“First, What kind of life was lived in this place, that is, Why and how did its builders build as they did?
And second, what rules with general validity and applicability did they follow?”
Carroll William Westfall, Learning From Pompeii.


Saturday, April 9, 2011

The Lawful, Lucid, and Intelligible City

Masaccio: Frescos in the
Brancacci Chapel, Florence
Chris Miller (Early Morning Discussions) commenting on Norris Kelly Smith's Here I Stand: Perspectives From Another Point of View:


Norris Kellly Smith: "It is in keeping with the perspectivist's concern for ethical integrity that they should have been drawn to subjects exemplifying Christ's power to bring wholeness, sanity, and order into the world that perennially lacks just those qualities. This is the burden of Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel which deal with the powerful presence of the man Peter as he brings to bear the force of his authority upon the sicknesses, both spiritual and economic, of the Christian community of Florence"

Miller: Can you imagine such a mural being painted today? High-end Contemporary art is collected by a financial community that has specialized (and profited) from exactly the opposite of economic health.

In the contemporary world, only children's book illustration would suggest "the possibility of a world this lawful, lucid, and intelligible, but only by virtue of our being willing to accept a responsive and responsible position within the order of things"...as Smith feels is presented by Masaccio.