Arthur Rackham - A Brilliant Illustrator from the Golden Age of British Illustration

Following on from last week here are some more illustrations from England in the period of 10-15 years on either side of the First World War. This time the artist is Arthur Rackham. When I was young my Mum and Dad used to read Jack the Giant Killer to me. The book had been my Mum's when she was a girl. I loved these stories and the illustrations, by Arthur Rackham which were both terrifying and exciting for a little boy and have made a lasting impression on me. Books illustrated by him have become collector's items and very expensive. Here is one benefit of the internet. Having not seen anything by him for years (somehow that original family copy was lost) I googled him and found hundreds of images online - more than I had ever been aware of. Arthur Rackham was born in 1867 and died of cancer in 1939. He had a formal art training in London and his work really started to be noticed at the turn of the last century. He was admired internationally and won gold medals at international art exhibitions and expositions, in Barcelona and Milan for example. You may not have heard of the name, but there is a good chance that you have seen some of his illustrations. As well as children's books such the one already mentioned, he created the well known images of Peter Pan, Jack and the Beanstalk, the Wind in the Willows (top left) and many, many fairy tales for children. Even if the image that comes to mind when you think of these stories from animated film, very often the basic image that the later animators used for the movie is drawn from Rackham's original depiction.

In this period, illustration was treated almost as high art. Very expensive, leather bound editions of books would be produced as collectors items. Clearly these collectors were usually not young children and so it was natural for the subjects of such editions to be extended to the publication of illustrated poetry and stories that adults would be interested in. For example he illustrated stories from Wagners' Ring Cycle, Shakespeare's plays and John Milton's Comus.

His method seems to have been one of doing detailed drawings in pencil first and then inking in and erasing the pencil lines. He then builds up tonal contrast with multiple washes of browns and ochres and selectively colors areas by a similar build up of multiple transparent washes. His description of form is primarily through line therefore; but he uses tone and colour as very strong supporting players and very skillfully in order to draw the eye of the observer to those areas of the painting that he wants to be primary foci. This is done through: variation in contrast - lights next to dark attracts attention; variation in focus - sharp edges attract attention more than soft edges; and variation in colour - coloured areas attract attention when contrasted with other areas that describe form tonally, usually in sepias and greys. Accounts of his work talk about his understanding of 'new developments' in printing techniques and how he developed a way of working that allowed him to take adantage of thes. To the modern artists, who never needs to think about the capacity of modern technology to reproduce his work, of course, it would seems as though Rackham was working within constraints created by the limitations of printing. That being so, Rackham's work is another example of the maxim that one of my painting teachers use to say when forcing us to work within a limited palette: that very often being forced to work within narrow lateral constraints, push the creative person to greater depths.

There are many books now available of stories illustrated by him, and collections of his prints. They are a fascination for children and worthy of study by artist. The Amazon page for Rackham is here.

While I do admire his body of work in general I should point out that as I looked around for images to show, I noticed that some of his images of the female form, especially those from the Wagnerian there struck me as being tinged with an inappropriate eroticism. This is a shame. I didn't see it in his fairy tale illustrations, but it did make me think that as a parent I might want to look first before presenting them to my children.

Below: the first section are all from Jack the Giant Killer, including three uncoloured line drawings. Then one of his Wagnerian illustrations, A Midsummer Night's Dream and two from Peter Pan in Kensington.

The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception and the Litany of Loreto - A Lesson for Today from the Spanish Masters

I was recently asked about Zurburan's Immaculate Conception. I was aware of the general description of the iconography of the image, but could not interpret the details of everything that he has painted. My go-to person in these situations is Dr Caroline Farey, who once again will lead the teaching on the distance-learning diploma Art, Beauty and Inspiration run by the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas through their Maryvale Center. The general description comes from the teacher and father in law of Velazquez, Francisco Pacheco. He wrote a book, the Art of Painting in which he describes it. His starting point is the book of Revelation: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars,” (Revelation, 12:1-2). Pacheco wrote: 'Our Lady should be painted as a beautiful young girl, 12 or 13 years old, in the flower of her youth. She should be painted wearing a white tunic and a blue mantle. She is surrounded by the sun, an oval sun of white and ochre, which sweetly blends into the sky. Rays of light emanate from her head, around which is a ring of twelve stars. An imperial crown adorns her head, without, however, hiding the stars. Under her feet is the moon.'

Pacheco, through his teaching and writing, is hugely influential in the creation of the Spanish tradition of baroque naturalism, from which so many great painters emerged - Velazquez, Zurburan, Murillo, Cano, Ribera. It is particularly frustrating therefore, that only a few pages of over 700 are translated into English. This is one document that does seem worth studying if you are interested in working within the baroque tradition today. As with so much else, what he wrote and taught on this matter was followed by his Spanish followers. In regard to the Immaculate Conception, artists took his guidance for a long time afterwards, perhaps changing a few details. This version, by Zurburan follows it closely but has a red rather than a white tunic. Rather than symbolise her purity directly with white, Zurburan, chose red which is usually considered as representing humanity.

