Yes, I've seen a lot of online "critics" who argue that art is subjective, therefore all opinions are valid. But I've always wondered, if art is that subjective, why do people pay so much time and money to learn how to improve the craft? If there is absolutely no objective standard of aesthetics, then improvement in any artistic endeavour is arbitrary and a lie.
Right, even the idea that a skill or work can be improved implies objectivity—otherwise everyone just has their own subjective idea of honing their craft. The major flaw of subjectivism is that it’s not consistent and most people who adopt it do not actually live it out consistently in real life.
Ironically, the “critics” lose their jobs if subjectivism is true, since they lose all grounding to criticize: if everything’s “true,” then there’s nothing to criticize, including objective thought—ah, but logically, both can’t be true! So, there must be some kind of standard…
Wonderful, I attempted to forge a theological (cruciform) aesthetic back in 2023, and this complements it nicely. I'd have to say, though, most people would probably still want to ask, "But what does beauty 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦?" I'm sure there's plenty here on Substack that could answer that, though I'm addressing you, and I think a philosophy of aesthetic realism is foundational, but an 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 makes things more whole. Can we deduce why/if/how a Corinthian pillar or rose window is beautiful, one the basis of our aesthetic metaphysic? Also, I'm curious if we can permit a certain pluralism in aesthetics. Can the Gothic cathedral, a Germanic inculturation of Christian theology, be just as beautiful as a Japanese pagoda? (Esp. if the latter is taken as how a cathedral should look in a Christian Japan.) Thinking out loud a bit here, but you've spoken so much truth I want to prompt you to speak further. 😁
Evan, thank you so much for reading and for your kind words 🙏. Also, for your challenge: EXCELLENT questions you’re asking. Whew! If I had less limitations when I was writing this for seminary, I definitely would’ve explored the “applied aesthetics” as well. I admit this paper is only scratching the surface.
While I won’t be able to address all those questions even close to completion here, I’ll share some things that come to mind for exploration maybe later down the line in a future post.
I know Aquinas builds on Augustine and gets into recognizing qualities or properties (for the lack of a better word) of beauty such as integritas, proportio, and claritas. Much later, Francis Schaefer also touches on this regarding art with his 4 standards: technical excellence, validity, intellectual content, integration of content and vehicle. There are many other standards of judgement many church fathers and prominent theologians have used for evaluating beauty and the arts. (Im just recalling now that there’s a great Substack article on Schaeffer’s standards I’ll forward to you soon!)
As far as my own thoughts, with no sources in front of me or research from half year ago fresh on my mind, I think the subjective role of the beholder is an important one, as much as I emphasized the objective in my paper. While I know there are things that are truly beautiful whether we think so or not, once we recognize that, there are degrees to how much each person recognizes that beauty. And while I think recognizing that there is objective beauty is crucial and essential to rightly-ordered worldview, I think there’s more room for grace in how each person recognizes that beauty.
For example, two people may recognize that a white rose is beautiful (which is good—they ought to recognize that), but one may think it is more beautiful than how the other thinks it is, maybe in comparison to other flowers. That variance I think is OKAY! Some of the variance may be due to our own ignorance, our experience, or how God wired each of us uniquely.
However, I do think there are things which don’t allow for as much variance such as Yosemite, a newborn baby in a mother’s arms, the literal beauty of God’s glory. There seems to be a hierarchy. And there also seems to be a natural normative response to such higher things—I don’t think it’s natural for most people to walk away from Yosemite just thinking “meh, it was pretty.”
Thinking out loud here as well btw! Thank you again for getting me thinking on this again. Makes me want to dive back and do a part 2 sometime. Also, send me your work if you like! I’d love to check your theological aesthetic.
Hi Isaac, I will probably never be able to write long pieces like you but I've posted some short efforts that works for me. English is not my native language. I share your passion RE Tolkien and Lewis.
Check out my recent post where I wrote how the words, about making mud cakes in a slum by C. S. Lewis, helped me with my addiction. Today is day 446, another 54 days to 500 days since I last used. Thank you and no more devastation ☠️
Are you familiar with “The Ethics of Beauty”? Timothy Patitsas , the author, leads with Beauty first. Thank you for this article. I clarifies in a world that seems to seek darkness instead of light.
Isaac, I thought you would be interested because the book deals with Beauty first in treating trauma patients including PTSD. I have long thought that all of creation is tied together or perhaps better stated woven. Our healing tied to Beauty, then Goodness and then Truth.
