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.