Looking first at the lower section of the painting: the palm tree on the left is the standard symbol of justice flourishing (Psalm 92:12), and also a symbol of Lady Wisdom (Sir. 24:14), consigned to Our Lady. On the right side there is a view of Seville, with its two landmarks, the Torre de Oro and Giralda Tower. Seville is depicted as a port with ship sailing towards it. Zurburan trained and lived in Seville.

On either side of the Virgin through the breaks in the heavenly cloud, there are symbols of the attributes of Mary. On the right, from the top: a flight of steps leading to a portal symbolises the Temple, and below is Mary as the Mirror of Justice. Zurburan has painted a reversed image of Mary in this mirror. In this mirror, we see ourselves as we are called to be in our Christian vocation, she presents an ideal for us, perfect exemplar of grace and virtue. I cannot see anything in the third window on the right - perhaps something has faded, or perhaps Zurburan left it blank, I don't know.

On the left, from above, are the Gate of Heaven; the Morning Star; the Ark of the Covenant, or possibly the House of Gold; and the Star of the Sea. The Ark of the Covenant, placed below the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, was God’s footstool. It contained the stones of the law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai, a sample of manna, and Aaron’s Rod. The ark then comes to symbolise Mary who bore in her womb Jesus, the New Law, our Eucharist and Aaron’s rod which budded (Numbers 17:1-8) is a type of Mary’s Child-bearing. The Morning Star symbolises the time when light is completely fresh, and when everything is still uncorrupted and pure. It is also the planet Venus and is a pagan symbol of female love now purified.

All the scenes shown in these windows correspond to Marian titles taken from the Litany of Loreto. This litany, which was approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, was well known in the Seville at this time. This indicates to me that this painting is intended to be used in prayer - as the Litany is recited we can look directly at this painting.

Dr Caroline Farey and I both teach the Art, Beauty and Inspiration diploma in Kansas city, taking place July 11-14, 2014. Go to the Maryvale Center website, here, for more details. In addition I will be teaching two painting courses. One the week before, and one the week after. You can sign up for either or both. If you do both, we will ensure that the second builds on what you learnt in the first. We will focus on the gothic style of illumination of the English School of St Albans, by artists such as Matthew Parris.

An article by Caroline appeared in the The Sower in April 2004

Why a Formation in Catholic Culture is Central to Catholic Education

How Thomas More College has captured the essence of a Catholic education through its guilds and the promotion of creativity in art, music and literature.  I recently read a book by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI that I would recommend to all (h/t Stratford Caldecott for telling me about it). It is called A New Song for the Lord - Faith in Christ and Liturgy Today. The publisher, Crossroads, decided to put the following quotation from text prominently on the cover: 'How we attend to the liturgy determines the fate and faith of the Church.' This last part is what drew me to it particularly. I wanted to know more because it seemed to support my understanding that it is the liturgy that forms most powerfully the worldview of the believer and that, in turn, is what shapes the culture most powerfully.

It was written in 1996, before his classic book on the liturgy, the Spirit of the Liturgy. There is greater discussion in this book than in the later one of the connection between the person of Christ and the liturgy; and also, happily for me (as the title suggests), about the general connection between liturgy and culture. He talks in depth, for example, about the the forms of music appropriate for the liturgy and how important the connection between this and contemporary culture is. In regard to this, he gives a critique of modern music forms (displaying a surprising degree of knowledge about them - even differentiating between rock and pop!) and explaining why they are, for the most part inappropriate for the liturgy and in many cases not good in any other situation either. He then goes on to say that the response to this cannot be simply a recovery of past forms. We must always also be creative and produce new forms that connect with people today. Rejecting what is new simply because it is new is not an option.

He says (p127): "The level of a culture is discernible by its ability to assimilate to come into contact and exchange and to do this synchronically and diachronically. It is capable of encountering other contemporary cultures as well as the development of human culture in the march of time. This ability to exchange and flourish finds its expression in the ever recurring imperative 'Sing the Lord a new song'. Experiences of salvation are found not only in the past, but occur over and over again: hence they also require the ever new proclamation of God's contemporaneity, whose eternity is falsely understood if one interprets it as being locked in decisions made 'from time immemorial'. On the contrary, to be eternal means to be synchronous with all times and to be ahead of all times.:

Then he tells us also (p133) that the test of whether or not the creativity that gives rise to the 'new song' originates from God is that it will connect with the ordinary person and not just the cultured elite:

He says: "It is precisely the test of true creativity that the artist steps out of the esoteric and knows how to form his or her intuition in such a way that the other - the many - may perceive what the artist has perceived."

