The Radiance of Form

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The Cube, the Sphere and the Theology ofArchitectureThe last two post I talked about the shape of the circle and its relationship to divinity andperfection. I spoke about how the completeness and simplicity of the form made almost allcultures revere the form as divine. This universality of understanding leads us to believe thatthere is something both in the nature of the form, and in the nature of man's mind that leads usto say this. No god ever declared it to be so, but the minds of men simply know that it is so. Something known naturally is also known then universally by all mankind, and so has symbolicmeaning to all people. So we can say this is known to be divine naturally.

These natural symbols then have power beyond any extrinsic character we put upon them,and thus are very powerful, and so they must be used very carefully. We saw that the churchin the round misuses this symbolism as it places the altar in the same space as the people,symbolizing the perfection of all that is present, so minimizing the teaching of a journeytowards the perfection of heaven.

But moving on I want to speak about symbols of divinity that are not purely products of naturalreason, but rather those that are given by revelation. In the interest of staying with the themeof basic geometric forms, I’d like to talk now in particular about the form of the cube.

The cube is a revealed form, as it isgiven specifically by God to Mosesin outlining the dimensions of theTabernacle where the Aaronicpriesthood would worship God. Godwould be actually present to theJews seated atop the Ark of theCovenant, in the Holy of Holieswhich took the form of a perfectcube. The symbol of the cubecontinues throughout the OldTestament to be used for thepermanent Temple of Solomon,where too the Ark and God were

truly present. In the Book of Revelation would it reappear, when St. John saw the NewJerusalem, built of gold in the form of a perfect cube.

The connection between this Old Testament revelation and the vision of paradise to come isoutlined well by Dr. Denis McNamara in his book Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy. Heexplains that the Tabernacle and temple are a shadow of that divine reality of the NewJerusalem, giving a hint at the reality but not showing it in full.

We live now however in a time of image where because of God coming to Earth in the personof Christ, the divine presence is here, in reality, but not in fullness. But we as Christians in thattime between shadow and reality, though we have God truly present as both in the Temple andin Heaven, we have no divinely instituted form to give symbolism to this reality. What we mustdo then is make use of both natural and divine reasons to come up with a solution. This is ofcourse the same thing as what theology is, which as a philosophical discipline takes onepremise from natural reason, and anotehr from revelation.

From the very beginning then the church embraced the divine form of the cube found in

The perfect cube instituted by Godfor the Holy of Holies.

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Erik Bootsma

Board member,National Civic ArtSociety; Architectworking inRichmond, VAGraduated NotreDame School ofArchitecture, 2008Graduated ThomasAquinas College,Bachelor of Arts,Liberal Arts in theGreat Books, 2001.

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Temple and the Synogogue (as PopeBenedict XVI explained), and carried themforward by use of natural reason to makethem suitable for use by the ChristianChurch.

Now the form of the cube, while divinelyinstituted, is also a form which can be seenas perfect by natural reason as well. Thepagan Greek mathematicians Euclid andPythagoras saw it as one of the “perfect”solids, where divinity could be

comprehended. The form is knownas divine both through reason andrevelation. To the early Christians,then were working theologically, andas theology is subject todevelopment, they quickly meldedthis to another sacred form, theaforementioned circle and it'sdevelopment, the sphere.

Now the Romans used this divine

form in the Pantheon, a perfectsphere defining the space wherethe entire cosmos of the pagangods were to be worshipped. Theapse of course was a common formused by the Romans where the seatof authority would sit in judgement,but the form of it is a combination ofthe cube and the sphere. Meldingthese three symbols, both of thecosmic sphere, cube of the Holy ofHolies, and bringing along with it theRoman authority, the Christianswere able to turn this form into atruly uniquely Christian sacredspace.

Tradition, like theology, does not abandon truths known in the past as obsolete, only developsand perfects them, so when we create architectural forms for Christian worship, we shouldkeep this in mind. In rejecting the form of the temple and the apse, we do so by also rejectingthe theological understandings about that space, and the ability to symbolize those truths.