I’m not familiar with his work, but now I need to be! Upon writing this essay and reading Peter Kreeft was the first time I had learned about Beauty being the first of three bases of a man’s drawing towards God. Your recommendation sounds absolutely fascinating, especially because it sounds like the idea is put to practice! Thank you for sharing. I’m definitely going to look up his work.
Great stuff man! I really enjoyed the read. It's funny because a lot of people seem to be touching on these concepts right now. Must be something God is stirring up in the waters. Look forward to reading more of your work!
Thanks man! I really do think God is stirring up a generation of Christian creatives that will reclaim beauty from the culture and the enemy who have stolen and twisted it. People are waking up from the from the spell of disenchantment toward to the gospel. I simply want to be a part of whatever God is doing here!
Thank you so much for this article! I have stumbled across it at the perfect time. I am a dancer and choreographer, and have recently been reading a book of interviews with notable modern-dance choreographers of the 20th century. The whole time, I've been bothered by this feeling that there is something missing, something fundamentally wrong, with their approach to their work (a feeling that I've had about much of modern dance before). But I was having trouble articulating what exactly it was. I had gotten as far as the idea that they were only indulging individual curiosity without serving anything higher (whether a spiritual power or even just an established tradition).
Meanwhile, I also keep coming back around to the realism/nominalism distinction, an idea I was only recently introduced to. It's fascinating to me and really does keep popping up. Little did I know how related these two things were! This article hits the nail on the head and articulates better than I could what has been bothering me surrounding the ethos of modern dance. Particularly the idea of endless innovation with no sense of universals. That's exactly it. Thanks for helping me figure out where my discomfort was coming from.
Grace, thank you so much reading! Wow I didn’t even consider how this could apply to dance and choreography but now that you mentioned it, it makes total sense!
I felt a lot of the same uneasiness about application in the arts, especially as a musician and songwriter. And the whole “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” just really troubled me on a gut level but I didn’t know how to articulate or rationalize that feeling for the longest time. Reading C.S. Lewis and others then writing this essay really began the transformative process for me to finally building some foundational beliefs on beauty and art.
I’m just so grateful to God for where He’s brought me with all of this and I’ve been so encouraged to hear how He’s helping others see the truth of His beauty through my work. Thank you again for reading. Your comment was a blessing to me 🥹
Absolutely! I'm so glad there are other people talking about these ideas. I often feel like my ideas about dance are very unpopular outside of Christian circles, lol (and even like many Christians aren't really thinking deeply enough).
Modern dance in particular struggles with this because the whole formation of the genre was based around throwing off existing conventions. And surprise - with that at the center of its ethos, the mainstream modern/postmodern dance of the 20th century was never really able to build anything that feels particularly beautiful to me or many other ordinary people. That also created a really unhelpful, disdainful attitude toward the audience that I think is the reason so many people dislike/don't understand modern dance (something that I just wrote about recently on my own Substack).
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to sit down and wrangle my brain to read this article, Isaac. It’s been in my saved reads for months. But man. Man oh man. Bravo. Exceedingly well done.
Christina, I’m so honored to have you read my essay on Lewis! This whole project was really me finally establishing a legit framework for my thoughts on beauty and aesthetics. It was a transformative process for me and I thank God for all the things He taught me in it.
Thank you so much again for taking the time to read my ramblings on a topic I still feel is too big for me haha.
Too big for all of us, really! Certainly when we begin to realise that all roads point to the unfathomable mystery that God is, in fact, the Great I Am who He always claimed to be. You unpack one facet of His “I Am-ness” here beautifully, though. This kind of stuff is why I love academia — when logic itself forces us to worship the God who made logic while simultaneously evoking awe of His actually being beauty, goodness, and truth. Very well thought-through essay. I hope you got a good mark!
My Prof is the one who encouraged me to publish this somewhere. This one essay is what started the whole Substack thing for me! Never saw myself writing for fun before but here I am 😁
This is a wonderful framing of thoughts I've had for a while but never been able to put into words. It's always nice to see someone else come to the same conclusion that you do, albeit through slightly different paths. In my personal experience, this conversation on beauty seems to be becoming very prominent among my peers since the first images of the James Webb Space Telescope were shared. I think the near universal wonder with these images have called the subjectivity and recency of beauty into question in a lot of the minds of my colleagues.
Joshua, it’s a blessing to me to hear how this helped you frame your thoughts on this topic. Writing this essay was really a framing project for myself to finally get some foundational thoughts on the matter. I’m grateful for where the Lord has led me to land with it.