This may be a surprise to some, who assume that in order to be popular the artist, writer or composer must compromise on his principles and stoop down to the level of the masses. In fact, the Pope is telling us, it is the opposite: unpopular artists are so because don't know how to scale the heights facing them and reach up to the many. It is the contemporary expressions that connect most powerfully with man today, good or bad. When the work of the artists and composers who are creating today is good enough, it will speak to the many and overwhelm what is currently popular and inferior to it.

This supports the idea, which I have stated on other occasions, that the main task ahead of us if we want to be successful in the evangelisation of the culture, is not the education of the masses, but the formation of the artists so that they know how to create powerfully beautiful contemporary forms that re-order contemporary culture and speak to the masses. Each artist must break out beyond his own social circle of friends at dinner parties and speak to 'the many' in the universal language of beauty.

But, one might ask, should this process of a formation of creators of culture be the concern of a Catholic liberal arts college? Isn't this focus on culture too concerned with applications than with pure wisdom? Some may say so. This process of inculturation of the students and their formation as creators of a new and beautiful Catholic culture is often treated as a recreational add-on to the core aspects of education. But, if we are to accept the documents of the Church written on the nature of a Catholic education, a cultural formation is instrinsic and central to what a Catholic education ought to be:

'No less than other schools does the Catholic school pursue cultural goals and the human formation of youth. But its proper function is to create for the school community a special atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity, to help youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities, and finally to order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith.' (Gravissimum Educationis, 8, a statement on Catholic education by the Second Vatican Council, 1965)

or elsewhere: 'A school is, therefore, a privileged place in which, through a living encounter with a cultural inheritance, integral formation occurs'. (The Catholic School, 26; published by the Congregation for Education, 1977)

This inculturation forms the person in accordance with the ultimate goals of love of God, through worship, which leads to personal transformation; the ove of God through love of man by seeking evangelisation of the world

'A Christian education...has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced the knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23) especially in liturgical action, and be conformed in their personal lives according to the new man created in justice and holiness of truth (Eph. 4:22-24); also that they develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13) and strive for the growth of the Mystical Body; moreover, that aware of their calling, they learn not only how to bear witness to the hope that is in them (cf. Peter 3:15) but also how to help in the Christian formation of the world that takes place when natural powers viewed in the full consideration of man redeemed by Christ contribute to the good of the whole society.' Gravissimum Educationis, 2

Reflecting this, Thomas More College places an emphasis on creativity in the arts and humanities (as well as analysis of past great works); and this is why we have a Composer-in-Residence, Paul Jernberg; a Writer-in-Residence, Joseph Pearce; and myself, Artist-in-Residence. This is why also, we have instituted the guilds at the college - we want to develop the creative faculty in the students and instill in them the habit of directing it to the common good. It is also an important part of the formation of the student - and essential part of the learning process. Even those who are not naturally poetic, artistic or musical will learn more about the good and the true through the participation in the creation of beauty - 'the good made visible' as John Paul II referred to it in his Letter to Artists. This is in accord with the principle articulated by St Anselm of Canterbury who said that something is known most fully when experienced.

And this culture cannot be understood except as an extension of the activity of the human person by which we are fully human, the worship of God. All the cultural must be understood by the students as something that is derived from and points to the liturgical culture and hence liturgical life.

I would like to thank  Mark Brumley writing in the National Catholic Register and his excellent little article on the purpose of a Catholic education, which first directed me to these Church documents.

Those who are interested in reading Joseph Pearce's many wonderful books on the faith, including his recent autobiography, Race with the Devil: My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love can look on Amazon, here.

I conclude this with some recordings of the music of Paul Jernberg from his Mass of St Philip Neri.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9443A8SSmktZiNlIlRA9Rg?feature=watch

Faith is the Only Hope for a Country in Disarray - Venezuela

 Holy Virgin of Coromoto, pray for faith and freedom for the Venezuelan people I have family connections with this beautiful country and it is frightening to hear accounts of what is happening there. It is turning into Zimbabwe as you read this. The town of San Cristobal, left, which is a beautiful colonial city set in the Andes and just 10 days ago was a peaceful and calm, now has no water, no electricity and an internet blackout. All imposed by the Chavista state governer. Squads of government backed vigilantes are roaming the suburbs randomly shooting and killing and thowing tear gas grenades into people's homes. This is spreading throughout the country. You can read about this here in an article called The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night. The people of the world need to know about what is happening and the people of Venezuela need your prayers.

This is the inevitable result of the gradual erosion of freedom and gross economic mismanagement from the government and the decay of a culture of faith and beauty of the population. It is the latter that must be restored first if a free economy is ever to flourish again.

The Virgin of Coromoto is the patroness of this country. In a story similar to Guadelupe, Our Lady appeared to a Coromoto indian in the town of Guanare, the story is here. (Her image is, coincidentally, like Our Lady of Walsingham - seated but in red shawl rather than a blue one.)

This is a country that needs our prayers so that it might transform. The answer to such suffering is spiritual first, a renewal of faith.  Our Lady of Coromoto, pray for us and for Venezuela! Beauty can change the world. Here is her prayer:

Beautiful Lady Mary, Virgin Mother of the Redeemer, with you we praise and glorify the Father in the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. We beseech you that, just as in Coromoto you guided the steps of the Indians towards the baptismal grace, you may now capture the heart of the Venezuelans, and bring them to the renewal of their faith.

Virgin of Coromoto, patron of Venezuela, bless the evangelistic action of the Church  so that Venezuela might be fortress and defense of the faith of your children, and beginning of a renewal of the Christian customs. 

This is a beautiful prayer which places Our Lady in the right place relative to us and our worship of God. When we worship God in the sacred liturgy, we praise and glorify the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. And Our Lady is right there with us a model for our worship.

Cicely Mary Barker - Enchanting Illustrations for Children's Books

The first thirty years of 20th century seem to have been a golden period for illustration of children's books. We are all aware of the work of E. H. Shepherd, his illustrations the Winnie the Pooh books. But there are others that are well worth looking at. I will feature a couple in the next week or so. First Cicely Mary Barker (h/t Nancy Feeman!). She is in many ways the artist that Gertrude Jeckyll could have been...or perhaps Gertrude Jeckyll is the gardener that Cicely Barker could have been. Just like Jeckyll, Barker grew up in late-Victorian England and went to art school. Both had a love of English gardens, Barker deciding to paint them, and Jeckyll deciding to 'paint' flower beds. If you want to know more about her then there is a charming website Flower Faries with information about her, lots more illustrations and poems and books for sale at Barker produced a series of beautiful pen and wash paintings of 'flower fairies' for children's books. Each book would have a short poem and then an illustration. As Nancy Feeman, who brought her to my attention pointed out to me, these would be great for small children today and a great way to teach them to learn to recognise flowers in the garden. So here's the first lesson (which I pass on to you 5 minutes after I learnt it myself): the orchis is genis within the orchid family. Note that Ms. Barker is botanically correct in placing it among the 'family' of orchids.

The Song of the Orchis Fairy

The families of orchids, they are the strangest clan, With sports and twists resembling a bee, or fly, or man; And some are in the hot house, and some in foreign lands, But Early Purple Orchis in English pasture stands.

He loves the grassy hill-top, he breathes the April air; He knows the baby rabbits, he knows the Easter hare, The nesting of the skylarks, the bleat of lambkins too, The cowslips, and the rainbow, the sunshine, and the dew.

O orchids of the hot-house,what miles away you are!

O flaming tropic orchids, how far, how very far!

All are exquisitely designed, drawn and painted. Stylistically she said that she loved the Pre-Raphaelites, but in contrast to them, she controls the focus and colour skilfully so that she often gives just enough of a suggestion of background to let us know what is there, with pale, diffuse articulation, but not so much that it detracts from the main points of attention. The Pre-Raphaelites, I feel, tend to overload the painting with colour and detail so that even the unimportant parts of the composition fight for our attention.

My only regret about these is that they seem to be aimed at girls and that's a shame because I would love to find a way for boys to learn about flower varieties as well. I don't think I would have enjoyed this when I was young but I can see that many would.

At the very top we have the Bluebell (scilla) fairy and Blackberry, Bryony, Apple Blossom, the cover of one of her books, Forget-me-not, Rose, Fuchsia and Winter Jasmine.

Genesis - Can Popular Culture Can Create the Desire for God? I Say Yes!

This is about pop music, not scripture! Here is another in a series of occasional articles that discuss music that has move me greatly by its beauty. This one is a little more risky than the others. I'm going to talk about the rock band Genesis in their early manifestation (when Peter Gabriel was their lead singer and Phil Collins played drums and nothing else). There's nothing worse that an old codger trying to convince you that the pop music he liked in his day was genuinely good music. When I was young I used to yawn when the generation above me used to complain about my music and then tell me how great the Sixties was.....This is almost going to be one of those articles, but bear with me, I do have a reasonable point to make. So even you don't have a clue who I'm talking about, there might be something in it for you by the end!When I was sixteen, I had no interest in music and if you'd asked me I would have said that I just wasn't musical. Then I heard the album (do we still use that word nowadays?) by Genesis called Selling England by the Pound. This was my first experience of hearing a piece of music that just transported me through its beauty  (the instrumental section in the last half of the track called Cinema Show and then instrumental sections, again, on the track, the Firth of Fifth ). What would happen later with Schubert, Brahms, Mozart and Palestrina happened first with Genesis.