The divinity of the circle isknown to even the pagans.

The perfect sphere of the interior of the Pantheon in Rome

The apse of the original cathedral of Venice,S. Maria Assunta, Torcello

Recommend this on Google

Monday, January 25, 2016

Problems with the Church in the Round:#2 "Perfection"Last week I wrote about the problems with the "church in the round", in particular how thelocation of the celebrant at the center causes a de-emphasis of the importance of the altar asauthority over the congregation. In this post I'd like further at the symbolism of the church inthe round and how it relates to the eschatology of the Church.

The form of the circle symbolically is one of gathering and binding together. All points of the


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circle are equally distant from the center point of the circle,being "held together" by that point. The only direction thatcan be seen in circle has is either inwards or outwards.One cannot really talk about a top or bottom, or front orback or a circular form, at least without reference tosomething outside the circle itself. Also since it has no realsides like any polygon, one can think of the circle as havingan "infinite" number of sides. The circle symbolically thenhas the nature of completeness and "perfection" as well asinfinity. Thus we can see why throughout almost all ofhuman history, the circle is symbolic of divinity. Indeed in

Christianity we see an ancient symbol of the trinity, of three intersecting circles is deep withthat same meaning.

But this nature of completeness and perfection of the circle is deeply problematic in the designof a Catholic church. The reason for this revolves around the idea of eschatology. Eschatology,as Dr. Denis McNamara explains in his excellent series on the Catholic Architecture, is theteaching about the eschaton, or simply about the end of the world. Christianity, in contrast tothe ancient pagan religions, proposed that not only did Christ come to earth to die for our sins,but also that he will come again at the end of times, and that there will be an end of time. TheChurch has always looked forward to the Second Coming, and thus has always taught that thepeople of God are marching toward that end, where the work of Salvation will finally becompleted. The Church, through the liturgy of the Mass, teaches about the perfection ofHeaven and the world to come, but also gives us a "foretaste" of Paradise. When we receivethe Eucharist in Mass, we receive Christ truly and thus partake in his perfection in Heaven, butwe still remain in this world, fallen as it is, so it is we still are left wanting more.

But when the circular form is used in a church, the symbolism of the circle conflicts with thisteaching. The circle as said before, has a notion of completeness, of perfection and infinity. Welose the sense that there is something lacking, which we are heading towards, namely theperfection ofHeaven.

When you consider the ancient pagans atStonehenge, you can see this in act, therethey saw that seasons changed, but alwayscame back to the same place, a perfectworld, symbolized by the circle of stones.

So when we have a church in the round,symbolically it communicates that thischurch where we stand, is complete andperfect just how it is. Coming to church,being in communion with the people we see

"face to face" is all that we need, and there's nothing beyond.

When you couple this with a de-emphasis on the authority and importance of the altar, as wesaw in the last post, that notion of community alone becomes even more overwhelming. Webegin to lose the sense of being on the pilgrim's path toward salvation, and begin to think thatjust seeing friends and simply "being nice" to them is all that there is to the Church.


Monday, January 18, 2016

Problems with the Church in the Round:#1 OrientationThe church in the "round" is a particular form of church architecture that has been all the ragefor the past 50 years since the end of the Second Vatican Council. The form of the church puts


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the altar of sacrifice, admittedly thefocus of Catholic worship in theMass, at the direct center of thechurch.

Whether it be a new purpose-builtchurch or a church which has beenrenovated since then, the seatingaround the altar is intended by theliturgical designers and architects tofoster "a sense of community" andto emphasize the "sacred meal"

aspect of the Mass. I'd like to take a few posts here to take a look at what sort of ideas andsymbols are communicated by this form of church and what sort of philosophical andtheological problems arise from those ideas.

