Traditional spirituality
limits itself to the Inward Path and to pursuing and affirming
perfect “nonmaterial” truth. The Inward Path of theological
materialism and the projected Theoevolutionary Church is contemplative,
the OutwardPath is active, and both can be inclined to sacred art, just as
they can both be included in religion.
If one does not wish to copy nature but to “repeat” nature in its creative mode, as suggested by Frithjof Schuon in traditional Art, then one will reflect material evolution, contrary to Schuon who prefers Islamic art. As Schuon put it, the sacred art of Perennial Spirituality “distrusts any materialization of religious subjects as if in fear that spiritual realities might become exhausted through an excess of sensory crystallization.”
But we can bring back a center, a goal, a sacred material evolutionary goal to art, rather than trying to define God only as universal spiritual truth, as is done in nonrepresentational Perennial spirituality.
With material or supermaterial living objects having once again taken their place in Godhood, Greek Art, which is too beautifully human to Schuon, can be exhumed and advanced once again. Perfect Beauty can be reflected or symbolized in perfect human beauty. And since art contains evolution in theological materialism, evolutionary beauty can also be explored. We need to even imagine beauty well beyond human beauty as Godhood.
Godhood does not resemble man or even superman---and traditional sacred art has been well aware of this. Schuon accuses Greek Art of no longer resembling God, but God resembling man. Traditionalist's more or less reject Greek-Roman art as a deviation from Sacred Religious Art, but theological materialism can affirm Greek-Roman art as an evolutionary art, pointing the way upward by symbolizing the evolution of man to Godhood through material Beauty as well as through Truth.
If one does not wish to copy nature but to “repeat” nature in its creative mode, as suggested by Frithjof Schuon in traditional Art, then one will reflect material evolution, contrary to Schuon who prefers Islamic art. As Schuon put it, the sacred art of Perennial Spirituality “distrusts any materialization of religious subjects as if in fear that spiritual realities might become exhausted through an excess of sensory crystallization.”
But we can bring back a center, a goal, a sacred material evolutionary goal to art, rather than trying to define God only as universal spiritual truth, as is done in nonrepresentational Perennial spirituality.
With material or supermaterial living objects having once again taken their place in Godhood, Greek Art, which is too beautifully human to Schuon, can be exhumed and advanced once again. Perfect Beauty can be reflected or symbolized in perfect human beauty. And since art contains evolution in theological materialism, evolutionary beauty can also be explored. We need to even imagine beauty well beyond human beauty as Godhood.
Godhood does not resemble man or even superman---and traditional sacred art has been well aware of this. Schuon accuses Greek Art of no longer resembling God, but God resembling man. Traditionalist's more or less reject Greek-Roman art as a deviation from Sacred Religious Art, but theological materialism can affirm Greek-Roman art as an evolutionary art, pointing the way upward by symbolizing the evolution of man to Godhood through material Beauty as well as through Truth.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment