460.01a light from light
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Transcript of 460.01a light from light
LIGHT FROM LIGHTMedieval Concepts in Art and Beauty
PLOTINUS
Splendor and Simplicity: Order Over Reason and Impulse
Pantheon
Unity/Oneness
Purity/Simplicity
SYNCRETISM: A FUSION
Chaotic Matter
Intellectual
Principle
Souls/Motion
Nature
Mystery
SPLENDOR
Mind
Love
Fire, Light, Light
Reactive Material, &
Song
Fire itself is splendid
beyond all other materials, an
ideal for the other elements,
striving ever upwards, the
subtlest and sprightliest of all
materials, as very near to the
spiritual; itself alone admitting
no other, all the others
penetrated by it: For they take
warmth but this is never cold;
it is primal color; they receive
the form of color from it:
Hence the splendor of its
light, the splendor that
belongs to the Idea. And all
that has resisted and is but
uncertainly held by its light
remains outside of beauty, as
not having absorbed the
plenitude of the form of color.
–Plotinus, Enneads Darkness
All the loveliness of color and even the
light of the sun, being devoid of parts
and so not beautiful by symmetry, must
be ruled out of the realm of beauty. And
how comes gold to be a beautiful thing?
And lightning by night, and the stars,
why are these so fair?
The beauty of color is also the outcome
of a unification: it derives from shape,
from the conquest of the darkness
inherent in Matter by the pouring-in of
light, the unembodied, which is a
Rational-Principle and an Ideal-Form.
–Plotinus EnneadsSuger’s Chalice
But where the Ideal-Form has entered, it has grouped and coordinated what from a diversity of
parts was to become a unity: it has rallied confusion into co-operation: it has made the sum one
harmonious coherence: for the Idea is a unity and what it moulds must come to unity as far as
multiplicity may.
–Plotinus Enneads
Sainte Chapelle
This, then, is how the material thing
becomes beautiful- by communicating
in the thought that flows from the
Divine.
–Plotinus Enneads
Rose Window
And on what has thus been
compacted to unity, Beauty
enthrones itself, giving itself
to the parts as to the sum:
when it lights on some
natural unity, a thing of like
parts, then it gives itself to
that whole. Thus, for an
illustration, there is the
beauty, conferred by
craftsmanship, of all a
house with all its parts, and
the beauty which some
natural quality may give to a
single stone.
Hence it is that Fire itself is splendid
beyond all material bodies, holding the
rank of Ideal-Principle to the other
elements, making ever upwards, the
subtlest and sprightliest of all bodies, as
very near to the unembodied; itself alone
admitting no other, all the others
penetrated by it: for they take warmth but
this is never cold; it has color primally;
they receive the Form of color from it:
hence the splendor of its light, the
splendor that belongs to the Idea. And all
that has resisted and is but uncertainly
held by its light remains outside of
beauty, as not having absorbed the
plenitude of the Form of color.
–Plato Philebus 51c
Sainte Chapelle
SPLENDOR
Splendor, the view that beauty is Divine:
Simple (not compositional but consisting in
purity and unity) and Mystical (beyond
mere human reason), and belongs to the
soul, though in the material world can be
found in light.
SPLENDORFor Plotinus fire was splendid, for Abbot Suger light reactive
materials such as stained glass, gold, and jewels were splendid.
Plotinus held that fire was the material closest to Unity, while Suger
held that splendor helped the “dull mind rises to truth through that
which is material” and, “in seeing this light, is resurrected from its
former submersion”. Plotinus remarked how gold became more
beautiful as it was purified from other materials, and Suger spoke of
how jewels called one’s attention away from earthly cares to
contemplate the divine. Splendor inverts the Plato’s metaphors of
the eye, the sun and reason into concepts like The Cloud of
Unknowing or The Dark Night of the Soul. An example of such
splendor would be the Unison considered by some to be the perfect
ratio, 1:1, represented geometrically by the square, the circle, and
the sphere and in music by chants. Another example might be
beauty found in a sample of pure gold, or a striking shade of color,
or a single note.
BONAVENTURE
Polysemy: Order Against Meaninglessness
Michelangelo Doni Tondo
BONAVENTURE: 4 SENSES
Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam
in its literal sense it is one, still, in its spiritual and mystical sense,
it is threefold, for in all the books of Sacred Scripture, in addition to
the literal meaning which the words outwardly express, there is
understood a threefold spiritual meaning: namely, the allegorical,
by which we are taught what to believe concerning the Divinity and
humanity; the moral, by which we are taught how to live; and the
anagogical, by which we are taught how to be united to God.
BONAVENTURE: LOWER LIGHT
It is called the lower light because sense perception begins
with a material object and takes place by the aid of corporeal
light. It has five divisions corresponding to the five senses. If
the light or brightness which makes possible the discernment
of things corporeal exists in a high degree of its own property
and in a certain purity, it is the sense of sight; commingled with
the air, it is hearing; with vapor, it is smell; with fluid, it is taste;
with solidity of earth, it is touch.
BONAVENTURE: OUTER LIGHT
...we can with reason distinguish what we may call the external light, or the light of
mechanical art…. Every mechanical art is intended for man's consolation or comfort;
its purpose is to banish either sorrow or want; it either benefits or delights.. If,
however, it is intended for the comfort or betterment of the exterior, it can accomplish
its purpose by providing either covering or food…an art which extends to every
conceivable way of preparing foods, drinks, and delicacies--a task with which bakers,
cooks, and innkeepers are concerned.
BONAVENTURE: INNER LIGHT
The light of philosophical knowledge illumines
the intellectual faculty itself and this
enlightenment may be threefold: if it governs the
motive power, it is moral philosophy (ethics); if it
rules itself it is natural philosophy (physics); if it
directs interpretation, it is discursive philosophy
(logic).School of Athens (Philosophy) by Raphael
BONAVENTURE: HIGHER LIGHT
This light is called higher because it leads to things
above by the manifestation of truths which are
beyond reason and also because it is not acquired by
human research, but comes down by inspiration from
the "Father of Lights. "
POLYSEMY
Polysemy, the view that beauty is
meaningful and has multiple harmonious
interpretations.
POLYSEMY
Polysemous, a term dating to Dante indicating the
many meanings latent in a text, who secularized the
concept. Bonaventure generalized polysemy, thus
Splendor is amenable to four interpretations: lower
light, or actual visible light (the literal meaning), outer
light, or the functional design of an artifact meant to
comfort or console (the moral meaning), inner light, or
the intellectual understanding of a thing (natural
philosophy or what we would now call ‘science’, hence
the allegorical meaning) and higher light, which brings
one to contemplate the Divine, hence the anagogical
meaning.