The first problem of the "church in the round" is a problem of orientation and emphasis. Thechurch in the round sets the altar of the church directly in the center of the church. Theliturgical designers note that being circular, the seats are all arranged closer to the altar,allowing for ease of visibility. Oftentimes the church floor is sloped downward to the altar, muchlike in a theater, making the altar easier to see. Aspects of community too then would beemphasized, as everyone could see the face of their fellow parishioners and literally gather"around the altar."

The liturgical designers of this sort of church note that the Council asked for the altar to be"truly central" (p. 91), meaning that it be the symbolic focus of worship. Therefore, what couldbe more symbolic of an altar being central to attention than it being literally central as well! The configuration then was a "win-win" situation, as it both got you community and gathering,but also kept the focus on the altar and the sacrifice of the Mass.

However, this latter aspect, the idea that Christ himself is offered on the altar, that God ispresent in the church, over time seems to have been steadily eroded. A recent paean to aparish renovation in what we might well assume to be a church in the round, in NationalCatholic Reporter was illustrative. While the author talked glowingly about how often she"looked for" her friends and various people, not once did she mention that she looked for Godin the church. The purpose of this author's church seemed to be more on socializing than theworship of God in the Mass.

Why then is this sense of sacredness and presence of God so lacking? There are of coursemany reasons, but one striking one philosophically is of orientation, or rather the lack oforientation. Despite the claims of the liturgical experts that the church in the round wouldincrease the importance of the altar, the arrangement in fact actually almost nullifies theimportance of the altar. The reasons for this are apparent when we look at the form ofbuildings, and how architecture is derived from our own human form.

As human beings we of course have the ability to communicate, and most universally throughspeech. Our speech of course comes through our mouths, and because we only have onemouth, the sound tends to emanate from only one side of our head. Logically then if you wantto hear a person speaking, you stand in front of them and face toward their face. This then iseven more important when someone of authority is speaking. Everyone who gathers to hearthem stands not around them but in front of them, oriented facing toward them.

As societies developed throughout history, the places where authority resided, mostly kingsand other lawgivers, would be built so that the speaker would stand or sit at one end of a largespace, and the audience facing toward him. The shape of the architecture then is determinedin a very real way by human nature. This is so attuned to our universal human nature thatalmost every single example of the architecture of authority is made this way, no matter whattime or place the building was made.

In the Old Testament God instituted both the form of the Tabernacle in the desert, and theTemple in Jerusalem and the Israelites would have recognized that a universal form, where thethe rational place for authority, was placed at one end of the space, facing the gathered. Soeven more so for the highest possible authority, the One true God, would the form beappropriate and good.

So when the Christians gathered to worship, the location of God, in the aspect of the Eucharist

The church in the round.


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would be just the same sort ofplace, in one of highest authority. The Christians then adopted theRoman Basilica was just asnaturally as a duck to water. It is nocoincidence that the apse of thelawgiver is located analogously towhere the Holy of Holies sits in theTemple. The form is nearly identicalbecause the nature of the use isidentical. Placing authority at theend of a space, in order to be seen

and more importantly heard.

Now the problem of the church in the round and the presence of the sacred and of Godbecomes apparent. When the altar is set below and amidst everyone, the authority islessened, if not negated entirely. According to our natures, we look to authority to be placedfacing us, to be situated even a few steps above us. What would we think of a judge seatednot in the usual raised box bench, but seated at floor level at the center of the court? Theauthority he holds would be lessened, as we could look down on him, or be in a position to noteven hear him. So too for a President being sworn in, or delivering a State of the Unionaddress, or even a teacher in front of a lecture hall.

So in church in the round the altar, the priest and the sacrifice of the Mass itself lose the trueposition of authority, and cannot compete with the overbearing symbolism of the community,the meal and the social gathering or even the rock show. Each "participant" in the Mass thentoo sits at a position of equal authority, equal even to God.