It was purely the music. I didn't really understand the lyrics and didn't really care. The words sounded intellectual  - the references were both obscure and eclectic enough to convince me that there was something clever going on and this satisfied my teenage pride. What I did pick up created a fantasy world that was evocative of rural idylls and classical mythology and this did seem to suit the music. For example there were references to classical literature and Dante with figures such as 'old father Tiresius' although I don't know why, and fantastic stories about Victorian explorers bringing the man-eating giant hogweed to Britain from Russia. Later, I heard the keyboardist Tony Banks explain that the reason they went in for this  sort of thing was that they had all met at an English all-boys public school, Charterhouse, and they were still so young that none of them had really had many girlfriends. Because of this they didn't feel confident writing about girls in their songs like all the other pop stars did. Reinforcing this were the photographs I saw of them on stage. Lots of smoke, costumes and bright lights. Peter Gabriel in particular looked slightly wierd, but I liked that.

As a result of my experience in listening to this album, I became very interested in music and energetically started to collect all of their music and search for other groups that seemed to be similar. I listened to groups Yes, King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, if these mean anything to anyone any more.? Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were there too, and I know that these names are still around today.  All seemed good and I bought the albums, listened to the music and talked seriously about the personnel changes in the bands with my friends; but none seemed to have the quality of this early Genesis music which had connected with me so strongly. I didn't experience such a strong reaction to a piece of music again until I heard Schubert's Impromptus five years later that I had a similar reaction. (You can read about that occasion in an earlier article Schubert Soothes Savage Beasts and Placates Food Throwing Students.)

So why am I writing about this? Many years later I heard an interview with members of the band and they talked about how they composed the music. Unlike every rock band they knew about, they refused to use the blues scale and used conventional classical scales and musical forms in what they did. They used rock instruments, and had complex rhythms in it, with Phil Collins a virtuoso drummer interpreting their music. I didn't know it at the time, but this is what I was picking up in their music and responding to. This is why it sounded different.

I always think that music connects with the soul and then gives it motion. That motion can be towards something higher, or something lower. If it is sending me towards something higher, then it is stimulating in me, at some level, a desire for the ultimate beauty, God. This music connected with me as sixteen year old and created a desire for more. I don't think that classical music would have done it then. I had to listen to lots of Genesis before I was ready for that, but it sent me in the right direction. I wasn't thinking of God, but I was searching for beauty. I listed the other music names that had such an effect on me above and that final one, Palestrina, I heard in the Brompton Oratory over 10 years later during Mass. After Palestrina it seemed, the only way up was God and he was preparing me to see that. If you pushed me now I might say that Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus sits between Palestrina and God, but I don't want to split hairs.

What Genesis had done was create a style of popular culture that participated in the traditional forms of beauty. They were good composers and musicians but (and time may judge otherwise) probably not at the level of those other figures. They were not, to my knowledge Christian, but they were doing what Christians who wished to engage with modern culture ought to have been doing. That is, create forms that participate in the timeless values that unite all that is good, and then present in such as way that connect with the people of the day and open their hearts, subtly, to God. Popular culture changes so much and so quickly that I wouldn't expect Genesis to connect with people today in the same way. it is the exact opposite of the way that most Christians attempt to harness popular culture - they use the degraded forms of the pop culture and then add overtly Christian lyrics. The result, Christian rock, is just a bad advert for the Faith.

We need more composers who can do the same thing today - create a Christian popular culture that hooks people subtly through form. It would not sound like Genesis now I don't think. It almost certainly just sounds dated to most people who listen to today's pop music, but the same principle could apply if someone knew how to do it.

The other point is that Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins were a success in their field by any measure. I would maintain that harnessing beauty in the arts offers those artists who do it well a greater chance of popular success than if they just go along with the herd.

Anyway, so back to being a grumpy old man...here's real music not like the stuff that the youth of today listen to....

The Firth of Fifth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD5engyVXe0

Cinema Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G501Ii0X0NE

Below Genesis circa 1972.....

Acton University - Four Days of Classes on the Free Economy

Explore the intellectual basis of the free economy; discover why this cannot be separated from a culture of beauty and Catholic social teaching if we want a society that promotes the flourishing of the human person. Once again, I am going to encourage everybody to think about attending 'Acton University' . This is a residential course that takes place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The dates are June 17-20.

