'Bad art is art that does not invite us to question our perceptions or emotions, that imposes an intrusive artistic presence, that obscures both the original occasion of encounter, the original object in the world, and its own concrete life, by drawing attention to its message and willed meaning.'
This is Rowan William on the subject of art and artists in his Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love. A short book and in places obscure, I've been mulling it for some days, even in my pre-alarm morning dream state.
What if I think of you, God-in-love, as artist, and all this (here I swing my arms to take in the city, the planet, the universe, and the past and future) as a work of art? It's not 'bad' as defined above.
Williams writes: 'Imagination produces not a self-contained mental construct but a vision that escapes control, that brings with it its shadows, and its margin, its absences and ellipses, a dimensional existence as we might call it.' To me, this speak to what seems to me to be the open-endedness of things.
'Given integrity of vision and purpose, consonance of component parts, and 'splendour', the active attracting summons to the viewing mine, beauty is what occurs.' Beauty.
'The combination of that integrity, consonance and radiance is the work of love...the self-forgetting and urgent desire that there be real life in the product, some sort of independence from will and sentiment.' Love.
And again, 'Art aims at the good of the thing made.' And the result of this focus: works of art are 'more than they are and give more than they have.'
'Art challenges the finality of appearance here and now, the actual 'conditions of existence,' not to destroy but to ground, amplify, fulfil. It aims at "transcendental realism."'
'The maker's obedience is to the integrity of the thing made, to the unfolding logic in the process of making as the work discloses itself.' Here Williams is echoing Maritain as he Aquinas. 'The artist struggles to let the logic of what is there display itself in the particular concrete matter being worked on.'
All this speaks to me of your relationship with this world and your Beloved.
Williams sees the creativity of the human artist echoing yours.
'The human mind's distinctiveness seems to lie in its responsibility for drawing out what is not yet seen or heard in the material environment--but not solely in exploiting it for use but in facilitating its constant movement from one material form to another, its generative capacity.'
And more: '...human beings are those creatures who uniquely have the capacity and responsibility to uncover for one another the nature of the world in which sameness and otherness constantly flow into each other, and in which there is no final reading of a 'surface,' whether the literal surface of a sheet of paper or the surface, the first perception, of a narrative, a song, an action.'
'No final reading...' so encountering that continually continues.
My mind is muzzy at the moment but, just having finished the book, I've got a lot to think about.
This is Rowan William on the subject of art and artists in his Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love. A short book and in places obscure, I've been mulling it for some days, even in my pre-alarm morning dream state.
What if I think of you, God-in-love, as artist, and all this (here I swing my arms to take in the city, the planet, the universe, and the past and future) as a work of art? It's not 'bad' as defined above.
Williams writes: 'Imagination produces not a self-contained mental construct but a vision that escapes control, that brings with it its shadows, and its margin, its absences and ellipses, a dimensional existence as we might call it.' To me, this speak to what seems to me to be the open-endedness of things.
'Given integrity of vision and purpose, consonance of component parts, and 'splendour', the active attracting summons to the viewing mine, beauty is what occurs.' Beauty.
'The combination of that integrity, consonance and radiance is the work of love...the self-forgetting and urgent desire that there be real life in the product, some sort of independence from will and sentiment.' Love.
And again, 'Art aims at the good of the thing made.' And the result of this focus: works of art are 'more than they are and give more than they have.'
'Art challenges the finality of appearance here and now, the actual 'conditions of existence,' not to destroy but to ground, amplify, fulfil. It aims at "transcendental realism."'
'The maker's obedience is to the integrity of the thing made, to the unfolding logic in the process of making as the work discloses itself.' Here Williams is echoing Maritain as he Aquinas. 'The artist struggles to let the logic of what is there display itself in the particular concrete matter being worked on.'
All this speaks to me of your relationship with this world and your Beloved.
Williams sees the creativity of the human artist echoing yours.
'The human mind's distinctiveness seems to lie in its responsibility for drawing out what is not yet seen or heard in the material environment--but not solely in exploiting it for use but in facilitating its constant movement from one material form to another, its generative capacity.'
And more: '...human beings are those creatures who uniquely have the capacity and responsibility to uncover for one another the nature of the world in which sameness and otherness constantly flow into each other, and in which there is no final reading of a 'surface,' whether the literal surface of a sheet of paper or the surface, the first perception, of a narrative, a song, an action.'
'No final reading...' so encountering that continually continues.
My mind is muzzy at the moment but, just having finished the book, I've got a lot to think about.
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