As the success of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, has forcefully reminded us, the suffering and death of Christ have traditionally been seen as an appropriate focus for Christian devotion. Although the earliest Christians avoided pictorial images, the cross would soon become the dominant symbol of the faith. The first depictions of the Crucifixion were triumphalist, but over time more realistic images became common. Despite the horror of Crucifixion, however, we often find such pictures beautiful. It is an apparent paradox that some of the great monuments of Western art are representations of the brutal torture and execution of Christ. In this book Richard Viladesau seeks to understand the beauty of the cross as it developed in both theology and art from the early Christian era through the high middle ages. He argues that art and symbolism functioned as an alternative strand of theological expression-sometimes parallel to, sometimes interwoven with, and sometimes in tension with formal theological reflection on the meaning of the Crucifixion and its role in salvation history. In this, the first of an envisioned two-volume work, Viladesau focuses on poetry and the visual arts. The second volume will pursue the topic up to the present day and will draw primarily on music and film.
The emerging field of theological aesthetics can be tracked as far back as Augustine in his Confessions: 'All the affections of our soul, by their own diversity, have their proper measures in voice and song, and are stimulated by I know not what secret correspondence.' Of course, Augustine didn't work out a theology of aesthetics, per se. Historically, theological aesthetics has been practiced and understood in terms of the liturgy (symbolic acts, gestures, language) and preaching (rhetoric). Because of this, centuries of religious art trace the paradigm shifts of whole periods of theology and spiritual development. Richard Viladesau, a professor of theology at Fordham University, has undertaken a theological and aesthetical study of the cross as an aesthetic object and central paradox of the Christian faith, following it from the Patristic period through the beginning of the Reformation and Renaissance. He begins each chapter with a representation of a specific crucifix that correlates with the theological paradigm of its time, illustrating both the theological and artistic development of the cross as image and mystery. Differentiating between crucifixion as murder (physically ugly) and martyrdom (spiritually beautiful), Viladesau explores a concept of beauty deeper than image, encompassing what the poet Rilke called 'the beginning of terror' as well as what Bernard of Clairvaux termed 'the carnal love of Christ' by which Christ's humanity allows us to participate in his divinity.
The emerging field of theological aesthetics can be tracked as far back as Augustine in his Confessions: 'All the affections of our soul, by their own diversity, have their proper measures in voice and song, and are stimulated by I know not what secret correspondence.' Of course, Augustine didn't work out a theology of aesthetics, per se. Historically, theological aesthetics has been practiced and understood in terms of the liturgy (symbolic acts, gestures, language) and preaching (rhetoric). Because of this, centuries of religious art trace the paradigm shifts of whole periods of theology and spiritual development. Richard Viladesau, a professor of theology at Fordham University, has undertaken a theological and aesthetical study of the cross as an aesthetic object and central paradox of the Christian faith, following it from the Patristic period through the beginning of the Reformation and Renaissance. He begins each chapter with a representation of a specific crucifix that correlates with the theological paradigm of its time, illustrating both the theological and artistic development of the cross as image and mystery. Differentiating between crucifixion as murder (physically ugly) and martyrdom (spiritually beautiful), Viladesau explores a concept of beauty deeper than image, encompassing what the poet Rilke called 'the beginning of terror' as well as what Bernard of Clairvaux termed 'the carnal love of Christ' by which Christ's humanity allows us to participate in his divinity.
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