The Acton Institute is an organisation devoted to the promotion of a free and virtuous society. Each person attending must sign up for a an integrated series of lectures so that each builds on the last. It is cleverly worked out so that the first lecture you choose restricts your choice for the second and so on.  It can be repeated year after year, so that each time you go you deepen your knowledge and understanding of the Free Economy. The Free Economy was defined by John Paul II  'an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector'. This is the form of capitalism that he affirmed as being consistent with the Catholic social teaching and the Catholic understanding of freedom. He went as far as saying that this is the economic system also that is the 'the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress'. (both quotes are from Centesimus Annus, 42)

Acton itself is ecumenical, but it is carefully designed so that as a Catholic I can choose courses that focus on Catholic social teaching or are consistent with it. As well as obvious courses such as a basic introduction to economics, they insist that everybody attends a class, for exampe, on Christian anthropology (brilliantly taught by Sam Gregg) and offer elective topics such as the theology of Benedict XVI, public policy, globalization, and the environment. What impressed me is that far from being the detached libertarians unconcerned with morality that some had portrayed them as, they were all profoundly interested in the poor and the foundations of a good and moral society. Furthermore, and again this goes against the way they were characterised, they were extremely interested in promoting a culture of beauty and seeing how this was connected to a free economy.

As this blog is about beauty and culture - I want to recommend to readers particular two lecturers who are at Acton again and address directly the connection between the economy and the culture: Michael Matheson Miller and Dr Jonathan Witt who are on the Acton permanent staff. As is true of all lectures at Acton U, their talks are accessible and entertaining, and each offered great insights into what forms culture.  I would recommend the classes of both lecturers very strongly. Dr Witt's focus on culture, in the lecture I saw last year, was on literary forms  and how it these reflects the worldview of the author. He has co-written an interesting book about science and culture called A Meaningful World. Many who criticise free market economics assume that those who advocate capitalism and the free economy are indifferent to cultural questions. This is certainly not true of those at Acton, the message that I took from my experience is that not only are they interested, but also that they see the existence of a culture of beauty is an essential aspect of a truly prosperous society.

Another highlight for me last year was the lecturer by Andreas Widmer who is director of the Entrepeneurship programs at the Business and Economics dept of Catholic University of America. His insights into how creativity and virtue meet in business are fascinating.

I want also to mention something that touched me personally when I attended last year. My wife is Venezuelan and through her I have become aware of how freedom has steadily become more and more restricted there; and how this has lead to a stifling of prosperity and a degrading of the culture. Since I came to realise this, it has been surprising to me how little of this people are aware of this in the West. It was gratifying to hear Fr Robert Sirico, the founder of Acton talk of Venezuela in his inaugural address and subsequently to meet a group of young people from Venezuela who wish to work towards greater freedom in this beautiful country. http://youtu.be/2Vc3mymrpSY

Greenwich Village, New York City

Here are some photos of Greenwich Village in Manhatten. I took the photos when I went to NYC to give a talk before Christmas. What is interesting is how all the buildings shown incorporate traditional proportion. Usually this is reflected in different sized windows as you go up the building, with the smallest at the top. Proportion reflects the natural harmony of music in which combinations of threes predominate. So, even if there are far more floors than three, the architects have grouped together the floors into three sections, with a large ground floor, then a string of floors that are the same size, but smaller than the first, and then the top floor or floors smallest. Using decorative features, the architect connects each section visually. This usually means that in multistorey buildings, the middle section is the largest. Then when one views the building from a distance, these three sections (each subdivided) obey the rules of traditional proportion. Much of NYC, even the great skyscrapers built before the second world war, follows this traditional proportion and it is one of the reasons that I love to visit. I also like the fact that these are lived in and worked in buildings. If I was going to point an architect to how a city can be elegant and have all the ordinary activities of city life going on, I would be as inclined to point people here, rather than to the centre of any European city that has become a preserved museum of gift shops and cafes only.

While I was here I was staying at the Dominican church, St Joseph's (below, where I was very well looked after by the friars!). Here is the exterior of their church with its Palladian facade. This part of NYC shows how using proportion allows for a tremendous variety in design. They all sit happily together because they participate in the same standard - which is the beauty of the cosmos, and which ultimately points to the same invisible standard, the beauty of heaven. So we can say, perhaps, that Jerusalem was builded here, amongst these city houses and offices.

A Practical Guide to Praying in Home - A New Book Coming in April

Making the family the powerhouse for cultural change by making the liturgy the central pillar of prayer. 

This is one of the projects I have been working on over the past year. I have co-written a book called The Little Oratory - A Beginners Guide to Family Prayer , which will be published in April by Sophia Press. It is a both a simple how-to book about prayer in the home and in the family; and it is a why-to as well - want you understand why as well as what!

