Toward noble art and popular art in theological materialism

The Traditionalist School doesn't like Renaissance art, or the ancient Greeks because they think 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.

Russell Kirk said that “decadence” can be defined as the loss of an end goal. Noble Art is basically art concerned with the goal itself, the ethical perception of Godhood, iconography, sacred objects. Noble and Popular Art are concerned with progress toward the goal, variability, evolution, common but religious objects.

Both Noble and Popular Art need to be concerned with theology because both are “heavenward leaning,” which is the old inward term for our outward material evolution toward real Godhood. The distinction is between theological and non-theological, 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 decadent higher social levels have now all but broken the links.