Now, one could argue the in the usus antiquior form of the Roman Rite, the priest faces awayfrom the congregation. However this only emphasizes the point further, as God is theauthority, the priest faces not the people, but toward to the cross and the tabernacle.

Then when our NCR author says looking across to the members of the community: "I look forDavid and his twins. For Marge and her daughter. For Will. For Barbie. For Jerry, due backfrom India. I look for Rita. If Bob is with her, I know he is having a good day", we know she'snot thinking about God, and certainly she's not praying, but instead she's thinking about herfriends. This is not because she's a bad Catholic, but it is because the proper object of herattention in Mass, God and the Eucharist, has been removed from the one place where it'slocation would naturally command that attention and allow her to pray and see God face toface.


Monday, July 7, 2014

Four Questions: Q1: What is architecture?I subscribe to an email list that talks about traditional and classical architecture, often the talkof the philosophy of architecture, and the philosophy of aesthetics is a topic. A contributor whoI respect posted recently a series of questions to the list, trying to ascertain if people had anysort of common principles from which we were approaching the subject of classicalarchitecture.

1. What is architecture2. What is classical and why?3. How is classical different from traditional?4. What are the orders?

In the next series of posts, I will try to give a brief, but more in depth answer to these questionsthan I was able to give in the midst of our online discussion. I will try to answer each in onepost, but some may require further elucidation.


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What is architecture?

Architecture is commonly thought ofas simply the profession which isconcerned with the designing ofbuildings. The architect draws up adesign on paper, or more commonlythese days, a computer, and handsoff his vision to a builder. Mostsimply he's the person whounderstands everything necessaryto build a building which the clientneeds. The architect takes inconsideration the place of thebuilding, the building laws, thenecessary activities taking place inthe building and the technologynecessary to keep the building dry and comfortable for its occupants. An architect also mighttake into consideration a number of other factors, such as the environmental impact of hisbuilding, and so work to reduce its power consumption or even prefer some materials overothers that the production of which causes deleterious effects in his city or country.

Now for most people these simple utilitarian ends are more than sufficient for them to feel thatan architect has done his job. Were an architect to be simply a technician, then this definitionwould be sufficient, indeed the word itself implies this. Coming from the Greek, arche, meaningmaster or highest, combined with tekton, builder; the architect is simply the orchestrator oftechnical skills to build something. But today architects who are in the highest demand aroundthe world are not desired for simply their technical knowhow, but because they build structureswhich in themselves we consider a work of art.

What makes architecture into an art, a "fine" art that is, is when it goes beyond simply theutilitarian needs of a building and becomes something in which we find pleasure or delight.That delight is there not simply because the building is put together well, but because thebuilding has something more to add which all people are able to see, a layer of meaning, or ifyou will, poetry.

The addition of poetry to the practice of building is what makes architecture into an art, andindeed what makes a building truly architecture. All other considerations can make a perfectlyacceptable building, but one that is not architecture. Of course just like there are many poetsand many styles of poetry, there are many different means of which an architect uses to addpoetic meaning to a building and transform it into architecture. Order and disorder, materialsand arrangement, ornament and decoration, all are tools in the architects palette as an artist. Ibelieve in answering the next three questions we will see what poetic devices are best for anarchitect to transform simple building into architecture.

The Parthenon


Friday, February 8, 2013

The Anti-Culture of ModernismIn my previous few posts last year, I wrote about the relationship of folk art and classical highart to culture. I wrote that folk art, as an expression of culture, aims towards a particularexpression of a particular culture's self awareness, or "what it means to be" such and such aculture. High art, or academic art or classical art, is an attempt not to express "what it meansto be" English or Italian or American, but what it means to be human as a universal idea. Thisclassical high art is concerned with the most fundamental principles: order, reason, andbeauty. This spectrum then, between the particular of folk art, and the universal of high artserved to describe well what art was for nearly all of human history.


