Category: Beauty/Aesthetics
Live Music
I’m not the first person to suggest that there is something inherently better about live musical performances, and even though we are rapidly sinking into an atomized digital age, I don’t think I’ll be the last: there is enough of...
Socrates, Remy, and the Solitary Contemplation of Beauty
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates is shown to be very strange. In an episode related by Alcibiades, Socrates is said to have stood all day and night in an army camp—with the other soldiers lying down watching him—considering something. (Near the...
Brief Reflections on Composition after a Lecture
There are, of course, two relevant considerations in giving a lecture: the ideas and the form. Each has its own difficulties, and while they are inextricably linked, the form seems to pose the greatest challenge to me. I may be...
Susan Sontag on Beauty and Gender
Today as I set-up shop in a line at the Los Angeles DMV I happened to read an incisive essay published in Vogue forty years ago. The article was written by Susan Sontag, and my profit from it proves that...
A Midsummer Night’s Dance: Love’s Beauty and Roles
The Pacific Northwest Ballet’s (PNB) performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream lifted a corner of the veil between plodding human beings and the world of fairies. The stage was set with magnificent roses and deliciously mysterious lights even before the...
The Sword and the Shaving Brush – an Overview
I. The Sword and the Shaving Brush II. A Brief History of Clothing III. The Three Aesthetic Problems IV. Relativism, Immodesty, Evanglism V. Solving the Three Aesthetic Problems VI. Towards an Incarnational Aesthetic VII. Nature and the Aim of Fiction...
Fasting for Strength
“Don’t give into some illusion and lose your power, but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them.” -Rumi We...
Conclusion: Personhood, Not Propoganda
The Sword and the Shaving Brush Towards a Biblical understanding of fashion by Timothy Bartel Part X Conclusion: Personhood, Not Propoganda Having reinterpreted fashion as an incarnational art form and modesty as a sort of aesthetic and moral check on that...
Look Good and Sin Not
The Sword and the Shaving Brush Towards a Biblical understanding of fashion By Timothy Bartel Part IX – Look Good and Sin Not How does one take the body-imaging activity of clothing into consideration when choosing clothes to wear? A wise...
What’s So Bad About Immodesty?
The Sword and the Shaving Brush Towards a Biblical understanding of fashion By Timothy Bartel Part VIII – What’s So Bad About Immodesty? This incarnational approach can now be applied to the second problem of fashion, that of modesty. If...