The Traditionalist School doesn't like Renaissance art, or the ancient Greeks because they think here art shifted from the inner presence to the outer presence (see Ananda Coomaraswamy), or from the future to the present, from spiritual to material, from Godly man to animal man. But we say this was a necessary shift, however, it shifted too far, too radically away from the Involutionary Inward Path to the point of rejecting spiritual man and religious art entirely in the modern world. Russell Kirk said that decadence can be defined as the loss of an end goal.
Noble Art is basically the art of the Involutionary Inward Path, concerned with the Goal Itself, the ethical perception of God, iconography, sacred objects. Popular Art is the art of the Evolutionary Outward Path, concerned with progress toward the Goal, variability, common but religious objects. The Evolutionary Outward Path of evolution to God needs to supplement not supplant the Involutionary Inward Path of Tradition which seeks the God within.
Both Noble and Popular Art are concerned with theology, both are “heavenward leaning.” The distinction is between theological and nontheological, not between cultured or primitive art. There may only be a difference in the degree of refinement. As it turns out the so-called ignorant masses may be the only ones to preserve traditions, sometimes without even understanding them, as the higher social levels have all but broken the links.
Noble Art is basically the art of the Involutionary Inward Path, concerned with the Goal Itself, the ethical perception of God, iconography, sacred objects. Popular Art is the art of the Evolutionary Outward Path, concerned with progress toward the Goal, variability, common but religious objects. The Evolutionary Outward Path of evolution to God needs to supplement not supplant the Involutionary Inward Path of Tradition which seeks the God within.
Both Noble and Popular Art are concerned with theology, both are “heavenward leaning.” The distinction is between theological and nontheological, not between cultured or primitive art. There may only be a difference in the degree of refinement. As it turns out the so-called ignorant masses may be the only ones to preserve traditions, sometimes without even understanding them, as the higher social levels have all but broken the links.
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