The Aesthetics Of St Augustine 1s1p28

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The Aesthetics of St. Augustine: Whereas Plato and Aristotle approach the arts from a metaphysical starting point with its implications on the community in mind (both vertical and horizontal), Augustine’s starting point is Scripture (vertical). For Augustine, he considers the arts in relation to the church (horizontal).

Aesthetics & church in Historical Context: Appreciation for aesthetic activities (worship) but not for the arts themselves an expression of the arts. Why? Impact of Plato (Book X of The Republic) Artistic activity is concerned with the sensible realm. The sensible realm can distract us from focusing on God.

The arts were historically linked and seen in relation to the cultures and mythos of Greece and Rome. Tertullian (3rd century), for example, rejected studies that were profane. He characterized literature as “foolishness in the eyes of God.”

But other, like Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Basil the Great believed that an appreciation of the arts may have a positive use in education.

The Arts in Christian Context. Visual arts represented gods and emperors. Thus, they were objects of idolatry, even demanded by Rome to worship such images. Those who did not worship them, were, at times, executed for treason or martyred. But by the sixth century, Gregory defended the arts as necessary tools of instruction for people. Why? Most people were illiterate. Thus, the arts may be used to lead people to God.

Under Constantine V, a synod (Constantinople in 754) condemned visual representations of Jesus Christ. But at Council at Nicaea in 787, under Constantine VI, reversed the condemnation, declaring “honorable reverence” of the visual arts in relation to the religious depictions, cross, and the Gospels. Thus, the arts became a pivotal part of the Middle Ages, especially seen today with the phenomenal Cathedrals found across Europe.

From Confessions: “Do we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is beautiful? And what is beauty? What is it that allures and unites us to the things we love; for unless there were a grace and beauty in them, they could by no means attract us to them? And I marked and perceived that in bodies themselves there was a beauty from their forming a kind of whole, and another from mutual fitness, as one part of the body with its whole, or a shoe with a foot, and so on.” ~ Confessions IV, xiii.

1. Distinction between that which is beautiful in itself and that which is beautiful in virtue of being applied to something else. a. A complex may beautiful in that it is a kind of a whole, and beauty is a property of the whole. b. Part (e.g., a particular color or a sound) which its not beautiful by itself may be called beautiful when it is part of a complex whole.

From City of God: “the beauty of the course of the world is achieved by the opposition of contraries arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things” City of God, XI, xviii.

Neo-Platonic Worldview: Augustine assumes a Neo-Platonic worldview. He contends:

1. Unity is the form of all beauty 2. Infinite goodness, truth, and beauty are attributes of God. 3. Platonic Themes: conception of beauty, vision of God, the need for divine illumination, emphasis on the soul, purification of the mind as a requirement for understanding truth, View of evil as corruption, conception of time and eternity, & desire for spiritual and intellectual.

Differences: Differences with Plotinus: 1. Embraces Tenets of Orthodox Christianity a. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ b. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ c. The Promise of Redemption from Sin through Grace d. Conception of the Trinity e. Communion with God through Jesus Christ. f. Depravity of humanity g. God is personal, not impersonal. h. Soul is created, not eternal. i. Encounters with God is not rare when one knows Christ. j. Knowing Christ is the rest and permanence for which Augustine longed.

Augustine: 1. What is the purpose of art? 2. What is the function of art? 3. How are to understand artistic creativity? 4. How do we evaluate art? -------------------------------------------

5. What do the Scripture teach us about the arts? 6. What is the relationship between God, the Creator, we, the objects of His affections?

7. What is the mission of the church and how can the arts assist us to that end?

Key Themes: 1. Clear distinction in creation of objects:

Creation of God (ex nihilo):

Creation of Man (ex materia)

Theme # 2: God: Hierarchy of Beauty: Beauty is expressed in the possession of Form: Instead of mimesis (imitation), God’s creation reflects Himself for God’s beauty emanates in the things He has made from Him to His creation in degrees. God possesses perfect Form. He is perfectly beautiful. Objects possess more form and less void. Earth is lowest form of beauty. Where there is no form, there is no beauty.

