Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages

This is a fascinating and enjoyable survey of the approaches to and embodiments of beauty in the Middle Ages through the 13th century, which is when the Middle Ages gave way to the High Middle Ages (which culminated - or bottomed out, depending on how you look at it - in the Protestant Reformations). Great theologians and mystics such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux are dealt with, as well as lesser figures such as Hugh of St. Victor and Abbot Suger. Theology and mysticism, architecture and music, science, philosophy and even love poetry are brought together as Eco paints (no pun intended) a highly detailed exposition of the ways in which beauty shaped the lives of those in the medieval era. It is, in many ways, a tour through a land that is as strange as it is wonderful. The entire world - every created thing - was, early on, *seen* as a symbol that was to be read just as the Bible was read: with a sense that it existed not just as it was, but as something beyond itself too, pointing ultimately to God, for God had created it. Nature is understood to be what sociologists and philosophers would now call "enchanted": filled with mystery, depth, existential and metaphysical meaning. The rise of Aristotelian metaphysics (re: science and philosophy as a single entity - they weren't separated back then) is what eventually quashed this such that the world was no longer see as a cosmic spiritual thing so much as a created thing that could be studied as having its own laws. St. Thomas Aquinas, "the Angelic Doctor", did much to push this view and it eventually one out. The medieval era looks curiously modern in this regard. Although the rise of Aristotelianism may have done much to encourage the development of what is now called "modern science", there were other forces at work, particularly those of stone and glass: the medieval churches. In France, in the 12th century, a priest named Suger designed and oversaw the building of the greatest church of the medieval era: the cathedral of St. Denis. St. Denis is today known as Pseudo-Dionysius, a 5th or 6th century monk whose writings were written under the name of Dionysius the Aeropagite, the first convert of St. Paul. Denis/Dionysius's mystical writings on the light of God were heavily influential on Abbot Suger and as he designed the cathedral, he saw to it that the stained glass and windows allowed the light to filter into the building such that the very experience of the aesthetics would be like an ecstatic experience of God. This brought him into conflict with St. Bernard of Clairvaux, "the Difficult Saint", who is best known for his four-volume commentary on the Song of Songs. Bernard was unarguably the greatest and most influential figure of the 12th century, and he thought that the great burst of enthusiasm for aesthetics in Abbot Suger's cathedral was perilously close to idolatry. In a certain sense, neither figure won this dispute for the beauty of cathedrals has b

An extremely important book that answers marvellously our prejudices against the Middle Ages. It explores in great details their literature and philosophy to show how people understood beauty then. He sees three phases. First the aesthetics of proportion in direct connection with the greek mathematical heritage and the biblical teachings about the wisdom of the creation by God who projected his own balanced vision and essence in every single creature. Second the asthetics of light which reveals a more sensorial and even sensual approach to beauty in the fact that light and colors are beautiful at first contact and felt as such without any reflection. Finally the aesthetics of the organism that sees beauty in the fact that a complex composition is the creation of perfect balance among all the elements that are themselves balanced in the same way at a lower level. The second great approach is that of allegorical and symbolical beauty. For philosophers and theologians beauty was to be found in the meaning of things and meaning was to be found in the allegorical and symbolical value of every element considered because for them nothing existed that did not represent the higher level of divine nature, divine perfection. Even a representation of the devil can be beautiful if it shows perfectly the ugliness of the beast in him. Yet Thomas Aquinas reveals his deeper sense of beauty in the fact that he provides this concept with a certain amount of autonomy. This autonomy had been in the air for many centuries but he is the first theologian to accept it as an important element in his evaluation of beauty. We find the same dilemma with art. At first art is nothing but what is produced by the manual work of people. But through poetry on one hand, and groups or corporations of artists on the other, the aesthetic value of artistic work is captured at least partly. Yet the book has aged a little bit over the last forty years or so. It does not consider enough the practical and material level of things. The existence of poetical tournaments in important pilgrimage cities like Le Puy in France, the constant use of music and singing (and the specialization of some monks in that field), the training of architects and sculptors in some abbeys to build the churches of their abbeys or their priories. It also does not see that some practices, like poetry, is in perfect continuation of what it was in the celtic, nordic and germanic traditions : the poet was on his way to becoming a druid, or singing epics was part of the know-how of a good warrior, or a celtic god was nothing but a good craftsman in one trade and a good poet and singer, etc. The global evaluation then is slightly defective. This leads him to concentrating on gothic cathedrals and neglecting the romanesque period that built thousands of little marvellous gems in villages with sculptures, paintings, etc. The romanesque period is thus undervalued and the gothic re-orientation is over-valued. The pesrpect