Redeeming Beauty

Redeeming Beauty explores the richness of orthodox Christian tradition, both Western and Eastern, in matters of 'sacral aesthetics' - a term used to denote the foundations, production and experience of religiously relevant beauty. Aidan Nichols investigates five principal themes: the foundation of beauty in the natural order through divine creative action; explicitly 'evangelical' beauty as a quality of biblical revelation and notably at its climax in Christ; the legitimacy of making and venerating artworks; qualities of the self in relation to objective presentation of the religiously beautiful; and the difficulties of practising a sacral aesthetic, whether as producer or consumer, in an epoch when the visual arts themselves have left behind not only Church but for the greater part the public as well. The thought of theologians such as Augustine, Aquinas, Balthasar, Ratzinger, Bulgakov, Maritain and others are explored.

Aidan Nichols O. P. is John Paul II Lecturer in Roman Catholic Theology in the University of Oxford, UK. He has also taught at the Pontifical University of St Thomas, Rome; St Mary's College, Oscott; and Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. He has published some thirty books, and over seventy articles.

Contents: Preface; Part 1 Foundations, in Creation and Grace: Aesthetics in Augustine and Aquinas; The origin and crisis of Christian art. Part 2 Twentieth Century Theologians of the Image: Hans Urs von Balthasar on art as redemptive beauty; Sergei Bulgakov on the art of the icon; Pope Benedict XVI on holy images. Part 3 The Difficulties of Practice: The French Dominicans and the journal L'Art Sacré; The English uses of Maritain's aesthetics: Eric Gill and David Jones. Conclusion: Christ and the muses; Index of names.