Beauty and Ugliness Can Be Seen

by Romanus Cessario, O.P., appearing in Volume 47

Theologians and artists belong together. Saint Thomas Aquinas supplies one reason for the happy companionship that theologians and artists should enjoy. In one of his minor works, Aquinas writes: “God is the fount of all beauty; every kind of beauty is his.” Accordingly, one may conclude that the Russian author was on to something when he wrote, “beauty will save the world.” Of course, Aquinas would not allow us to romanticize the place beauty holds in our salvation. For the Common Doctor, the beautiful must be seen. Faith, however, as Hebrews assures us, gives us knowledge of what remains unseen (Hebrews 11:1).

Original Sin obscured the beauty of God’s creation. Thus, the first parents “sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves” (Genesis 3:7). They hid from God. All sinful disorder may be called ugly. Why? Sin lacks both integrity and proportion with respect to those actions that perfect the human being. Ugliness also can be seen. Such appears most plainly in the glutton and the drunkard. However, sinful pride and hatred of God exhibit their own forms of ugliness.

Only Christ can restore to creation the right ordering to God that sin destroys. Divine faith alone unites both theologians and artists to Christ. So such folks clearly belong together. Does this mean that only the saint should aspire to being an artist? Counter examples come easily to mind: Caravaggio (d. 1610) and, earlier, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as il Sodoma (d. 1549). Still, rectitude of spirit seems the best personal disposition for the artist who wishes to display a beauty that clearly enjoys God as its fount.

This homily was given at the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists Conference at Ave Maria University.