I have written it with Leila Lawler, whose entertaining and brilliant blog Like Mother, Like Daughter (likemotherlikedaughter.org) I have long admired. She offers both practicality and piety in right measure and all her experience and insights of managing a home as a mother and, more recently grandmother, have added great wisdom.

We explain, for example, how to make an icon corner and supply many color plates of the appropriate images so that you can detach and frame them beautifully for your home. We also explain why this is encouraged - referring all the time to the Catechism and the documents of the Church. And we help you to pray with it as a family when you are busy also with everything else going on in the home. The prayer we offer gives a strong emphasis to the Liturgy of the Hours and we explain why the Church recommends this worship so strongly.

I have painted the color plates for example St Michael the Archangel and the Veronica Cloth (see below) and additionally a dozen or so line drawings of the Transfiguration (below)and the Presentation. The line drawings can be removed as well, or photocopied and used to teach your children to draw through coloring in and copying - this will help to inculturate them. As well as the paintings and line drawings of sacred art by myself, there are wonderful illustrations by Deirdre Foley. She has done a wonderful job and through her work she has helped us to show you what we mean, as well as tell you!

It is written with the hope that through the spread of a liturgical piety in the home, the family will become once again the driving force for cultural renewal. Keeping a faithful prayer life with your family isn’t easy. From herding distracted children to managing the seemingly endless litany of prayers and devotions, our spiritual life all too often feels frantic and burdensome. But this isn’t the way it should be. Our prayer life, our family life, and our work life should — and can! — be in harmony. When they are, our family is a powerhouse of grace, and Our Lord transforms our home into a little Eden —a little bit of heaven on earth. We hope that this book will help to bring peace to your home by integrating your family into the calm, truly joyful way of Mother Church. Her feasts and seasons, prayers and devotions are gifts that draw us closer to God and unfold before us His marvelous plan of salvation.

We want to encourage prayer that engages the whole person, so as well as visual prayer we want to encourage vocal prayer, and ideally this means chant. We even give simple tips on how to start to sing prayers when you are unused to doing so or think you are tone deaf. We work on the motto that if you can bear to listen to yourself in the shower, then you are good enough to sing your praises!

We include such things as. . .

• How to use sacred art to strengthen your prayer life.
• How to extend Catholic beliefs and devotions into every room of the house.
• Why the Liturgy of the Hours is important and how it can make your family holy.
• How to pray the Rosary with children—and keep the rowdiest of them calm and reverent.
• The active role children can —and should—play in the prayer life of the family
•  What to do when only one parent takes the spiritual life seriously.
• How to overcome the feeling that you’re too busy to pray.
• Practical ways to extend the liturgical life into your workplace.

I'll keep you posted when the book is released. You can pre-order on Amazon here ( fyi Sophia Press are projecting an April publication not a February publication as Amazon states).

Creativity in Science through Beauty

Liturgical science? Here is a Way of Beauty replay of an article first published in April 2010. I included this example as part of my class in architecture and traditional proportion recently, to illustrate the fact that modern science does not invalidate the traditional approach to number, rather it reinforces it......

In the Canticle of Daniel, chanted on Lauds Sunday Week 1and all feast days in the Divine Office, all of creation is called to give praise to God. The frosts hail and snow, wind and rain and all the other inanimate aspects of creation listed in this canticle do not give praise to God literally, but through their beauty they direct our praise to God. The cosmos is made for us. Through it, we perceive the Creator. In this sense the whole of Creation is ordered liturgically, in that it directs us to God and we give Him thanks, praise and glory. That thanks and praise of man is expressed most perfectly in the liturgy.

Well it seems that we could modify this canticle in accordance with the discoveries of particle physics, perhaps adding the line: ‘Oh you multiplets of hadronic particles, give praise to the Lord. To Him be highest glory and praise forever.’

In excellent his book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, describing the consistency between the Faith and the discoveries of science, Stephen M Barr describes the scientific investigation of a grouping of sub-atomic particles which he refers to as a ‘multiplet’ of ‘hadronic particles’. He describes how when different properties, called ‘flavours’ of ‘SU(3) symmetry’, of nine of these particles were plotted mathematically, then they produced a patterned arrangement that looked like a triangle with the tip missing.

‘Without knowing anything about SU(3) symmetry, one could guess just from the shape of the multiplet diagram that there should be a tenth kind of particle with properties that allow it to be placed down at the bottom to complete the triangle pattern. This is not just a matter of aesthetics, the SU(3) symmetries require it. It can be shown from the SU(3) that the multiplets can only come in certain sizes….On the basis of SU(3) symmetry Murray Gell-Man predicted in 1962 that there must exist a particle with the right properties to fill out this decuplet. Shortly thereafter, the new particle, called the Ωˉ was indeed discovered.’

