Augustine
on the Artist
Outside
Reading
Written
on 10/17/15
In Confession
Augustine writes,
“For the beautiful objects
designed by artists’ souls and realized by skilled hands come from that beauty
which is higher than souls; after that beauty my soul sighs day and night. From
this higher beauty the artists and connoisseurs of external beauty draw their
criterion of judgment, but they should not go to excess, but ‘should guard
their strength for you’ and not dissipate it in delights that produce mental
fatigue.” (210)
This
quote reminds me of the discussion we had in class about the creator and the
spectator. The artist experiences the beautiful and in attempt to connect to it
they create art. The spectators then can come across that art and find beauty
in it. But as Augustine points out the purpose of the art is to connect the creator
to the ultimate reality not please the spectators. With that being said the
spectators can be enlightened by beauty in their own aesthetic experience to
the art work but that will not be the initial beauty the creator attempted to
connect to. Meaning people must find the essence of beauty and experience it
instead of looking for beauty is something material and mortal.
Confessions, Augustine, Oxford University Press, 2009 ed.
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