Von Balthasar says somewhere that beauty makes demands, and suggests that this is a natural analogy to the attitude of faith, which is like an aesthetic response to the form of Christ.
Beauty makes demands. If I hear the central movement of Beethoven’s Appassionata or any of a dozen other pieces of music, I can’t do anything else. I’ve got to listen. Try not breathing deeply when you catch a whiff of hyacinth. Try not looking at a beautiful landscape, a beautiful building, a beautiful woman. It’s possible not to look, but it takes an act of resistance, a rebellion.
David Bentley Hart appeals to this to establish the objectivity of beauty: If beauty were purely subjective, could it command attention, could it fascinate, could it surprise?
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War
What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…
How the State Failed Noelia Castillo
On March 26, Noelia Castillo, a twenty-five-year-old Spanish woman, was killed by her doctors at her own…
The Mind’s Profane and Sacred Loves
The teachers you have make all the difference in your life. That they happened to come into…
