Theological Aesthetics by Richard Viladesau

Theological Aesthetics by Richard Viladesau

This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesaus goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.

If FrViladesau's book whets our appetite for a deeper consideration of the subject which is endlessly absorbing, like God, it will have succeeded. Do read it, it is enthralling. * Mass of Ages (magazine of the Latin Mass Society) *
Fr. Viladesau restores aesthetics to the sanctuary for which it was designed by Aristotle, and before him, by God. * Mass of Ages (magazine of the Latin Mass Society) *
Its thesis cries to be spread abroad in our aesthetically starving and minimalised Church, stripped nearly everywhere of iconography, of musical and artistic beauty. * Mass of Ages (magazine of the Latin Mass Society) *
Viladesau covers some important topics, and what he has to say about them is interesting and often illuminating. * Religion *

Richard Viladesau is Associate Professor of Theology and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Theology, Fordham University.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780195126228
ISBN 10	019512622X
Titel	Theological Aesthetics
Autor	Richard Viladesau
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Verlag	Oxford University Press Inc
Erscheinungsjahr	1999-09-16
Seitenanzahl	320
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.