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Now this all changed, as I relatedbefore, with the rise of "kitsch". The rise of industry, advertising andmass marketing of art which arosein the 19th and 20th Centuriescreated a new category of art, themass marketed art of kitsch. Kitschis characterized by the divorce of artfrom any of its cultural roots,meaning that no painting, nobuilding or no song which isproduced by kitsch has a realrelation to culture, but only a"simulacrum" of culture to appeal toits market.

This is the state of art that the artists of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries foundthemselves. They saw that the rise of industrialism and the market was making kitsch thedominant form of art, which was threatening to kill culture and art. So to rescue art, a new artwas needed; and this new art would be the avante-garde of modernism. Modernism would bethe true art which could express man's deep longing to know "what it means to be." So withone swift stroke, Modernism, would both simultaneously sweep away all the meaninglessdetritus of kitsch as well as create a new meaningful, authentic and universal art.

To the modernists, all culture hadbeen irredeemably lost with the risingtide of kitsch. Folk art was lost to themasses and had been entirelyreplaced by mass-marketed art ofevery form. Think how true this istoday, as most people know not asingle folk tune passed down fromtheir ancestors, while the infectiousinsipid "Call me maybe" isever-present. Not only has folkculture been replaced, but theacademic high art as well, having allbeen run over by a kitsch ofBeaux-arts historicism. So then, ifculture and its art has been entirelylost, then a new art which embracedtraditions and traditional forms would

make no sense at all.

Entirely new forms of art would then be found in the avante-garde, the new forms of art inabstraction and cubism, which, stripped of their cultural cancer, would allow for only the rawexpression of those fundamental truths themselves. Instead of using color and line and form,art became color and line and form. From Mondriaan's blocks of color to Picasso's humanforms transformed into cubes, the art would not express old dead notions of particular cultures,but one new universal idea of art.

In architecture, the accretions whichthe Beaux-arts academics and theirpeers had cobbled ontoarchitectural form were stripped freein the architecture of the Bauhaus. This new architecture, the"International Style," is probably themost succinct expression of thisnew idea of the universal art. Since all culture is swept aside, apure clean architecture, whichexpressed the barest idea ofarchitecture itself, was to becreated. Not mired in cultural

The potpourri of ornament and styles in Victorian architectureriled the modernists for the excesses of "useless" ornament.

Piet Mondriaan's "Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow"

Walter Gropius' Bauhaus school in Dessau Germany.


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flotsam, the International Style would be at home in any place, whether in Berlin or LosAngeles or Brazil. Since culture had already been destroyed, it was only logical to create artthat would be pure expressions of art.

Modernism became then, at least in its earliest expressions, fundamentally and essentiallyanti-cultural. Artists working in this milieu didn't see themselves as destroyers of art andculture, but rather as saviors of art. Certainly this was Clement Greenberg's idea, that the artof the avante-garde, in casting off as already dead the cancer of kitsch, would revive art andmake it whole again, and modern man, so longing for this purity and wholeness, wouldrespond and find it wonderful.

At least that was the idea, but thereality was that Modernism createda world that mankind did notrespond to, that left a cold andempty world devoid of anymeaning. In the next few posts, I'dlike to look at a few responses thatart has made to the "failure ofmodernism." In no particular order,I'll be looking at the embrace ofkitsch in art, the criticism that"anti-art" made, and the rise and fallof Post Modernism, and where thatleaves us today. Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" exemplifies a later modern

fascination in the art world with kitsch.


Friday, October 26, 2012

Kitsch, the Anti-Cultural CommodityThe essence of art, its final end, is to explain to man his own nature, what it means to behuman. Any art which does not have this for its end cannot truly be called "fine art." Art,however, that is created for the sole purpose of being sold in the market cannot, in anunqualified sense, be called true art, since it does not share the same final end. Now this sortof art, which has for its end the pure utilitarian end of the maker, is called kitsch. Kitsch, asreader Bob pointed out, can be defined as "the reduction of art to marketable forms."

