Fyodor Dostoevsky’s main character in The Idiot famously claims that “beauty will save the world.” Ever since its publication in 1869, and increasingly in recent years, this enigmatic phrase has been used to express an enduring hope in the possibility of restoring an authentic Christian culture in an modern, increasingly secular society. But is this hope well founded? How can beauty go about saving a world that is so obviously marred and almost entirely defined by its ugliness and brutality?

Thankfully, Dostoevsky proposes a ready answer to this perplexing problem. In the same novel, he introduces an intriguing character named Ippolit, a young man dying of tuberculosis. In one particular scene, Ippolit, reflecting upon his encounter with the painting The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by the famous German-Swiss artist Hans Holbein, comments:

It seems to me that painters are usually in the habit of portraying Christ, both on the cross and taken down from the cross, as still having a share of extraordinary beauty in his face; they seek to preserve this beauty for him in his most horrible suffering. But in [this] picture there is not a word about beauty; this is in the fullest sense the corpse of a man who had endured infinite suffering in the cross…. [I]t is nature alone…. Nature appears to the viewer of this painting in the shape of some enormous, implacable, and dumb beast, or, to put it more correctly, much more correctly, strange though it is — in the shape of some huge machine of the most modern construction, which is senselessly seized, crushed, and swallowed up, blankly, and unfeelingly, a great and priceless being — such being as by himself was worth the whole nature and all its laws, the whole earth, which was perhaps created solely for the appearance of this being alone! ... The people who surrounded the dead man, none of whom is in the painting, must have felt horrible anguish and confusion on that evening, which at once smashed all their hopes and almost all their beliefs.

Ippolit’s response to the painting of the dead Christ draws into clear focus the crisis under consideration and suggests, at least indirectly, a response. Modern culture is very much like the painting by Holbein. The effects of sin upon our world have distorted and disfigured — so it seems — every inch of it; just as every inch of Christ’s body, in Holbein’s painting, is defaced. Like Ippolit, we perceive only a disfigured and dismantled “corpse;” a dead thing, where once existed a living, virial, life-giving and beautiful culture. Faced with such ugliness, advanced and magnified by technology (aka the “machines” referenced by Ippolit), it becomes difficult to see the truth of things; to see the beauty that is beyond and hidden within the fallen created world.

Importantly, not all who gaze upon Holbein’s dead Christ see what Ippolit sees, namely, fallen “nature alone.” Through the gift of faith, some can — with some effort — contemplate the painting and see beyond the suffering and scandal — the mere destruction of a body — and see the sublime love that moved Christ to die such an ignoble death. This capacity to see rightly — to be able to see the hidden beauty that animates and moves all things, even sin and suffering — must be developed and cultivated. We must be taught “how to look” and thus receive the saving power of beauty in the midst of sin and suffering.

This raises the question: how does one begin to look rightly? How is it possible to discern and experience the truly beautiful in a sinful and dreadful world? It would seem that the first thing that must be done is to acknowledge that there exist counterfeit forms of ‘beauty.’ A ‘beauty’ which, according to Josef Ratzinger, “is deceptive and false.” Such false forms of beauty aim merely to “dazzle” and “lock … [man] entirely into himself … with the desire for power, possession and pleasure.” In contrast, Ratzinger argues that authentic beauty always draws man out of himself and awakens in him the longing for the “Ineffable” (cf. Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, “The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty,” Aug. 2002). In other words, true beauty always leads outward and upward, to some good beyond the beholder, while false forms of beauty merely tantalize and entice man to remain within himself.

Once we grasp this important distinction and resist falling prey to false forms of beauty that merely “delight the eyes,” we can then begin to see beauty and experience its salvific power. Looking rightly requires more than the use of our aesthetic senses (principally sight and hearing, since the other senses are too deeply immersed in matter). We must implore the use of our intellects. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the beautiful is “that which pleases when known.” In contrast to that which is simply experienced unreflectively, the truly beautiful must be understood. We must use our cognitive power to discern three essential elements of a thing in order to experience its beauty. We must actually do work in order to enjoy the beautiful.

