The Via Pulchritudinis
Beginning with the simple experience of the marvel-arousing meeting with
beauty, the via pulchritudinis can
open the pathway for the search for God. Beauty itself cannot be reduced to
simple pleasure of the senses: this would be to deprive it of its universality,
its supreme value, which is transcendent. Perception requires an education, for
beauty is only authentic in its link to the truth—of what would brilliance be,
if not truth?— and it is at the same time "the visible expression of the
good” (J.P. II) "Is not beauty the surest route to attain the good?"
asked Max Jacob.
To say that
something is beautiful is not only to recognise it intelligible and therefore
loveable, but also, in specifying our knowledge, it attracts us, or captures us
with a ray capable of igniting marvel. To travel the way of beauty implies
educating the youth for beauty, helping them develop a critical spirit to
discern the various offerings of media culture, and aid them shape their senses
and their character to grow and lead into true maturity.
Moreover, as it expresses a certain power of attraction, beauty tells
forth[1]reality
itself in the perfection of its form. It is its epiphany. It manifests it by
expressing its internal brightness. If the good speaks the desirable, the
beautiful tells forth the splendour and light of the perfection
it manifests. Beauty, as much as truth and good, leads us to God, the first
truth, supreme good, and beauty itself. But beauty means more than the truth or
the good.
The world urgently needs this, as Pope Paul VI underlined in his vibrant
Message to Artists on 8 December 1965
at the end of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council: "This world in which
we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth,
which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists
the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things
in admiration."
Contemplated
with a pure soul, beauty speaks directly to the heart, turning astonishment to
marvel, admiration to gratitude, happiness to contemplation. Thereby[2]
it creates a fertile terrain to listen and dialogue with men, engaging the
whole man—spirit and heart, intelligence and reason, creative capacity and
imagination. It is unlikely to result in[3]
indifference; it provokes emotions, it puts in movement a dynamism of deep
interior transformation that engenders joy, feelings of fullness, desire to
participate freely in this same beauty, making it one's own in interiorising it
and integrating it into one's own concrete existence.
The way of
beauty replies to the intimate desire for happiness that resides in the heart
of every person. Opening infinite horizons, it prompts the human person to push
outside of himself, from the routine of the ephemeral passing instant, to the
Transcendent and Mystery, and seek, as the final goal of the ultimate quest for
wellbeing and total nostalgia, this original beauty which is God Himself,
creator of all created beauty.
(Pontificial Council for Culture,
2006)
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