it is – then I can begin to wonder why I feel such unease in front of highly praised modern artists. I listen again to the praises. I am still not convinced. Why not? Because modern art is ugly. What is wrong with ugliness? It lacks beauty. And if I continue to climb through the beauty of, for instance, landscapes or women as portrayed in art, to their beauty in Nature, to a harmony of parts running through all creation, my thoughts have climbed from my personal experience a considerable way towards the Creator.

In this latter case he no longer resembles a traffic warden with wheel-clamps. On the contrary, far from clamping down on our freedom, he seems to be leaving us human beings with free-will and with freedom to proclaim ugliness through the land and to create a world of chaos. Maybe he is hoping that the ugliness will become horrible enough to turn our thoughts towards the True and the Good. At this point his religion resembles no longer any clamp from outside on our liberty within, but rather a help and liberator of all that is best in me from all that is worst, because unless I am proud, I am bound to admit that not everything inside myself is ordered and harmonious.

At which point supernatural grace is no longer conceived of as a kind of policeman landing on the back of my nature to control by force whatever it does. Rather it is a very good friend that will, if I wish, enable the best in me to liberate itself from the worst, or at least strive to do so.

Was not, and is not still, one driving force behind Vatican II and the Conciliar religion, the widely shared sense of Catholic Tradition being a sort of unbearable policeman, as though all natural impulses are bad? Yes, the impulses of my fallen nature are bad, but there is good in our nature underneath that bad, and this good must be allowed to breathe, because from inside us it synchronizes perfectly with the true religion of God coming from outside. Otherwise I fabricate a false religion out of my bad impulses – like Vatican II.

Kyrie eleison.

Sixpenny Art

Sixpenny Art on December 4, 2010

The French painter Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) repudiates modern society for the sake of art, yet the art he made himself free to create does not seem to have brought him peace (EC 175). The English novelist Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) writes a version of Gauguin’s life a few years later which seems to confirm both the repudiation and the lack of peace (EC 176). But why is the modern artist at odds with the society that he reflects, and that supports him? And why is the modern art he produces normally so ugly? And why do people persist in supporting ugly art?

The artist as rebel goes back to the Romantics. Romanticism flourished alongside the French Revolution, which merely broke out in 1789, but has been pulling down throne and altar ever since. Modern artists, reflecting the society in which they live, as artists cannot help doing, steadily more repudiate God. Now if God does not exist, then surely the arts should have flourished serenely in their new-found liberty from that illusion of God that has dominated men’s minds from time immemorial. Yet is modern art serene? Or is it not rather suicidal?

On the other hand, if God exists, and if the artist’s talent is a gift from God to be used for his glory, as countless artists from the past used to proclaim, then the godless artist will be at war with his own gift, and his gift will be at war with his society, and society will be at war with his gift. Is this not rather what we observe all around us, for instance the deep scorn of modern materialists for all the arts, beneath a pretence of respect?

If God exists, at any rate the questions asked above are easy to answer. Firstly, the artist is at odds with modern society because the breath of God within him that is his talent knows that his society is despicable insofar as it is godless. The fact that society supports him despite his scorn makes it merely more despicable. As Wagner once said when his increased orchestra meant eliminating a row of seats in the theatre, “Fewer listeners? So much the better!” Secondly, how can a gift from God that is turned against him produce anything harmonious or beautiful? For anyone to find modern art beautiful he must reverse the meaning of words: “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (Macbeth) – yet when did even a modern artist mistake ugliness for beauty in a woman? And thirdly, modern people will persist in their reversing the meaning of words because they are making war on God, and have no intention of letting up. “Rather the Turk than the tiara,” said the Greeks just before the catastrophic fall of Constantinople in 1453. “Rather Communism than Catholicism,” said American Senators after World War II, and they had their wish.

In brief, Wagner, Gauguin and Maugham and thousands of modern artists of all kinds are right to scorn our sixpenny Christendom, but the answer is not to make even more war on God with modern art. The answer is to stop making war on God, to give him again the glory due to him and to put Christ back into Christendom. How much more ugliness will it take for men to turn back to the tiara and to choose once more Catholicism? Will even World War III be enough?

Kyrie eleison.

Modern Art – II

Modern Art – II on July 17, 2010

By its very ugliness, modern art points to the existence and goodness of God. After three months (cf. EC 144), let us return to this paradox, in the hope that if any soul admits the common sense difference between beauty and ugliness in art, that soul may be helped further to see that if God did not exist, that difference would not exist either.

The word “art” means skill, or the products of human skill. It can cover paintings, drawings, sculpture, fashions in clothing, music, architecture, and so on. The expression “modern art” usually refers to paintings and sculpture in particular, as generated from the early 1900’s onwards by a movement of artists who deliberately rejected, and reject, all standards and measures of beauty as understood before the 20th century. The difference between pre-modern and modern art is as real and clear as the difference here in London between the classical Tate Museum on Millbank, and the Tate Modern, a completely new museum, floated ten years ago a short boat-ride downstream from its progenitor on the opposite bank of the Thames. It is as though modern art cannot sit still under the same roof as pre-modern art. They war on one another, just as do old church buildings and the New Mass.

Now modern art in this sense is characterized by its ugliness. Common sense agrees here with the Communist leader Kruschev, who is reported to have commented on a modern art exhibition in Russia, “A donkey could do better with its tail.” And what is ugliness? Disharmony. In Arianna Huffington’s admirable book, “Picasso, Creator and Destroyer,” she demonstrated how each time Picasso fell in love with another of his six (main) women, his calmer paintings reflected something of their natural beauty, but as soon as he fell out of love again, his rage tore that beauty to pieces in “masterpieces” of modern art. She shows how the pattern repeats itself in Picasso like clockwork!

Thus beauty in art comes from a harmony in the soul, be it a merely earthly harmony, whereas ugliness proceeds from a disharmony in the soul, as of hate. But harmony has no need of disharmony, on the contrary, whereas disharmony, as the word suggests, presupposes some harmony on which it is, essentially, making war. Thus harmony is prior to disharmony, and every disharmony testifies to some harmony. But more profoundly harmonious than any paintings of lovely women can be paintings of the Madonna, because the harmony in the soul of the artist painting the Mother of God can go far higher and deeper than the harmony inspired by any merely human model, however lovely. Why? Because the beauty of the Madonna derives from her closeness to God whose divine harmony – perfect simplicity and unity – infinitely surpasses the human harmony of the loveliest of mere creatures.

Therefore poor modern art points to the harmony it lacks, and all harmony points to God. Then let nobody resort to the ugliness of modern architecture to house the Tridentine Mass. One would guess he was wanting, or waiting, to go back to the disharmony of the Novus Ordo Mass!

Kyrie eleison.