Hierarchical Ascent unto God: Words of Scripture we find statements about God. Understanding involves transcending the mere image (not look at literal sense alone). Scripture is the most direct knowledge of divine purpose.

Better guide: Objects which do not require use of sight (least participation in the sensible). Thus, music is a higher art than painting.

Nature and Art

Contributions: The use of the arts contributes to our understanding of God and His ways. The arts have justification when it coheres with the truths of the Christian faith and reflects God’s creative power. It is debated whether Augustine contends that “sensible beauty” is worthy of appreciation, values, reflection, and study. I conclude that he does value the arts because it points people to God in both creating and receiving.

Key Theme # 2: Properties of Beauty: 1. Rhythm: In Augustine’s De Musica, we discover that he believes that rhythm is sourced in God for it is eternal and immutable. How? Augustine likens rhythm to mathematics. Proof: Rhythm is discovered, not created. 2. Unity. a. Everything exists as a whole. Thus, each object has unity. An object cannot have the potential to beautiful, unless it exists. If has existence, then, it will be a unified whole. Therefore, unity is a necessary elements of beauty. b. The more unified, the more beautiful it will be.

Consider: “If I ask a workman, why, after constructing one arch, he builds another like it over against it, he will reply, I dare say, that in a building like parts must correspond to like. If I go further and ask why he thinks so, he will say that it is fitting, or beautiful, or that it gives pleasure to those who behold it. But he will venture no further… But if I have to do with a mean with inward eyes who can see the invisible, I shall not cease to press the query why these things give pleasure… He transcends it and escapes from its control in judging pleasure and not according to pleasure. First I shall ask him whether things are beautiful because they give pleasure, or give pleasure because they are beautiful. Then I shall ask him why they are beautiful, and if he is perplexed, I shall add the question whether it is because its part correspond and are so ed together as to form one harmonious whole [De Vera Religione xxxii, 59].

Key Theme # 2: Properties of Beauty: 3. Equality or likeness. a.

“The existence of individual things as units, the possibility of repeating them and comparing groups of them with respect to equality or inequality, gives rise to proportion, measure, and number” (Beardsley, 94).

4. Number, which is the base of rhythm, begins from unity (De Musica, xvii. 56). a. Number measures rhythm. b. Since rhythm is based on number (which is immutable), then it follows that rhythm is immutable.

Number: fundamental to both to being & beauty: “Suppose there is no actual work in hand and no intention to make anything, but the motions of the limbs are done for pleasure, that there will be dancing. Ask what delights you in dancing and number will reply: ‘Lo, here am I.’ Examine the beauty in bodily form, and you will find that everything is in its place by number. Examine the beauty of bodily motion and you will find everything in its due time by number…” [De Libero Arbitrio II, xvi, 42].

Consider… The term ‘number’ (numerus) has several meanings for Augustine: 1) mathematical proportion; 2) rhythmic organization; 3) fittingness of parts (in both the elements of an object and the faculties of the human soul); 4) the Divine, i.e., the plenitude, unity, law, and beauty of God. Further, the nature of number is apprehended by man through an experience at first physical (felt number or rhythm), then intellectual (the number of thought and memory), and finally innate number (the judgment of the soul by means of a harmony bestowed upon it by God). Augustine’s clearest statement of this metaphysics of Beauty is to be found in De Musica” ~ Philosophies of Art & Beauty, by Hofstadter & Kuhns, pg. 172-3.

Key Theme # 2: Properties of Beauty: 5. Symmetry: “in all the arts it is symmetry [or proportion] that gives pleasure, preserving unity and making the whole beautiful” (Of True Religion, xxx. 55). 6. Order: “Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place” (City of God, XIX, xiii). Thus, the more order (proper place), the more beautiful they are.

Key Theme # 3: Art is not imitation because animals imitate; they do not have not art (De Musica I, iv, 5-7).

Bibliography: Aesthetics: From Classical Greece to the Present by Monroe C. Beardsley.

Philosophies of Art & Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger, edited by Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns “Medieval Theories of Aesthetics” by Michael Spicher In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (December 11, 2010).

Perspective in Aesthetics: Plato to Camus, edited by Peyton E. Richter