The Winding Ascent: Why Beauty Matters -- a documentary by philosopher Roger Scruton

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Why Beauty Matters -- a documentary by philosopher Roger Scruton

"As for that aesthetic ‘appetency’ (to use Coleridge’s word) upon which so many of the gentle pleasures of life depend, it is open to many disasters: it dies of inanition when beauty is not duly presented to it, beauty in words, in pictures and music, in tree and flower and sky. The function of the sense of beauty is to open a paradise of pleasure for us.” (Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6, A Philosophy of Education, p. 56, via Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience)

Many thanks to Linda Fay, via Hans Gruen, for telling us about the importance of this thought-provoking documentary. In advance of a future blog post on beauty, I'm posting this (for adult viewing only). If you haven't yet seen Linda Fay's blog, Charlotte Mason Help, do check it out soon. She offers very concrete explanations that will help you grow in your ability to teach using the Charlotte Mason method.

Wishing you many blessings as you seek to immerse yourselves in this glorious way of life,

Megan

"Using the thoughts of philosophers from Plato to Kant, and by talking to artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton analyses where art went wrong and presents his own impassioned case for restoring beauty to its traditional position at the center of our civilization." Hans Gruen

Lamenting the current state of the art world, Stefano Acunto, chairman of the Italian Academy Foundation, says, “Our art spurns reason in a tipsy, self-inebriated and self-anointed binge of self-expression, attempting to capture the soul of our age by holding up a mirror of its very emptiness.”

"Art is an extravagant beauty, it feeds us more than what we need just to exist or survive. It is a rich feast for the senses. Great art is a reflection of God’s truth, His images, His creation." (Jeannette Tulis, Classical Ideas of Truth, Goodness and Beauty in a Charlotte Mason Curriculum)

1 comment:

walkingFebruary 8, 2013 at 9:03 PM
Thanks for posting the link to the documentary. I look forward to watching it.
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The Habit of Attention

"The mother who is distrustful of her own power of steady effort may well take comfort in two facts. In the first place, she herself acquires the habit of training her children in a given habit, so that by-and-by it becomes, not only no trouble, but a pleasure to her. In the second place, the child's most fixed and dominant habits are those which the mother takes no pains about, but which the child picks up for himself through his close observation of all that is said and done, felt and thought, in his home." (vol 1, pg 137)

The Actual Sistene Madonna

"My object to-day is to give some account of one particular branch of the teaching of the Parents' Review School--of our Picture Talks, as they are descriptively called. We are justified in according them a place in our school programme, by our definition of education as "the science of relations." In these lessons we aim at putting the children in touch with the great artist minds of all ages. We try to unlock for their delectation the wonderful garden of Art, in which grow most lovely flowers, most wholesome fruits. We want to open their eyes and minds to appreciate the masterpieces of pictorial art, to lead them from mere fondness for a pretty picture which pleases the senses up to honest love and discriminating admiration for what is truly beautiful-- a love and admiration which are the response of heart and intellect to the appeal addressed to them through the senses by all great works of art." (Picture Talks by Miss K. R. Hammond Volume 12, no. 7, July 1901, pgs. 501-509.)