Off-Modern Catholic Aesthetics

Samuel O'Connor Perks, Ph.D. (2021), is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He has published articles on Catholic thought and aesthetics in journals such as the Journal of Art Historiography and Architectural Theory Review.

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsIntroduction1 Off-Modern Profiles2 Unpacking the Dynamics of Catholic Modernisation3 ‘The Eclipse of God’: Transplanted Artists4 ‘Background Metaphorics’: Exchanges between Art and Religion5 Structure of the Book1 Antinomies of Art and Theology. Marie-Alain Couturier and the Contradictions of Modern Sacred CultureIntroduction: Couturier’s Conceptual Zig ZagsPrelude. Paris, 1953. the Contradictoires TextSacred Art between the Mechanical and Natural Attitudes1 Le Saulchoir/Paris, 1918–1930. Catholic Endgame, or the Narrative of Decline1.1 ‘Down with the Republic, Long Live the King!’: Couturier’s Romantic Anti-Capitalism and the Return to Order (Paris, 1919–1925)1.2 Couturier’s Neo-Thomist Aesthetics (Le Saulchoir, 1925–1930)2 Rome/Paris, 1930–1940. the Gospels and Fraternal Catholic Modernism2.1 The Human Truth of the Gospel (Rome, 1930–1932)2.2 The Art of the Incarnation (Paris, 1935–1937)3 1940–1953. the Secular Prophet. Couturier on Modern Sacred Architecture3.1 The Politics of French Artistic Modernity3.2 Artistic Abstraction and Catholic Humanism3.3 Conflicted Temporalities of Aesthetic Categories in Couturier’s Late Writings3.4 Modesty: a Critical Counter-Concept to Modernity3.5 On the Autonomy of Modern Art and Artists3.6 On the Uses and Abuses of Poverty in the Modern Era2 Between Mysticism and Industry: the Bauhaus Diaspora, the Benedictines and the Ambiguities of Architectural SymbolismIntroduction: Mechanics, Symbols and History1 Navigating the Divide. Breuer and the Benedictines on Architectural Symbolism1.1 Breuer’s Pre-Modern Imaginary1.2 Breuer’s Architectural Symbolism: Tension-Structures1.3 Liturgy and Labour1.4 Benedictine Symbolism, Form, and Function2 Form and Symbolism: the Language of Religious Experience2.1 1959: a Divided Committee2.2 Albers on Form and Tradition2.3 Albers: Spirituality Contra Science2.4 The Public Dimension of SymbolsCoda. Unpacking the Semantics of the “Sacred” in Modern Architecture3 Catholic Metaphorology. Dominique de Menil and the Role of Conversion in Aesthetic EducationIntroduction1 ???1.1 Dominique de Menil’s Rothko Chapel Speech, 19711.2 An Intellectual Apprenticeship: Typologies of Engagement1.3 Conceptual Ramifications: from Religion to Aesthetics2 Catholicisme Ondoyant2.1 The Intellectual Context of Congar’s Montmartre Lectures in 19362.2 A Source of Congar’s Pluralism: Thomas Cajetan on the Image2.3 Organic and Embodied Metaphors2.4 The Social Dimension of Catholicism: Yves Congar on Unbelief in 1930s France3 Putting Conversion to Work After World War II3.1 Art Education and Social Justice in the 1960s3.2 From Heritage to Tradition in Dominique de Menil’s Notebooks3.3 The Soil Metaphor3.4 The Fire Metaphor3.5 Dominique de Menil’s Art HistoriographyCoda: A Note on Dominique de Menil’s Catholicism and Mark Rothko’s Abstract Art4 Recast Eyes. Jean Labatut and the Concept of Crisis in Post-World War II Architectural EducationIntroduction: Unpacking Labatut’s Intellectual Framework1 The Language of Experience. Phenomenology, Visuality and Religion in Jean Labatut’s Intellectual Universe1.1 “Architectural Humanism” in the United States after World War II1.2 Labatut’s Visual-Industrial Complex: the Princeton Architectural Laboratory1.3 Historical Consumption1.4 Catholic Conversations: Eidetic Visualisation and Cultural Hylomorphism2 Learning from Labatut. the Divergent Paths of Labatut’s Architectural Programme3 Diversity with Unity. Francis Prokes’s Theological Dimension of Architecture3.1 Choice: Christian Existentialism as a Framework3.2 Involvement: the Theological Grounds of Interdisciplinarity3.3 Purpose: Theology and Architectural History4 Visual Historiography: Robert Venturi’s Context in Architectural Composition4.1 Venturi’s Princeton Formation4.2 Venturi’s Theory of Perception: Gestalt4.3 Appropriated ContextsCoda: A Forgotten Path to PostmodernismEpilogue: Disentangling the Semantic Knot Between a Secular Infinite and a Catholic EternalBibliographyIndex