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Von Balthasar says somewhere that beauty makes demands, and suggests that this is a natural analogy to the attitude of faith, which is like an aesthetic response to the form of Christ.
Beauty makes demands. If I hear the central movement of Beethoven's Appassionata or any of a dozen other pieces of music, I can't do anything else. I've got to listen. Try not breathing deeply when you catch a whiff of hyacinth. Try not looking at a beautiful landscape, a beautiful building, a beautiful woman. It's possible not to look, but it takes an act of resistance, a rebellion.
David Bentley Hart appeals to this to establish the objectivity of beauty: If beauty were purely subjective, could it command attention, could it fascinate, could it surprise?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, September 07, 2006 at 05:55 PM
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