Books for Catholic Artists and Art-lovers

Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, Art and Contemplation , [Ignatius Press ]

Based on a quotation of St. Augustine, “Only he who loves can sing,” Pieper’s underlying message, as in much of his work, is that it is only through the contemplation of God’s love and the goodness of creation allowed by “leisure” that the working man can rehabilitate himself and elevate human existence to the richness, fulfillment and happiness of life ordained by his nature. It is this contemplative leisure that is the very root of philosophy and the arts along with festivity and cultic celebration. According to Pieper, it is precisely through the arts, both visual and musical, that cultic celebration is given its greatest honor.

As one of the foremost Thomistic philosophers of our age, Pieper here delves deeply into the mysteries of poetry, music, painting and architecture in the light of our Catholic Faith. A large segment of the book is based on his observations of the work of a friend, a German sculptress, who was herself, both a devoutly religious person and inspired artist

This is a “must read” book for all Catholic artists and lovers of art.

John Saward, The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty , Art, Sanctity & Truth of Catholicism, [ Ignatius Press]

According to St. Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, God in himself is beauty, and Christ incarnate, as the “image” of the unseen Father, is the archetype of all created beauty. While the Western tradition of art has perennially linked beauty to the “true” and the “good,” it is only within our Catholic culture, based on the theology of the Incarnation, that beauty has become linked to holiness. The more the world becomes conformed to Christ the more beautiful it becomes.

By using Blessed Fra Angelico, saint and artistic genius, as his model, John Saward, in this finely crafted and well argued book makes this point eminently clear.

This book comes recommended by none other than then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now H.H. Benedict XVI.

Alain Besançon, The Forbidden Image, An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, [Chicago University Press]

In 1521 the image of Our Lady of Paris was decapitated on Pentecost Sunday by a group of Huguenots which act perpetuated over a hundred years of civil and religious strife in France. Ideas do have consequences.

Besançon’s book is not an easy read, but for those interested in the philosophy and history of “Iconoclasm,” this is an immensely rich and powerful book. While the subject may be of little interest to modern materialist man, as stated above, both iconoclasts (literally - image breakers) and the makers of images are deeply motivated and have fought each other both physically and metaphysically through the ages

In this heavily researched book, the author has presented the case from both points of view from earliest history, plumbing Greek philosophy, Biblical prohibitions, the Middle Ages, Protestant Reformers, up to modern times. He quotes such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine and Aquinas as well as the Idealists, Kant and Hegel. He even delves into the thought of such modern theorists as Kandinsky and Malevich.

This is a book that should be on the library shelf of all Catholic institutions of higher learning as well as in the home of all intellectually well informed Catholics and Art patrons.

Vasily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, [Kessenger Publishing]

I include this book not only for the reason that it is a seminal treatise on “Modern Art,” but because it has influenced not only a good many Catholic artists but highly respected Catholic philosophers as well. However, in the light of the Incarnational theology espoused in such works as Josef Pieper’s Only the Lover can Sing and John Saward’s The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty, I do not recommend this book as being helpful to the Catholic artist or art lover.

Kandinsky and his contemporary compatriot, Malevich, were fervent revolutionaries. While Marxist Leninism saw all of human endeavor in terms of dialectical materialism, the Russian avant garde painters undermined Western civilization on the spiritual level by attacking the very nature of reality. Abstract art, as explained by Kandinsky, is not, as generally taught, following the French Cubists, Braque and Picasso, a simple arrangement of lines shapes and colors in a harmonious pattern on a canvas. For him it is an attempt to attain and depict a divine gnosis. Kandinsky sets forth an artistic theory in Concerning the Spiritual in Art that follows an Oriental Theosophy based on the writings of occultist, Madame Helena Blavatsky, rather than normative Judaism or Christianity, both of which religions he openly despised.

By way of anecdote, Kandinsky had a pure black “icon” hung in his studio for inspiration. Caveat lector.

Reviews by H. Reed Armstrong