The first thing that must be done is that we must intellectually grasp a thing’s “integrity.” Everything that is beautiful has an organic wholeness or an interior unity that is pleasing when perceived and understood. Imagine, for example, gazing upon a magnificent Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana). Such a species of tree, with its twisting and sprawling array of enormous branches, has an interior unity, a grandeur in its totality. Its branches and leaves are an integral part of a splendid whole. If that tree were to be coppiced (trimmed down to its trunk), its integrity would be spoiled and its beauty destroyed. Perceiving and understanding a thing’s wholeness is an essential element of a thing’s beauty.

Secondly, we must train ourselves to see a thing’s relation both to God and to other things. St. Thomas calls this the discernment of “right proportion.” The truly beautiful is always rightly proportioned to God and to others. This is why we can gaze upon the life of Mother Theresa, for example, and exclaim with confidence that there was a beautiful woman! Her life exhibited a proper relation to her Creator and to the poor souls she encountered in her ministry. In contrast, think of the disproportioned life of the drunkard or the womanizer. They relate proportionally neither to God nor to His creatures and thus live a truly disproportioned and ugly life.

Lastly, in order to see correctly, we must be able to discern the intelligibility of things. Everything beautiful has a certain “claritas,” or splendor of form. This splendor of form radiates through a thing’s matter and makes it intelligible to the viewer. For example, we can gaze upon a handsomely constructed wooden chair and understand immediately its purpose. Its form clearly communicates to us what we should do with the thing. We ought to sit in a chair. The clarity of purpose is easily discernible by a thing which is truly beautiful. Again, in contrast, much of modern abstract art lacks such intelligibility. One could gaze for hours at a painting by Kandinsky (not recommended) and have no idea what you are looking at. It lacks intelligibility or claritasand is thus deemed, rightfully so, ugly.

Hence to “see” the beautiful, we must be able to understand a thing’s integrity, right proportion, and intelligibility. As mentioned, this takes some intellectual effort. In discerning these essential elements within things — even things that have become corrupted and distorted through sin — we begin to train ourselves not only to see and delight in authentic beauty, but, more essentially, we begin to move beyond the beauty of the created order and perceive the utmost integral, proportioned, and intelligible good, namely God Himself. Beauty properly understood is transcendent. It moves us to Beauty itself. And it is this Beauty, contemplated and adored, that has the power to save us and the whole world.

