HOPE OF BEAUTY IN AN AGE OF UGLINESS AND DEATH, THE

Theology Today, Jul 2004 by Moore, T M

Although the sense of hearing recognizes consonances, reason weighs their value. When two strings, one of which is lower, are stretched and struck at the same time, and they produce, so to speak, an intermingled and sweet sound, and lhe two pitches coalesce into one as if linked together, then that which is called "consonance" occurs. When, on the other hand, they are struck at the same time and each desires to go its own way, and they do not bring together a sweet sound in the ear, a single sound composed of two, then this is what is called "dissonance."22

One has to make judgments about what one hears, Boethius is saying, and not simply conclude that all sounds are equal in value or "sweetness." Some sounds appeal and delight-are consonant to our hearing. Other sounds grate and offend-are dissonant. But to be able to understand and appreciate truly the sounds one hears, one needs to understand the prineiples underlying sound (waves, as he knew it), how various sounds relate to one another (according to mathematical intervals of pitch), how combinations of sounds are received by the human ear (consonance or dissonance), and so forth.

Boethius insisted that, if you want to know what is beautiful as far as music is concerned, then you have to understand the way sound works in the world as God created and sustains it. You have to hear sound the way God made it and intended it to be heard, and to discern the underlying principles of sound that, working together with other principles, constitute music. And you have to know something about the orderly working of God's providential care for creation. Only then will you be in a position to appreciate or create music that is, in our parlance, truly beautiful.

Boethius is my first example in the legacy of Christian art of how Christians have sought to penetrate the divine understanding in order to describe criteria of beauty in the arts. Though reading him can be a frustrating experience, we are grateful that he passed on to us the record of how careful observers of sound in the world God made and sustains have arrived at the fundamental principles of beauty on which all music depends.

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), the master of German Renaissance painting, provides another example from the legacy of Christian art to teach us how to think about beauty. Dürer was a prolific painter and engraver and greatly desired to pass on to subsequent generations of artists the things he had learned about making art that is truly beautiful. He wrote weighty treatises on art, consisting of careful observations of such things as the proportions of the human body and advice on how best to draw certain objects or compose certain scenes.

Dürer believed that, to be a good artist, one must be a careful observer of the world as God made it. In a fragment on painting he wrote: "I have heard how the Seven Sages of Greece taught a man that measure is in all things, physical and moral, the best. It was moreover so highly regarded by the Most High that he made all created things in number, weight, and measure. Doubtless those arts and methods which approximate to Measurement are regarded as noblest and most honourable . . . ."23 By "Measurement," Dürer means the patterns of proportion that exist as God created them and that guide us as we work in the arts. The best art conforms most perfectly to the ideal measurement God has built into creation. Dürer therefore warned against a purely subjective notion of artistic beauty: "Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone."24 He believed that anyone who wants to be a good artist must study both the book of nature (the created world) and the book of Scripture. He was a devoted student of the Bible and, although he never came into the Lutheran camp, an ardent reader of the works of the German reformer. He was also a careful observer of everything around him, as his many letters and drawings reveal. He counseled artists to stay close to nature in their work, for in so doing they were most likely to produce art reflecting what is pleasing to God: "Depart not from Nature in thy opinions, neither imagine thyself to invent aught better . . . for Art standeth firmly fixed in Nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence, he only possesseth her."25 He concluded from his own prodigious work in studying the created world that such things as harmony, a proper blending of colors, right proportion and true measurement, and faithful representation of things as God created them are the surest ways to attain beauty in the arts. It is no wonder, therefore, that Dürer's best work stands as a bridge between the images of the Renaissance, with their exaggerated bulk and muscularity, and the more realistic compositions of the baroque period. Here are a few of his comments: