Here is a recent interview I did with Brandon Vaidyanathan of Catholic University of America for his Beauty at Work podcast.
I met Brandon at the Scala Foundation conference in Princeton last year, and caught up with him again at this year’s conference.
Brandon is a sociology professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, and his channel is about how beauty works in our world and shapes the work we do, exploring the meaning of beauty in relation to science, justice, morality, food, religion, work, and other aspects of our lives. Through the interviews he conductsm he examines how beauty works -- how it shapes our personal and social lives in ways that may both contribute to and impede our flourishing.
I talk about my work as a painter and how my training at university in science has contributed to that. I expand further on how I feel that training as a painter might contribute to creativity in scientific research.
In the course of the interview, I refer to the work of the 17th century Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The Abduction of Proserpina, 1621-22
Bernini deliberately cut deeply into the stone to generate sharp shadows, and create a rhythmical array of lines that mimic the mathematical parabolas and ellipses that the physicist uses to describe the natural order.
An Image of the Sacred Heart Containing Flowers of the Tree of Life in Paradise
This is the final article in a series of three. In Part 1, I developed the idea of the impulse for beauty as a principle for choice that complements the moral conscience. In Part 2, I suggested ways in which the creative impulse for beauty can be stimulated and formed in our own lives, drawing on the artistic and spiritual tradition of the Church. I now focus on a single painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is embedded with design principles that conform to the pattern of beauty that can permeate our lives too.
Let us consider an image that is ordered to the number eight in a way that might be surprising. This image is of Christ as the flower of the new Tree of Life, containing a seed that dies and then germinates to new life in us, as described in the Gospel (John 12, 24-26). We who are joined to Christ through the Eucharist can become flowers of paradise too.
The 6th-century saint Boethius, in his book De institutione arithmetica, describes the proportion 3:5:8 as one of among ten, which is musically derived. Amongst the others is one he calls The Fourth of Four, one from a group of four related proportions. In this book, Boethius does not ascribe any Christian significance to the numerical relationships; he is simply content to describe the mathematical basis of proportions commonly held to be beautiful. The Christological symbolism comes, I suggest, from the significance of the individual numbers of that proportion in Christian numerology: 3 is the number of the Trinity and spiritual life, 5 is the number of humanity (from the fact that we have five senses), and 8 (the sum of three and five), is the number of Christ, who is simultaneously God and man. This is also, incidentally, the proportion of the idealized man as described by the Roman author Vitruvius in his textbook written for architects in the 1st century AD.
The image of the Sacred Heart seen below includes a portrayal of the Flower of Christ in paradise. Each of the four rectangles that form the arms of a cross in the border contains a stylized representation of a plant which consists of a bulb containing a triangle, connected to a stem, which has a five-petalled flower or seed.
The bulb, or root, is the Trinity; the five-petalled flower, represents his humanity, and the plant as a whole, numerically represented by the number eight – three plus five – is the Flower of Christ in paradise. The Fruit that comes from this flower is that of the Tree of Life, forbidden to Adam and Eve, and which is now offered to each of us in the Eucharist.
Partaking of the divine nature as part of the Church, we too become spiritual flowers in Paradise. Christ is the fruit of those heavenly blooms, and He is offered to those who are drawn in by the sweet fragrance emanating from the flower, which corresponds to the love of Christ we perceive, one hopes, in our lives. It is the beauty of our lives that directs others to the source of that beauty, Christ.
The impulse to beauty, that conscience of creativity in our hearts, when attuned to the beauty of Christ, helps us to be by degrees an ever-more brilliantly colored, beautifully formed, and sweetly fragrant Christ-like Flower of Paradise. Unlike the natural flower, this one does not fade, wither and die in time. Rather, it becomes steadily more perfect and radiant in its beauty as we lead a Christian life, reaching the fullness of perfection when we are in union with him in the next life. We become eternal flowers in paradise.
“Jesse rejoices and David exults. Behold, like a branch planted by God, the Virgin has brought forth Christ, the eternal flower!” (From Morning Prayer on the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, the second after Easter in the Byzantine Rite.)
The Maryvale Sacred Heart, painted by David Clayton; egg tempera on wooden panel, based upon a traditional design.
The painting above was commissioned in 2005 for the chapel at the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham, England, and is based upon a stained-glass window made in France in the 18th century which is in a side chapel at the Institute, the national center for the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
This is the second article in a series of three. In Part 1, I developed the idea of the impulse for beauty as a principle of choice like the moral conscience. This week, in Part 2, I suggest ways in which the creative impulse for beauty can be stimulated and formed in our own lives; in Part 3, as a meditation on the themes outlined, I will focus on a single painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, one which is embedded with principles of design that conform to the pattern of beauty that can also permeate our lives.
How do we develop the impulse of beauty so that it can be a guide in the choices we make in life? We each have different abilities to apprehend beauty, and so we can’t always be sure that we can trust our judgments. Just as our fallen natures and cultural influences can distort our perceptions of what is good and true, they can diminish our abilities to apprehend beauty too. We need to find a way, therefore, to develop our capacity to recognize what is truly beautiful, in order to be able to follow the Way of Beauty. The answer lies, I believe in the traditional formation of Catholic artists, and a traditional Catholic education that transmits the essentials of the practice of our faith.
The greatest transformation for the good in any aspect of our human nature – including the impulse for beauty – is achieved through a personal encounter with Jesus, most especially, in the Eucharist. However, there are some specific things that can be done to stimulate and develop the artistic conscience within us in support of this.
Study Scripture
The life of Christ is the object lesson in living a beautiful life, so the more we study it and imitate it, the more we develop the faculty for living a beautiful life in us. Within that, we might consider, for example, the Eight Beatitudes, a set of affirmative principles that guide us in what we ought to do, in contrast with the Ten Commandments, which are prohibitive and tell us what not to do.
The Beatitudes are called so because in their Latin form each begins with the word “Beati”, meaning “happy.” Each is offered as a principle for a happy, ordered, and beautiful life. Study of, and meditation upon both the Ten Commandments and the Eight Beatitudes will help to impress their meanings upon our hearts, so that our natural inclination will be to apply them in the myriad of different situations that we face each day.
Similarly the Wisdom books of the bible (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs (or “of Solomon”), Wisdom, and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) can be studied as sources of affirmative principles for living. They impart knowledge that leads one to live rightly in relation to God, and in relation to neighbor. The Psalms and Proverbs especially can be fruitful. The former are, of course, at the heart of our liturgy, and the latter was the book traditionally studied by catechumens prior to being received into the Church.
Compare Your Life with the Ideal of Blessedness and of the Life of Christ
When I was in my mid-twenties, over 30 years ago now, I was persuaded to undertake a series of spiritual exercises in order to determine my calling in life. I describe them in my book, The Vision for You. What I didn’t realize was that this was really a process that would enable me to re-order my whole life, and that this re-ordering of my life was the real gift that I was being offered.
As part of this, I was encouraged to consider how “blessed” I was each day. As well as the more conventional examination of conscience, which considers contravention of the moral law, I was encouraged to adopt a daily examen that focused also on the consideration of my sins as a rupture in the order of my life, and hence in my relationship with God. So not only did I ask myself, “What have I done wrong?”, I also asked myself, “What am I unhappy about, and why?”
Then I was guided as to how to analyze my unhappiness so as to see how it was my own self-centeredness – sin in other words – that was the cause, and then how to correct it with God’s help. It is a daily practice that I still keep. In this understanding, sin can be voluntary or involuntary, known or unknown (until this process highlights it). The effects of this process in my life, by the way, have been spectacular. It led not only to a happier and more fulfilling life, but also to my choosing a path that allowed me to become an artist and, most importantly, to my conversion to Catholicism!
Pray with, and Meditate upon the Image of Christ in Sacred Art
Aside from the words that describe the life of Christ and Salvation History, we can become acquainted with Jesus Christ through the traditional images of His person in sacred art. The style and content of Catholic liturgical art were developed so as to communicate through beauty aspects of the Word in a single sight, truths that, in some instances, are beyond words, and only grasped in the heart in love. Accordingly, we can follow the example of Christians through centuries and develop the habit of praying with sacred art. My suggestion is to create an icon corner in your home so as to create a domestic church, and make it the focus of your daily prayers.
At the heart of that icon or image corner should be three images: first on the left, Mary with Our Lord, second in the center Christ on the cross, and third on the right the Risen Christ or Christ in heavenly glory. Examples of the latter might be Christ in Majesty (enthroned), Christ Pantocrator (blessing), or the Mandylion (Christ’s face on a cloth, for example a Veronica cloth image), or Christ at the Transfiguration. These categories of image speak to us collectively of the essence of salvation history: Christ the Son of God became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, taking his humanity from her.
Madonna and Child, Raphael, 16th century, Italy
He suffered and died on the cross, and rose from the dead. By our Baptism, we die spiritually with Him, and He takes on our sin and suffering.
We rise with him in Baptism, and Confirmation by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through Communion, we partake of the divine nature, entering into the mystery of the Trinity.
Christ Pantocrator by Martin Earle, 21st century, English
This is the moment that Christian joy transcends suffering. The actual external cause of the suffering may still be present in our lives, but now there is a consolation that is deeper and greater through Christ. This is the joy and peace that “surpasses understanding” that is on offer to all, even those who mourn and who are poor in spirit! This is the Way of Beauty.
How to Pray with Sacred Art
Long books have been written on the subject of how to pray with sacred art, but frankly, I’m not sure why or how they manage to fill so many pages. In fact, praying with sacred art is not difficult. You pray as you would normally, except you keep your eyes open and look at the images as you do so. That’s it. There’s nothing more to add!
Adopt the Pattern of Christ In Your Life - the Importance of the Number Eight
To the degree that we seek to consciously adopt the pattern of the Light and of Christ as best we can grasp it and live it, beginning with our prayer lives, we are living the pattern of divine beauty and order. The number eight is not the only governing principle of that pattern, but it is perhaps the most important principle, and a good starting point for those looking to bring the pattern of beauty into their lives.
Many will be familiar with the idea that the number eight is the governing number of beauty in music. The eight-note scale, the octave, is the key to all musical harmony, as we know, but it also has a spiritual beauty:
Christ is the “eighth day” of creation, who by His life, death, and resurrection ushers in the New Covenant. Seven is the number of the old covenant, and eight is the number of the new. We celebrate His resurrection on Sunday, which is considered the eighth day of the week and, simultaneously the first day of the week.
Jesus is the Sun, Rising in the East, the orient, to whom we orient our prayer. The rising sun is the symbol of the second coming of the Light, the Son of God, in majesty. The number eight, properly used, is the mark of this affirmative, enjoining principle of beauty that draws us to itself and directs us to Him. The eight Beatitudes are structured, accordingly, even beyond the words they contain, to speak of the pattern of Christ, and we are hardwired by God to respond to its pattern just as we are made to respond to the beauty of the cosmos.
A 14th-century Palestinian illumination of the opening to the Gospel of St Mark. Note the octagon in the center of the page.
Similarly, the seven petitions in the Lord’s prayer are really eight petitions, for the fourth, “Give us this day our daily bread,” has a double meaning. It means our daily food for physical nourishment, but alsothe body of Christ in the Eucharist for our spiritual nourishment. Again, the pattern of eight draws us into a deeper grasp meaning of the prayer.
When we lead a life that revolves around a weekly cycle of Sunday Mass, it is ordered to the Eighth Day, which is a repeated celebration of an Octave of Easter throughout the year. In the context of the liturgy, an ‘octave’ is a reference to the commemoration of a feast or even eight days after the first.
If we pray the Liturgy of the Hours, then too, we are participating in the daily cycle of prayer of the Church. Praying the Hours was seen traditionally as a process of tithing time – giving an appropriate proportion of the day to God. Following the ancient Jewish practice of praising God, “seven times a day” and “at midnight”, as described in Psalm 118 (119), Christians since the time of the Apostles have prayed eight occasions of prayer in the day. The more we can order our external lives to this pattern of prayer, as part of the Christian life, the more that we order our spirits and our hearts – where the spiritual and material are enjoined – to Christ. If we cannot manage the whole monastic Office (and most of us cannot,) we might perhaps aim to mark each hour each day with a single psalm. In the Byzntine tradition, the following psalms are said every day at these Offices, and so as a suggestion, one might start here:
It is commonly supposed that abstract art - using the term here to mean non-figurative art - is an invention of the 20th century, starting, perhaps, with figures such as Kandinsky. It might surprise some to discover that this is not the case. The Christian tradition of abstract art which aims to represent number through geometric form has existed as long as there has been Christian art. And because, like Christian figurative art, it owes its inspiration to the ancient Greek and Roman art which preceded it, we can say that it has its roots in Western culture that go back well before the Christian era.
Examples of mathematical art in the Christian tradition are the decorative patterns that we might see in the architectural details, borders, and tiled floors of a Gothic or Romanesque church. If we do not know what we are looking at it, is easy to overlook these or to dismiss them as the frivolous self-indulgences of artisans. They are not. They are very likely carefully thought out and designed to connect the numbers or mathematical relationships they portray to the artifact they adorn, and in so doing, connect any symbolic association of the mathematics to that artifact too.
We might think of a simple six-fold design on a church floor. This one is a detail of one in Santa Maria in Cosmedin, in Italy.
In addition to this crystalline, geometric-based art, there is a softer, calligraphic decorative art that might also be considered mathematical in concept. The sweeping intricate lines of a Celtic illuminated manuscript, of an idealized acacia plant in a Romanesque mosaic, or in the baroque scroll of an ornate gilt frame are all inspired by the grace and flow of the patterns of nature particularly as observed in vegetation. The shapes are idealized by introducing symmetry to highlight order. This was done, one assumes, intuitively by the artists, but to the modern eye, they are evocative of the mathematics of nature as expressed by modern science; they bear the mark of the exponential curves, parabolas, and sine waves that the scientist uses to describe the natural order.
Here is a picture of idealized vegetation, a detail of a 12th century mosaic in the church of San Clemente in Rome. The crucifixion is a Tree of Life springing forth from idealized vegetation. There are additional limbs emanating from this base which morph into more abstracted decorative scroll designs.
In this illumination from the mid-15th century, we can see the border pattern extending the degree of idealization so that is closer to an abstract design. It is attributed to an anonymous artist called the Master of Girart de Roussillon.
In the border of this illumination of St Matthew in the 7th century Book of Durrow, we see similar smooth flowing lines which are pure form. They are not representations of vegetation but the flow of line is derived from it.
When I look at most buildings designed in the traditional manner - this would be most built before the Second World War - it strikes me that the goal of the architect in his design is beauty, and that he seeks visual harmony through an appropriate proportioning of the parts in their different magnitudes. Generally, these were deliberately chosen to conform to a mathematical pattern whcih was believed to correspond to the pattern of the beauty of the cosmos, and which in turn participates in the pattern of divine beauty.
In contrast, when I look at modern buildings built since roughly the Second World War, I discern just two simple guiding principles of architectural design. These are even spacing and random spacing. Neither, in my opinion, is a principle of beauty. The first, even spacing, generates visual monotony. The second, random spacing, generates visual cacophony.
Harmony, monotony, and cacophony are the good, the bad, and the ugly of architectural form.
The traditional design principle has its origins in the mathematics of the ancient Greeks, and in one form or another was used, unquestioned, as the standard mode of design in art and architecture in the West until the period around the end of the 19th century. At that point, artists, architects and musical composers began, quite deliberately, to reject the tradition, and with it all traditional forms. By the mid-20th century, it had not only been rejected but, with very few exceptions, all but forgotten.
Does this matter? I think so, because I think beauty matters. The test for each of us to decide if it matters is to consider the buildings we would prefer to see, live and work in.
Consider first this Georgian house built in 17th century England.
What we see here is a classic manifestation of visual harmony in which, like a musical chord which is comprised of three different notes, each story has a different magnitude, and the combination is, to my eye at least, pleasing. That certainly was the intention of the architect in designing it this way.
Contrast this with the following more recent building, in which every story is evenly spaced.
I would characterize this using another musical analogy. It is a visual manifestation of a string quartet in which four identical violins play nothing but the continuous sounding of one note. However, clean and pure that note might be, however perfectly rendered, it quickly gets dull to listen to. It is, quite literally, monotonous.
The building below is built on the same design principle but on a grander scale, so that the result is the visual equivalent of a vast Mahler-sized orchestra, but once again, consisting of only one instrument, say 100 violins, all playing the same note. It doesn’t matter how many times you replicate that note, it is still monotonous. If that monotone is blasted at us through a megaphone, which is the visual equivalent of what is happening here, it gets worse, because we cannot escape it, and it obliterates all else around it that might be beautiful. In this case, it becomes offensive.
Here’s another example displaying a different design principle. Look at this building below.
First of all, can you guess what its purpose is?
Believe it or not, it’s a church. This random design is directed by uninformed intuition, the visual equivalent of cacophony. It is like the effect you would get if you had an orchestra comprised of many different instruments with each musician just playing notes randomly, and completely without any regard for what the others are playing. Here’s another church in the same vein.
Does this look like a building made to house the worship of God expressed through the beauty of chant and polyphony? The piece of music that best corresponds to this design that I can think of is Stockhausen’s absurd Helicopter String Quartet.
The traditional mathematics of beauty, in contrast, is an authentic analysis of the common human perception of the world around us, and is richer and more varied as a result. Furthermore, it is the basis upon which a Christian architecture is built. The mathematics of harmony and proportion came from classical sources, but was developed and enriched, just as instrumental music itself developed in the context of a Christian culture.
The more that we try to be different, as a deliberate statement of originality, the more, it seems that everything looks the same. The ugliness of so much modern architecture, and art and music for that matter, confirms for me the truth of the principle that there is no order outside God’s order, only disorder.
For those who want to know more about the mathematics of beauty, you can read my book, The Way of Beauty or for an even more detailed account, take the online class offered at www.Pontifex.University’s Master of Sacred Arts program called The Mathematics of Beauty.
I have just been creating a new online course on the mathematics of beauty, as part of which, I wanted to show how to represent the symbolic meaning of number in the context of the liturgy, in such a way that it might deepen participation. The obvious way to do this is to have a pattern with the symmetry of the number. This will require also some catechesis of the congregations, so that they are reminded of what it is pointing to every time they see it.
It can be part of the decoration of the church, incidental, as it were, to the structure,
or it can be more intimately and obviously bound with the form of the church, as it is in the medieval rose window. Here is a window dating from about 1500 in the cathedral at Amiens in France.
It is important to awaken our innate sense of the symbolism of the natural world and all that is created, as this also stimulates our natural sense of the divine. The awe and wonder that we feel when we contemplate the world around us is, for all its seeming profundity, little better than a shallow emotion generated artificially by a drug if we stop there and do not allow it to draw us closer to its source, which is God. This is its true consummation: we are made to see the glory of God in His creation, and it will be to His greater glory and our greater joy if we allow the beauty of the world to take us to what it points to.
We can consider this to be a form of relationship. Creation is in relationship to its Creator. By virtue of its existence, it is relational, for it is connected to its Creator by the mark of divine beauty which He has impressed upon it. This interconnectivity of all that exists, therefore, is not a mental construct thrust upon the cosmos artificially by mankind. Rather, it is a property of the object that we see. All being is relational by nature, a patterned lattice that has the Creator at its heart.
As created beings ourselves, we also participate in this dynamic, seeing a natural connection between ourselves and the rest of the cosmos. All of mankind is endowed by the Creator with intellect and the capacity to observe the world around us in such as way that we can derive from it an understanding of our place within it. Ultimately, this points to and sheds light on our relationship with the Creator.
Part of our task as people seeking to evangelize the world is to re-awaken the final link in the chain of connection between creation and Creator by re-establishing a culture that is rooted in this principle of interconnectivity through its beauty. This process of evangelization of the culture begins in the church, in which all that we perceive and all that we do participates in this language of symbol and is there to connect us to God.
Coming back to the symbolism of number, it is widely accepted, even in the secular culture, that the natural world is connected to mathematics. The connection is so strong that, for example, few if any doubt the power of mathematics to help the natural scientist describe the processes of the natural world. However, I think we should stop for a moment and consider about this - it need not automatically be the case. Once I realised this, it became a source of great wonder to me that the abstract world of mathematics is so intimately bound in its structure with the behaviour of the natural world.
This had to be noticed before the connection could be made, and it is a figure such as Boethius commented, in his De Institutione Arithmetica, (1.2) that “number was the principal exemplar in the mind of the Creator.” From this is derived the pattern of its existence that the scientist observes.
The natural scientist of today is generally less aware of the symbolism that runs through both nature and mathematics. The medieval thinker would not have rejected the method of today’s natural scientists, but would have added to his description of the natural world the symbolic language of number, which is largely forgotten today. If scientists were to do this today, the technology which they use would enhance their work, and allow its applications to grow in harmony with the flourishing of man. The proponent of sacred number has something that can help him to be a better scientist, rather than stand in conflict with him.
Geometry expresses number in space through matter, which why geometric patterned art ought to be right at the heart of the evangelization of the culture and any sacred art. It is also why the study of the symbolic meaning of number in conjunction with the study of geometry is so important in a Catholic education today. What I propose is a study of geometry that is so much deeper, and more exciting than the dull task of memorizing Euclidian proofs, which sadly seems to be the way it is taught in Great Books schools today. Such a study would connect the pattern of the universe to the creative impulse of man, so that the beauty of the culture can direct us to God even more powerfully than the most beautiful sunset you have ever seen.
This is why I would like to see the rebirth of the Rose Window in our new churches. This is more than simple decoration; if done well, it has the power to stimulate in us a profound sense of our place in the world and in relation to God. Assuming that, even if we got as far as putting them in churches, the catechesis available would be minimal or poor (we’re Catholics!), they would need to be designed in such a way that the symbolism was obvious. There is no reason why Scriptural quotes or other texts could not be added in order to make their symbolism clear, as may also be done in figurative art.
Here I give some examples of such windows with three-, four-, five- and seven-fold symmetry. I have obtained these photographs from a great resource that I discovered online called therosewindow.com, run by Painton Cowen, who kindly gave us permission to reproduce his photographs here. This sitehas photos of windows based upon numbers that aren’t typically used with Christian symbolism, 11 and 13, for example. I would want to consider carefully the basis of these before replicating them today. The past has must to teach us, but not everything that it tells us is true!
Here are some images.
Three, 15th century, Barrien, France
Four and three in a quincunx arrangement of five objects, 15th century, Agen, France
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