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Late Antiquity and Middle Ages

Late Antiquity and Middle Ages. The concept of beauty. Aims. Examine the concept of beauty in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages Observe a continuity between Antiquity and Modernity. Authors. Plotinus (203-270) Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) James Joyce (1882-1941). The concept of Beauty.

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Late Antiquity and Middle Ages

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  1. Late Antiquity and Middle Ages The concept of beauty

  2. Aims • Examine the concept of beauty in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages • Observe a continuity between Antiquity and Modernity

  3. Authors • Plotinus (203-270) • Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) • James Joyce (1882-1941)

  4. The concept of Beauty • Platonic Ideas • Ideas, participationr (quality really in the thing) • Examples: Ikons and sacred images

  5. Examples from authors • Plotinus • Thomas Aquinas • James Joyce

  6. Plotinus • Symmetry • Form • Unity • Harmony

  7. Symmetry 1 • Symmetry of the parts each to one another and to the whole plus color causes visual beauty • Beauty is symmetry and harmony

  8. Symmetry 2 • If so, then nothing simple can be beautiful, only what is composed • If the whole is beautiful, so must the parts • A beautiful whole can not be composed of ugly parts • Symmetry does not apply to the parts • Therefore beauty does not consist in symmetry alone.

  9. Form • Beauty: because of participation in form • Ugliness: outside regularity and form • Form creates one out of many, one consistent whole by the symmetry of its parts • Unity is what the form gives to the things, even though they are composed of a multiplicity

  10. Unity • Beauty reigns over matter • When it has been unified • And gives itself both to the parts and the whole

  11. Harmony in the soul • A hous is an “inner form” broken upp by matter (stones for instance) • Perception moves this form to the interior of the mind • It harmonizes with the soul • Shows the same in another medium

  12. Effect of beauty • Evokes emotion • Wonder • Sweet startling • Desire • Passion • Wonderful excitement

  13. Thomas Aquinas • Pulchra sunt quae visa placent • Beauty exists in things • Beauty gives pleasure • Pleasure is a mark of beauty

  14. Aesthetic value • Ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur: • Integritas (one whole) • Consonantia (inner harmony) • Claritas (clarity, brightness)

  15. Joyce • Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1914) • Artistic values • Wholeness • Harmony • Radiance

  16. Joyce, frh. • Wholeness: one thing • Harmony: one thing • Radiance: this thing

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