This result would have been of no surprise to anyone who had undergone an education in beauty based upon the quadrivium, - the ‘four ways’ - the higher part of the education of the seven liberal arts of education in the middle-ages[1]. The shape that Murray Gell-Man’s work completed was the triangular arrangement of 10 points known as the tectractys. As described in my previous articles for the New Liturgical Movement, this is the triangular arrangement of the number 10 in a series of 1:2:3:4. 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the first four numbers that symbolize the creation of the cosmos in three dimensions generated from the unity of God; and notes produced by plucking strings of these relative lengths we can construct the three fundamental harmonies of the musical scale. The importance of this in the Christian tradition is indicated by the fact that Raphael’s School of Athens fresco, which is in the Vatican, portrays Pythagoras the Greek philosopher whose ideas were the basis of these ideas of harmony and order. He is portrayed looking at a chalkboard with  a diagram of the tectractys and X, the Latin number 10. (Above it on the chalkboard is the diagram which is a geometric construction of the musical harmonies.

The idea that the tectractys might be governing the arrangements of properties of these sub-atomic particles does not prove that it is a correct theorem (although I do find it intriguing!). Nor, even, is knowledge of the tectractys necessary to see the missing dot in this case. As Barr points out, it is obvious once you look at the incomplete graph. But it is obvious only once one works on the assumption that nature is ordered symmetrically. Once Gellman did this, his intuition gave him the missing point. This intuitive leap is the first step in any creative process. We come up first with an idea of what we think it might be, and then test it with reason.

I do not have a deep knowledge of particle physics, but I doubt that the traditional quadrivium contains the full range of symmetries that one is likely to see and would need to use as a research particle physicist. Nevertheless, I would maintain that the traditional education in the quadrivium would enable the research scientist to be more creative in his work. A traditional education in beauty, which is what this is, trains the mind to work in conformity to the divine order, to which, in turn, the natural order conforms. Such a mind is open to inspiration from the Creator, and is more likely to make the necessary intuitive leap when placed with an array of data. The mind that habitually looks to the divine symmetry is more likely to see the natural symmetry.

Physicist A. Zee put it this: ‘Symmetries have played an increasingly central role in our understanding of the physical world. From rotational symmetry physicists went on to formulate ever more abstruse symmetries…fundamental physicists are sustained by the faith that the ultimate design is suffused with symmetries.Contemporary physics would not have been possible without symmetries to guide us…Learning from Einstein, physicists impose symmetry and see that a unified conception of the physical world may be possible. They hear symmetries whispered in their ears. As physics moves further away from everyday experience and closer to the mind of the Ultimate Designer, our minds are trained away from their familiar moorings…The point to appreciate is that contemporary theories, such as grand unification or superstring, have such rich and intricate mathematical structures that physicists must martial the full force of symmetry to construct them. They cannot be dreamed up out of the blue, nor can they be constructed by laboriously fitting one experimental fact after another. These theories are dictated by Symmetry.’[2]

And what has this to do with the liturgy? I quote from my article on the quadrivium, The Way of Beauty, which appeared on the New Liturgical Movement website in September:

‘The traditional quadrivium is essentially the study of pattern, harmony, symmetry and order in nature and mathematics, viewed as a reflection of the Divine Order. When we perceive something that reflects this order, we call it beautiful. For the Christian this is the source, along with Tradition, that provides the model upon which the rhythms and cycles of the liturgy are based. Christian culture, like classical culture before it, was also patterned after this cosmic order; this order which provides the unifying principle that runs through every traditional discipline.  Literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy –all of creation and potentially all human activity- are bound together by this common harmony and receive their fullest meaning in the liturgy…When we apprehend beauty we do so intuitively. So an education that improves our ability to apprehend beauty develops also our intuition. All creativity is at source an intuitive process. This means that professionals in any field including business and science would benefit from an education in beauty because it would develop their creativity. Furthermore, the creativity that an education in beauty stimulates will generate not just more ideas, but better ideas. Better because they are more in harmony with the natural order. The recognition of beauty moves us to love what we see. So such an education would tend to develop also, therefore, our capacity to love and leave us more inclined to the serve God and our fellow man. The end result for the individual who follows this path is joy.’

When the person is habitually ordering his life liturgically, he will tap into this creative force, for he will be inspired by the Creator. Meanwhile all those multiplets of hadronic particles in the cosmos will be giving praise to the Lord.

---

[1] For more details of the quadrivium read the following articles written by me for the New Liturgical Movement website: Cosmic Liturgy and the Mind of God; On Number; Harmony and Proportion; The Way of Beauty at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts

[2] A Zee: Fearful Symmetry, the Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (New York, Macmillan, 1986)  p281. Quoted by Stephen M Barr in A Student Guide to Natural Science (Delaware, ISI Books, 1986) p71.