In tribute to our patron and in honor of his feast day on May 19, I would like to reflect on what philosophic wisdom Bl. Alcuin of York has to offer as we ponder the mystery of the human person. Unlike many of the Fathers whom we have already turned to in this series, little secondary literature has been written on Alcuin and almost none has been penned detailing his anthropology. Thankfully a large body of his writing has been preserved that we can draw from, much of which are personal letters written to friends. I recently came across one such letter that Alcuin penned in the summer of 798 AD. The letter is addressed to “his sweetest and most truly beloved lord” Emperor Charlemagne, and it is obvious from the context that Alcuin is responding to an earlier letter that he had received from Charlemagne. In this letter you find typical platitudes shared among friends, some interesting replies to various astronomical queries by Charlemagne and a unique request for Alcuin to quickly compose some music for his use. It is this latter request for music that I would like to consider, since I believe it touches upon Alcuin’s vision of the human person. To understand this seemingly odd request for music, a brief historical sketch of the Battle of Bornhoved is in order, since it is the immediate backdrop of the exchange of letters between Alcuin and Charlemagne. The historian C. S. Jaegar recounts that in early spring of 798 AD, the Saxons – sore about a number of harsh edicts and a string of embarrassing military defeats – seized and murdered a few of Charlemagne’s diplomats. In outrage, Charlemagne responded by leading a destructive and harsh campaign keen on finally subduing the unruly and defiant ‘Northerners’. Charlemagne amassed his army and burned and killed his way north, finally pinning the Saxon army on the banks of the Schwentine River. There, Charlemagne and his men slaughtered some 4,000 Saxons, turning the waters of the Schwentine red with blood. Those who fled were hunted down and slaughtered; no mercy was granted to the wounded; it was a decisive and complete routing for Charlemagne and the Franks. It is precisely in this military context, namely the “clashing weapons and raucous blare of trumpets,” that Charlemagne asks his friend for a “sweet and gentle musical refrain.” Alcuin’s letter suggests that Charlemagne’s immediate request is on behalf of his soldiers – affectionately referred to as “his boys” – who, having returned from the killing frenzy, needed the lull of music to temper their raging passions. One can easily imagine the soldiers returning to camp from the battlefield, the stench of death still on them and the pleas for mercy not-granted still ringing in their ears, needing somehow to make the transition from savage warrior to well-mannered Christian. The trauma and violence of the battle did not make such a transition easy. Alcuin’s response also leaves open the interpretative possibility that Charlemagne wished not only the “fierceness of the boys” to be “softened by song,” but his own conscience needed soothing as well. I believe that this request and Alcuin’s willingness to rearrange his busy schedule in order to compose a musical arrangement reveals three essential and perennial truths about the nature of the human person. The first truth made manifest in this exchange is the disordered lust for power (what Augustine calls the libido dominandi) that adversely affects all persons, including Charlemagne. As a result of original sin, the intellect is no longer content on placing itself under the rightful authority of God and His Church, but now the mind seeks opportunities to exercise undue – or what Alcuin calls “savage” – authority over others. In this context Alcuin is aware that Charlemagne’s brutal conquest of Saxony is not a result of a mind animated by “wholesome counsel.” Rather, Charlemagne’s mind is “rasped with anger” and seeks not the “prudent … middle path” or the “wise temperance [that] should rule and govern all things.” This rebellious tendency of the mind adversely motivated Charlemagne in his quest for power and control, and, if we are being honest, we see the same tendencies of rebellion in our own relationships: both human and divine. The second truth concerning human nature communicated in Alcuin’s letter is that man is much more than an immaterial being with a mind. He is a composite thing – a hybrid of sorts – consisting of a mind and a body. This body is often motivated by certain vehement passions or emotions that can cause us to act in ways contrary to how one ought to act. Charlemagne’s “boys,” upon returning from battle, are unable to temper their military ferocity. Skirmishes and fights must have been boiling over into the camp as enkindled passions – instead of reasoned acts – influenced their interactions with one another. Most of us have not been required to manage the trauma of war, but we all have experienced the discomfiture and divisiveness of unchecked and unruly emotions or passions in our lives. The third and final lesson about the human person to be garnered from Alcuin’s letter is that real friendships are an absolute necessity for virtuous living. Charlemagne reaches out to his friend and mentor in his time of need, and Alcuin responds: “I shall … proceed to carry out faithfully and all urgency what your sweetest authority has deigned to demand of me.” Alcuin is clear that his willingness to complete the task requested is not due to either political loyalty or fear but a result of the “sacred law of friendship” that compels him to “to keep the soul of a friend intact.” In other words, a friend, according to Alcuin, is someone who desires and strives for the authentic happiness of the other. In fact, Alcuin defines a friend as a “custodian of the soul.” Such a definition implies a relationship of necessity. A friend accordingly is essential (he/she is not merely useful or pleasant) for the full flourishing of the individual, both bodily and spiritually. What I find particularly interesting in all of this is that both Alcuin and Charlemagne seem to suggest that music – and the creation of music in particular – is a unique cure to the disorders of the mind and the emotions and an effective conduit for the cultivation of friendships. It seems that music can “soothe the ungentle mind” by the logistical harmony of music. Hearing or playing or composing *good* music reorients the mind to the logic of creation, which in turn allows the mind to rest in its proper place thus nullifying the lust for power. Similarly, music by its very “sweetness” is also capable of “dampening swelling rage.” Disordered passions are ordered, suggests Alcuin, not by words, which have their limit, but by music which softens hearts and restores peace in the soul. Lastly, notice how it is a discussion about music that is the very context for the correspondence between these two great friends. Their mutual love for music and their appreciation for its medicinal power causes them to bind themselves ever more closely to one another in filial piety. In our own modern day, we are often besieged with the same “swelling rage and … idle mind” that inflicted poor Charlemagne and his boys. Couple this with the seemingly universal absence of authentic friendships and modern man is poorly equipped to arrive at that happiness that we all so desperately seek. Perhaps now then is time for a cultural renewal in the musical arts. A concentrated effort to revive in our homes and schools inspiring music that calms the passions, informs the mind and binds us all together in lasting friendships.