St Gabriel Windows

St Gabriel Windows
Photocopy c. 2013 Jamie Laubacher

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Claude Monet

Did I ever mention how much I adore Monet work?  I just love his paintings so much…

We are so surrounded by such ugliness and dysfunctional art anymore..things we pawn off as “art”;  but St. Thomas Aquinas definition of beauty is something altogether different.

In his Aesthetic Theory found in the Summa Theologica St. Thomas expounds on beauty quite eloquently, giving us criteria for which to judge beauty:  three properties: integrity, due proportion, and clarity

I enjoy that our oldest son, an Art major, had the opportunity to explore and study St. Thomas and the great Summa in his 12th grade studies through our Catholic home study program.  Prior to that, while he was still in formation as a budding artist,  I shared with him St. Thomas’s properties of beauty, and to this day, the beauty of his art shines through.  With closer inspection at his art pieces, one can see the three aesthetic properties in harmony.  I am grateful to have an artist in the family that wishes to share true beauty through his art.

In honor of beauty per St. Thomas Aquinas, I thought I’d post something lovely to contemplate on for today. 

MONETLadies in garden

CLAUDE MONET
"Women in the Garden"
Painted in 1866

1 comment:

Chris said...

Wow, very informative.
Thanks so much for sharing this...You a re indeed blessed by our son's interest in art and in linking the art world to theology. But, Mommy, you instilled a love of the a faith in him. I'm impressed. (But not surprised.)

Love ya