Art and Scholastic
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Por: José Gómez Cerda | Fuente: Catholic.net

Art and Scholastic 
Compilation of the elements of the Thomistic doctrine of art, projecting the fine arts in the light of Christian thought 
 
 
Jacques Maritain wrote "ART AND SCHOLASTICISM" to gather the elements of the Thomistic doctrine of art, to project the fine arts into the light of CHRISTIAN thought. 
 
Scholasticism is the method and system of Christian philosophers, following the doctrine of ARISTOTLE, distinguishing between philosophy, such as experience and reasoning; and theology, such as divine revelation, faith, and the ecclesiastical magisterium. 
 
This school has a maximum exponent in Saint Thomas; this is why it is called "THOMISM". Maritain based his thinking on Thomism, preserving his principles and values, updating it in his possibilities.
 
Scholasticism establishes that intelligence has speculative and practical functions. It places in the speculative order the faculties of the intelligence, whose objective is to know. For the practical order, it uses the knowledge to achieve work or action, so the art is placed in the practical order. 
 
The practical order is divided into WORKING AND DOING. The work is the use of freedom, within morality. Doing is productive action according to the rules and values of work, looking for perfection.
 
Art is located in the making; it is to create things able to excite the human soul as a continuation of the creation of God. 
 
ART is to print an idea in a matter, it is a quality of intellectual order, and it is a virtue of practical understanding, which must lead to well, with a certain perfection of spirit. Art is a sort of reason, looking for the right means. 
 
"The sage is an intellectual who proves. The artist is an intellectual who works. » 
 
The artist possesses the laws and is not possessed by them, is not obliged by them, but it is him who obliges, by them to the matter and the reality. Sometimes the artist will work against the rules, as if it were above them, according to a higher rule and a more hidden order.
 
Saint Thomas established the conditions of beauty, which are: 
 
- Integrity. Perfection. 
 
2. - Proportion. Concordance in order and unit. 
3. - Clarity. The brightness, the colors, the intelligible, the beauty and the glow of the form.
 
Maritain explains that "clarity" is not conceptual in art, it is something luminous and clear in itself, which may seem dark to our eyes, because of its cause or transcendence, is like the mystery, which is where there is something else to know..., so you can also define as the glare of the mystery. 
 
At these times, when many understand that art is extravagant or move to the extreme of things, because it is the trend of modern souls, Maritain situates the scholastic idea of the beautiful, so art and beauty must be unified to seek a complete theory, where you can find spiritual conditions for an honest work, which is an intellectual virtue. 
 
Art is to make, compose or build, which gives purity, it should never be an imitation, but the good image is to seek perfection in the work expressed. 
 
The artist must study and love the great masters and nature, not to imitate them, but to be founded on them, to be inspired by the great works of man and nature, to be as disciples of God.
 
ARTISTS, be they musicians, poets, sculptors or painters, can perceive sounds and rhythms, words and ideas, landscapes and forms, which are secret, only they can appreciate by their artistic sensibility, and can turn into work. They have extraordinary knowledge and insight, they discover what others commonly cannot comprehend, and their goal is to bring joy to the human spirit. 
 
Maritain advises that the artist must dominate something fundamental that is faith, a broader dimension than the simple knowledge of the material....the spiritual life, which is the encounter of art with God, where you can embrace the universe and find the emotions necessary for spiritual inspiration, the creation of a work, a geocentric culture, with GOD as center and foundation. 
 
 
The artist has to make many sacrifices to stay active in search of the ultimate goal of his work. 
 
There are many provocations and commercial and money appeals, subtle and easy temptations that invite the cessation of intellectual habit, diminishing and corrupting the artist; this can be avoided with Christian morality. 
 
Jacques Maritain is a model for artists who want to work with a Christian sense.
 
In " ART AND SCHOLASTICISM " Maritain treats the topics of: analysis of the metaphysical concept of beauty as a transcendental according to Saint Thomas; the doctrine of intellectual habits and virtues, a distinction between morality and prudence, the arts of manufacturing and manuals, the rules of taste and artistic inspiration, the qualities of religious art, distinguishing between doing and acting. 
 
"Do not make literature, music or painting but have something to say; say nothing but what you have seen; public sources are not for your thirst; the source of the work can only be hidden and personal. ».