Also your point about how the images from the James Webb Telescope has impacted people is very telling of objective qualities in our universe! I felt the same way about Yosemite, having grown up near it. Whenever I would go, I was just as amazed by the sight of all the people from around the world gazing at the wonder of Yosemite as I was about Yosemite itself. Aside from objective beauty in the world, we also have an objective longing for beauty that God installed in us to lead us to Him. Truly wonderful!
I felt the same way going to school in Tucson and enjoying the night sky in Saguaro National Park. I think one of the main contributors to atheism or at least apathy related to theism comes from urbanization taking us away from the winder of nature (which I believe Tolkien would agree with). One of my first posts on substack is my thinking through how we cultivate wonder in every day life as a way to get back to faith being ordinary, rather than extraordinary. Long story short, everyone should go touch grass more.
This was a great read Isaac, thank you! I love how the transcendentals can be construed as the “three universal longings of the human soul” too - will come in handy in informal conversations.
I’m also hoping that Beauty keeps creeping back into the conversation after being sceptically avoided!
Thank you for this! So encouraging that this was helpful for you. I’m hoping for more conversations on Beauty as well! I’m definitely going to keep bringing more on it.
Adam, thank you for this! This was super encouraging to read 🙏. Also, yes I can’t get over the Kung Fu Panda tie in. Unashamedly, I still read through and a get a kick out of that 😂
I was in Italy when this abomination was sold as ‘art’. In the evening news I had to sit through this so called ‘art expert’ spew out some postmodern drivel as to why this is considered art. I think I threw up in my mouth a little.
If you haven't done so already, I would highly recommend you read A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken. It's based on a true story -- filled with all things: C.S. Lewis, faith and beauty.
Yes, I've seen a lot of online "critics" who argue that art is subjective, therefore all opinions are valid. But I've always wondered, if art is that subjective, why do people pay so much time and money to learn how to improve the craft? If there is absolutely no objective standard of aesthetics, then improvement in any artistic endeavour is arbitrary and a lie.
Right, even the idea that a skill or work can be improved implies objectivity—otherwise everyone just has their own subjective idea of honing their craft. The major flaw of subjectivism is that it’s not consistent and most people who adopt it do not actually live it out consistently in real life.
Ironically, the “critics” lose their jobs if subjectivism is true, since they lose all grounding to criticize: if everything’s “true,” then there’s nothing to criticize, including objective thought—ah, but logically, both can’t be true! So, there must be some kind of standard…
Wonderful, I attempted to forge a theological (cruciform) aesthetic back in 2023, and this complements it nicely. I'd have to say, though, most people would probably still want to ask, "But what does beauty 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦?" I'm sure there's plenty here on Substack that could answer that, though I'm addressing you, and I think a philosophy of aesthetic realism is foundational, but an 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 makes things more whole. Can we deduce why/if/how a Corinthian pillar or rose window is beautiful, one the basis of our aesthetic metaphysic? Also, I'm curious if we can permit a certain pluralism in aesthetics. Can the Gothic cathedral, a Germanic inculturation of Christian theology, be just as beautiful as a Japanese pagoda? (Esp. if the latter is taken as how a cathedral should look in a Christian Japan.) Thinking out loud a bit here, but you've spoken so much truth I want to prompt you to speak further. 😁
Evan, thank you so much for reading and for your kind words 🙏. Also, for your challenge: EXCELLENT questions you’re asking. Whew! If I had less limitations when I was writing this for seminary, I definitely would’ve explored the “applied aesthetics” as well. I admit this paper is only scratching the surface.
While I won’t be able to address all those questions even close to completion here, I’ll share some things that come to mind for exploration maybe later down the line in a future post.
I know Aquinas builds on Augustine and gets into recognizing qualities or properties (for the lack of a better word) of beauty such as integritas, proportio, and claritas. Much later, Francis Schaefer also touches on this regarding art with his 4 standards: technical excellence, validity, intellectual content, integration of content and vehicle. There are many other standards of judgement many church fathers and prominent theologians have used for evaluating beauty and the arts. (Im just recalling now that there’s a great Substack article on Schaeffer’s standards I’ll forward to you soon!)
As far as my own thoughts, with no sources in front of me or research from half year ago fresh on my mind, I think the subjective role of the beholder is an important one, as much as I emphasized the objective in my paper. While I know there are things that are truly beautiful whether we think so or not, once we recognize that, there are degrees to how much each person recognizes that beauty. And while I think recognizing that there is objective beauty is crucial and essential to rightly-ordered worldview, I think there’s more room for grace in how each person recognizes that beauty.
