Jan 23, 2020
It’s within the nature of Being to disclose itself to us, and within the
pure realm that is achieved preeminently by magnificence.
Aquinas mentions radiance, readability and proportion as magnificence’s
three standards. Proportion is arguably crucial in
exhibiting forth Being, as magnificence reveals the plenitude of relations
amongst all issues: the relation of the elements of a factor, of the
elements to the entire which surpasses them, of the entire object to all
different issues, and to its Maker.
That is half two of a three-part interview with poet and
thinker James Matthew Wilson about his e book The Imaginative and prescient
of the Soul.
[3:10] The nihilistic disenchanting power of rationalism and its
infiltration of Catholic thought
[10:47] Magnificence as a transcendental property of Being, and the
“synthesis of all of the transcendentals”
[18:50] Theodor Adorno on cause and wonder
[22:53] Aquinas’s tripartite formulation of magnificence (radiance,
readability, proportion) illuminates the older definition of magnificence as
the splendor of type; an argument for proportion as most
essential
[30:13] The pitfalls of Maritain’s deal with radiance and readability
over proportion
[35:31] The modernist experiment to seek out out the diploma to which
magnificence might eschew a nice floor and nonetheless stay
lovely
[40:29] Modernism as a motion for metaphysical realism in
artwork
Hyperlinks
James Matthew Wilson: https://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/
JMW Twitter: https://twitter.com/JMWSPT
The Imaginative and prescient of the Soul:
https://www.amazon.com/Imaginative and prescient-Soul
Goodness-Western-Custom/dp/0813229286
Just a few of the artworks talked about by James:
The Dying Gaul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul
Seamus Heaney’s poem impressed by The Dying Gaul https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57044/the-grauballe-man
Laocoön and His Sons https://mymodernmet.com/laocoon-and-his-sons-statue/
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