Just read Callard's piece yesterday, and also found it valuable. Her thoughts are more relevant to storytelling media such as novels and films; although she mentions visual art in passing, I'm not sure if her idea applies so much there. Music would be a gray area; songs with words might fall under her thesis' purview but purely instrumental pieces would likely not.
Yeah, it seems to necessitate a distinction between the art portraying evil/ugliness and *being* evil/ugly itself. Portraying fallenness in a still beautiful way. Agreed thats probably easier through narrative...though I think of something like Goya which is grotesque but still beautiful. Or even more traditionally beautiful paintings depicting human weakness or betrayal, thinking of Caravaggio or Rembrandt's St. Peter's denying Christ.
And also—not totally sure how much she was exaggerating her point for emphasis—but clearly lots of art, especially music, is about something totally different—a sort of hypnotic or transporting rapture or joy that is far across the spectrum from evil, closer to a weak premonition of the beatific vision (or insert secular analogue for that).
Just read Callard's piece yesterday, and also found it valuable. Her thoughts are more relevant to storytelling media such as novels and films; although she mentions visual art in passing, I'm not sure if her idea applies so much there. Music would be a gray area; songs with words might fall under her thesis' purview but purely instrumental pieces would likely not.
Yeah, it seems to necessitate a distinction between the art portraying evil/ugliness and *being* evil/ugly itself. Portraying fallenness in a still beautiful way. Agreed thats probably easier through narrative...though I think of something like Goya which is grotesque but still beautiful. Or even more traditionally beautiful paintings depicting human weakness or betrayal, thinking of Caravaggio or Rembrandt's St. Peter's denying Christ.
And also—not totally sure how much she was exaggerating her point for emphasis—but clearly lots of art, especially music, is about something totally different—a sort of hypnotic or transporting rapture or joy that is far across the spectrum from evil, closer to a weak premonition of the beatific vision (or insert secular analogue for that).
That's a good point.