Symbols in Painting
“The second fabling-talk [parlare], which corresponds to the Age of Heroes, the Egyptians indicated to have been fabled [parlato] through symbols; to which are to be retraced…
Classical Modernity
Sometimes one hears the critique that classical music is no longer compatible with modernity. What “modernity” is supposed to mean always remains in darkness, as if the…
The Myth of Progress in the Arts
In the last century, very often the concept of “progress” was projected upon the arts as a measurement of quality: “good art” was “progressive art.” If an…
Caravaggio’s Light and the Essence of Christianity
Whence comes light in the paintings of Caravaggio? What is the nature of this light? What does it illuminate and why does it do so? Let us…
Paleolithic Politics: The Human Community in Early Art
Paleolithic Politics: The Human Community in Early Art. Barry Cooper. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020. Voegelin’s argued that ancient civilizations, like the Babylonians…
Aesthetic Knowledge
Aesthetic subjectivism, or “relativism,” is the view that beauty is solely in the eye of the beholder. The term “relativism” is sometimes used to indicate that beauty…
The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers
The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers. Alison Gerber. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017. In The Work of Art, Gerber shows how the “occupation turn”…
Roger Caillois is a Better Guide to the Sacred Foundations of the West than Giorgio Agamben
The mystery of the liturgy coincides totally with the mystery of operativity - Giorgio Agamben In my opinion, Giorgio Agamben is the most important contemporary European…
Reflections on Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” Relevant to Our Time
Tolstoy’s polemical tract What is Art? took him more than fifteen years to write and contains his mature reflections on the place of art and science in…
Apocalypse in Germany Between the World Wars (Part II)
Redemption Through Art “There are two possibilities: to comment on events with words, and to make events through words.” With this phrase, Kurt Hiller characterized in 1916…
Apocalypse in Germany Between the World Wars (Part I)
Apocalyptic Expressionism in the 1920s During the 1920s Johannes R. Becher and many other expressionists attempted to give shape to the new man by modeling him after…
The Spiritual in Poetry and Art
A More Beautiful Question: The Spiritual in Poetry and Art. Glenn Hughes. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011. Concerned with how art, and especially poetry,…
Approaches to Voegelinian Literary Analysis
Voegelinian Readings of Modern Literature. Charles R. Embry, ed. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011. The work of Eric Voegelin encompasses not only the disciplines…
Cultural Transparence: Meaning in a Postmodern Age
Cultural Transparence The intense but narrow beam of liberal political principles cannot constitute the meaning of a civilization. There are simply too many questions left unaddressed. Despite…
