The World of Beauty
August 30, 2019
George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley; 1856
THE WORLD OF BEAUTY is the world of intermediary hierarchies which are irradiated with the glory that cascades down from the Trinity even into the formless opacity of matter. The beautiful is the world of forms*** between that which is above, being the sphere of God, and that which has no form at all, being mere matter. The modern world shuts out that intermediate order. It recognizes nothing between scientific thinking and mystical possession, and in so doing denies completely the sphere which it is the function of art to reconstitute by giving back to the universe its depths.
— Jean Danielou, Prayer as a Political Problem
***”Form” is used here in the Platonic sense and refers to spiritual essences, or souls.