For example, two people may recognize that a white rose is beautiful (which is good—they ought to recognize that), but one may think it is more beautiful than how the other thinks it is, maybe in comparison to other flowers. That variance I think is OKAY! Some of the variance may be due to our own ignorance, our experience, or how God wired each of us uniquely.
However, I do think there are things which don’t allow for as much variance such as Yosemite, a newborn baby in a mother’s arms, the literal beauty of God’s glory. There seems to be a hierarchy. And there also seems to be a natural normative response to such higher things—I don’t think it’s natural for most people to walk away from Yosemite just thinking “meh, it was pretty.”
Thinking out loud here as well btw! Thank you again for getting me thinking on this again. Makes me want to dive back and do a part 2 sometime. Also, send me your work if you like! I’d love to check your theological aesthetic.
Here’s that article I mentioned on Schaeffer:
https://open.substack.com/pub/beforeallthings/p/francis-schaeffers-biblical-theology?r=4kiqzi&utm_medium=ios
Hi Isaac, I will probably never be able to write long pieces like you but I've posted some short efforts that works for me. English is not my native language. I share your passion RE Tolkien and Lewis.
Check out my recent post where I wrote how the words, about making mud cakes in a slum by C. S. Lewis, helped me with my addiction. Today is day 446, another 54 days to 500 days since I last used. Thank you and no more devastation ☠️
Love never fails 🌾
Praise God for how far He’s brought you and delivered you, brother! 🙌Thank you for reading and sharing your journey. I’ll check out your posts.
Are you familiar with “The Ethics of Beauty”? Timothy Patitsas , the author, leads with Beauty first. Thank you for this article. I clarifies in a world that seems to seek darkness instead of light.
Isaac, I thought you would be interested because the book deals with Beauty first in treating trauma patients including PTSD. I have long thought that all of creation is tied together or perhaps better stated woven. Our healing tied to Beauty, then Goodness and then Truth.
I’m not familiar with his work, but now I need to be! Upon writing this essay and reading Peter Kreeft was the first time I had learned about Beauty being the first of three bases of a man’s drawing towards God. Your recommendation sounds absolutely fascinating, especially because it sounds like the idea is put to practice! Thank you for sharing. I’m definitely going to look up his work.
Beautiful. Love the 35 footnotes. You’re a champ.
Hahaha thank you so much man!
Great stuff man! I really enjoyed the read. It's funny because a lot of people seem to be touching on these concepts right now. Must be something God is stirring up in the waters. Look forward to reading more of your work!
Thanks man! I really do think God is stirring up a generation of Christian creatives that will reclaim beauty from the culture and the enemy who have stolen and twisted it. People are waking up from the from the spell of disenchantment toward to the gospel. I simply want to be a part of whatever God is doing here!
Thank you so much for this article! I have stumbled across it at the perfect time. I am a dancer and choreographer, and have recently been reading a book of interviews with notable modern-dance choreographers of the 20th century. The whole time, I've been bothered by this feeling that there is something missing, something fundamentally wrong, with their approach to their work (a feeling that I've had about much of modern dance before). But I was having trouble articulating what exactly it was. I had gotten as far as the idea that they were only indulging individual curiosity without serving anything higher (whether a spiritual power or even just an established tradition).
Meanwhile, I also keep coming back around to the realism/nominalism distinction, an idea I was only recently introduced to. It's fascinating to me and really does keep popping up. Little did I know how related these two things were! This article hits the nail on the head and articulates better than I could what has been bothering me surrounding the ethos of modern dance. Particularly the idea of endless innovation with no sense of universals. That's exactly it. Thanks for helping me figure out where my discomfort was coming from.
Grace, thank you so much reading! Wow I didn’t even consider how this could apply to dance and choreography but now that you mentioned it, it makes total sense!
I felt a lot of the same uneasiness about application in the arts, especially as a musician and songwriter. And the whole “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” just really troubled me on a gut level but I didn’t know how to articulate or rationalize that feeling for the longest time. Reading C.S. Lewis and others then writing this essay really began the transformative process for me to finally building some foundational beliefs on beauty and art.