Every part of kitsch is orderedtoward the end of being sold, soevery part of a work of kitsch iscalculated to be more palatable tothe marketplace. Kitsch usesconventional forms, motifs and evensymbols only in so far as they makethe particular work of art moremarketable. Clement Greenberg inhis essay Avant-Garde and Kitsch(from which I draw heavily from)remarks that kitsch uses as "rawmaterial the debased andacademized simulacra of genuineculture." The preservation of acultural memory, or consciousness of "what we are," as I described before, is not the end ofthis art but rather something akin to the utilitarian end of making money.

Kitsch, Greenberg continues, "borrows from [culture] tricks, stratagems, themes...[and]converts them into a system and discards the rest." Kitsch sees the products of a cultureonly as a component to be drawn from, not as a "good thing" in and of themselves. The"art" of kitsch then is only an art of the most basic sense of making something, just like the art

Graceland by Thomas Kinkade


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of pouring a concrete sidewalk, or making a chair. This most basic sense is primarilyconcerned with its utilitarian end (i.e. making a place to sit or walk), and if it elevates itself tosomething to the level of poetry, it does so only accidentally. Greenberg confirms this saying"nor is every item of kitsch entirely worthless. Now and then it produces something of merit"but these are only "accidental or isolated instances."

Kitsch though may be thought of as some sort of folk art, but as Greenberg argues, kitsch ismerely a replacement for the folk art lost by rural people living now in cities as a result of theindustrial revolution. "Discovering a new capacity for boredom ... the new urban masses setup a pressure on society to provide them with some kind of culture fit for their ownconsumption. To fill the demand of the new market, a new commodity was devised: ersatzculture, kitsch, destined for those who, insensitive to the values of genuine culture, are hungrynevertheless for the diversion that only culture of some sort can provide." [emphasis added]

Kitsch, the art of a mass-culture is not something that falls on the spectrum of art as poetry,that spectrum between folk art, and high art. By and large, even though there may be"isolated instances", kitsch cannot provide that consolation that only true culture can,through beauty and symbolism and rich traditions, that gives meaning to the importantmoments of our lives. One need only think of those jarring moments when a cell phonejingle goes off in church, worst of all during a funeral. These are moments where the marketcannot give us what we really need in our souls. Kitsch does not have for its end the poeticimitation which leads to a fuller understanding of man and his place in the universe, which isthe proper end of culture, both high and low.

I'm reminded of a story I read abouta Catholic chapel in a shoppingmall. The priests would say Mass,and hear Confession, but somethingabout the mall made them hesitateto ever hold a wedding there, not tomention a funeral. It is as if theoverwhelming materialism of themall, entirely ordered towardsconsumption seems so alien tothose parts of life where symbolismand culture are so essential to ourvery human existence.

Curiously though, this same feeling of alienation is felt less about a funeral on a city street, atleast streets in our older cities. Perhaps this is because even though commerce and all rankof ordinary things happen there, there remains something about the city as a community, thatsays these things are proper to this public place. The city is the product of culturepar-excellance, the place where architecture, art, sculpture and public ceremony all cometogether where a culture can best express what we are. This notion of cultural identity, thisnotion of belonging, is cultivated by the arts, and is reinforced by customs and conventions,but it is today under constant assault -- first of all by the assault of kitsch, but also the assaultof the avant-garde modernism. This is something I looked at briefly before, when talking aboutthe city stripped of symbolism. In the next series of posts, I want to look at the relation ofmodern art to culture, and its relation to kitsch, in so far as it too is an art which is at itsessence anti-cultural.

Catholic Mall Chapel, a fine thing,but somehow seems out of place.


Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Further Thoughts on High Culture andFolk Culture and ArtIn my last post I talked a great deal about the art of "high culture" and "folk culture" in regardsto their relation to the classical and vernacular in architecture. The distinction that I was


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drawing was not to show that high and low culture are in opposition to each other, but ratherare a matter of variation of degree. Both high and low culture, classical and vernacular art, alldeal with the same subject, namely cultural memory or the maintenance of shared ideas ofself-identification. From very simple traditions of a household, the baking of traditional mealsfor birthdays and holidays, to the triumphant hymn of a national anthem, the art andarchitecture of a capitol, every one of these things seeks to express though through varieddegrees, "this is who we are."

The nature of a folk culture is of course defined by itshaving risen from the people itself, the folk, where localtraditions, and family traditions lead to an art which isparticular to a certain people, place or a even family. High culture, which arises from the folk culture, isculture which has been subjected to intellectual andphilosophical examination. Rather than traditions ofculture and art being simply passed on to the nextgeneration, high culture places itself under to study andcriticism in order to make it better, finer and moresophisticated. Moreover, this sophistication allows it tobe appreciated outside of a particular cultural context, itbegins to be appreciated by everyone.

Thus art that is produced by high culture is transformedfrom a simple local art, into a universal art that beginsto transcend the particularities of place and people, andis thus the only sort of art that can become a "national"

art. The universality of the art is what allows people from all over the world to enjoy the worksof Mozart and Bach, even without having been a part of that particular central EuropeanGermanic culture from which the art arose. Certainly though, had one come from thatparticular culture from which this high culture arose from, the art would be even moremeaningful.

High culture produces an art that tends toward universality, but yet maintains that same goal ofculture, to say "this is who we are," and consequently its art strives too for that universality. Folk culture and its art says "this is what it means to be a Dutchman" or "this is what it meansto be a member of such and such family." High culture strives to say "this is what it means tobe man" (in other words in an unqualified sense). This difference between universality andparticularity is what I spoke of in earlier posts in dealing with art and politics. Art gearedtowards politics is necessarily geared towards the particular, but it loses its meaning in theuniversal flow of history. Great art, though even if it is political, is geared towards the greatuniversals and it thus has constant appeal.

This is not to say however that Folkart loses its appeal through time, farfrom it. The art of a folk culture isexpressive of a particular culture'sunderstanding of the sameuniversal longing to understand"what we are." This, coupled withtranscendent notions of beautywhich all true art strives for, forinstance the same tonal system ofmusic is found both in the folk songGreensleeves, as it is in Mozart'sRequiem, gives all true art a. The level complexity and the precision of the music is the onlydifference between them, telling us they are in essence the same thing. So too in poetry, asthe works of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare represent the best of a high culture, thesimplicity of the poetry of those same folk tunes can tell us just as much about what it meansto be a human being.

But yet this universal nature of art and high culture only goes so far, we need only look towhere cultures across the globe have interacted to see the limits of cultural universalism. Sotoo in architecture, where attempts to introduce classical Roman styles of architecture inforeign lands with highly developed native cultures, seem severely out of place. One needonly listen in the West to traditional Japanese or Chinese music to see where the limits lie. Certainly one can come to know and understand and even love Chinese pentatonic music (it


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uses only five notes instead of the Western eight) but if we were to try to introduce it into acultural setting in America, we would only see it as a charming "theme."

The "theme" would of course be a farce, as there would be nothing that connects Chinesetraditional music as "belonging"for instance to a traditional Christmas party. The idea ofcultural "themes" can best be seen in context of amusement parks, or "theme parks" whichaccumulate architecture of different places all into one park. A park such as this seemscheesy and "kitschy" because the cultural artifacts that it reproduces are all out of place. Itslike a man walking into a bar in New York in a cowboy hat, chaps and spurs, where he wouldbe entirely silly, while doing the same in Texas might be an everyday appearance. The idea ofthings being "out of place" is the essence of kitsch, which I intend to explore in the next post. In particular, I am interested in how kitsch relates to the ideas of the avante-garde in modernistart.


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Date post:	08-Jul-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	ven-geancia
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