I’m just so grateful to God for where He’s brought me with all of this and I’ve been so encouraged to hear how He’s helping others see the truth of His beauty through my work. Thank you again for reading. Your comment was a blessing to me 🥹
Absolutely! I'm so glad there are other people talking about these ideas. I often feel like my ideas about dance are very unpopular outside of Christian circles, lol (and even like many Christians aren't really thinking deeply enough).
Modern dance in particular struggles with this because the whole formation of the genre was based around throwing off existing conventions. And surprise - with that at the center of its ethos, the mainstream modern/postmodern dance of the 20th century was never really able to build anything that feels particularly beautiful to me or many other ordinary people. That also created a really unhelpful, disdainful attitude toward the audience that I think is the reason so many people dislike/don't understand modern dance (something that I just wrote about recently on my own Substack).
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to sit down and wrangle my brain to read this article, Isaac. It’s been in my saved reads for months. But man. Man oh man. Bravo. Exceedingly well done.
Christina, I’m so honored to have you read my essay on Lewis! This whole project was really me finally establishing a legit framework for my thoughts on beauty and aesthetics. It was a transformative process for me and I thank God for all the things He taught me in it.
Thank you so much again for taking the time to read my ramblings on a topic I still feel is too big for me haha.
Too big for all of us, really! Certainly when we begin to realise that all roads point to the unfathomable mystery that God is, in fact, the Great I Am who He always claimed to be. You unpack one facet of His “I Am-ness” here beautifully, though. This kind of stuff is why I love academia — when logic itself forces us to worship the God who made logic while simultaneously evoking awe of His actually being beauty, goodness, and truth. Very well thought-through essay. I hope you got a good mark!
My Prof is the one who encouraged me to publish this somewhere. This one essay is what started the whole Substack thing for me! Never saw myself writing for fun before but here I am 😁
This is a wonderful framing of thoughts I've had for a while but never been able to put into words. It's always nice to see someone else come to the same conclusion that you do, albeit through slightly different paths. In my personal experience, this conversation on beauty seems to be becoming very prominent among my peers since the first images of the James Webb Space Telescope were shared. I think the near universal wonder with these images have called the subjectivity and recency of beauty into question in a lot of the minds of my colleagues.
Joshua, it’s a blessing to me to hear how this helped you frame your thoughts on this topic. Writing this essay was really a framing project for myself to finally get some foundational thoughts on the matter. I’m grateful for where the Lord has led me to land with it.
Also your point about how the images from the James Webb Telescope has impacted people is very telling of objective qualities in our universe! I felt the same way about Yosemite, having grown up near it. Whenever I would go, I was just as amazed by the sight of all the people from around the world gazing at the wonder of Yosemite as I was about Yosemite itself. Aside from objective beauty in the world, we also have an objective longing for beauty that God installed in us to lead us to Him. Truly wonderful!
I felt the same way going to school in Tucson and enjoying the night sky in Saguaro National Park. I think one of the main contributors to atheism or at least apathy related to theism comes from urbanization taking us away from the winder of nature (which I believe Tolkien would agree with). One of my first posts on substack is my thinking through how we cultivate wonder in every day life as a way to get back to faith being ordinary, rather than extraordinary. Long story short, everyone should go touch grass more.
Love it. Amen to all of that, especially that last point!
This was a great read Isaac, thank you! I love how the transcendentals can be construed as the “three universal longings of the human soul” too - will come in handy in informal conversations.
I’m also hoping that Beauty keeps creeping back into the conversation after being sceptically avoided!
Thank you for this! So encouraging that this was helpful for you. I’m hoping for more conversations on Beauty as well! I’m definitely going to keep bringing more on it.
So well written! Extremely challenging, and encouraging for all of us. Also loved the Kungfu Panda tie in 😂
Adam, thank you for this! This was super encouraging to read 🙏. Also, yes I can’t get over the Kung Fu Panda tie in. Unashamedly, I still read through and a get a kick out of that 😂
Thank you for this insight!
Love never fails 🌾
Thank you so much for reading! 🙏
I was in Italy when this abomination was sold as ‘art’. In the evening news I had to sit through this so called ‘art expert’ spew out some postmodern drivel as to why this is considered art. I think I threw up in my mouth a little.
The world has gone mad.
St. John of the Cross when imprisoned gloried in the beauty of God’s creation in looking at a single blade of grass.
If you haven't done so already, I would highly recommend you read A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken. It's based on a true story -- filled with all things: C.S. Lewis, faith and beauty.
https://substack.com/@artistwritersurvivor/note/c-121654466?r=5kho0&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action