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Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant and uet it could have been blindingly bright
Review: An extremely important book that answers marvellously our prejudices against the Middle Ages. It explores in great details their literature and philosophy to show how people understood beauty then. He sees three phases. First the aesthetics of proportion in direct connection with the greek mathematical heritage and the biblical teachings about the wisdom of the creation by God who projected his own balanced vision and essence in every single creature. Second the asthetics of light which reveals a more sensorial and even sensual approach to beauty in the fact that light and colors are beautiful at first contact and felt as such without any reflection. Finally the aesthetics of the organism that sees beauty in the fact that a complex composition is the creation of perfect balance among all the elements that are themselves balanced in the same way at a lower level. The second great approach is that of allegorical and symbolical beauty. For philosophers and theologians beauty was to be found in the meaning of things and meaning was to be found in the allegorical and symbolical value of every element considered because for them nothing existed that did not represent the higher level of divine nature, divine perfection. Even a representation of the devil can be beautiful if it shows perfectly the ugliness of the beast in him. Yet Thomas Aquinas reveals his deeper sense of beauty in the fact that he provides this concept with a certain amount of autonomy. This autonomy had been in the air for many centuries but he is the first theologian to accept it as an important element in his evaluation of beauty. We find the same dilemma with art. At first art is nothing but what is produced by the manual work of people. But through poetry on one hand, and groups or corporations of artists on the other, the aesthetic value of artistic work is captured at least partly. Yet the book has aged a little bit over the last forty years or so. It does not consider enough the practical and material level of things. The existence of poetical tournaments in important pilgrimage cities like Le Puy in France, the constant use of music and singing (and the specialization of some monks in that field), the training of architects and sculptors in some abbeys to build the churches of their abbeys or their priories. It also does not see that some practices, like poetry, is in perfect continuation of what it was in the celtic, nordic and germanic traditions : the poet was on his way to becoming a druid, or singing epics was part of the know-how of a good warrior, or a celtic god was nothing but a good craftsman in one trade and a good poet and singer, etc. The global evaluation then is slightly defective. This leads him to concentrating on gothic cathedrals and neglecting the romanesque period that built thousands of little marvellous gems in villages with sculptures, paintings, etc. The romanesque period is thus undervalued and the gothic re-orientation is over-valued. The pesrpective is then defective. Finally he takes the present conception of art and beauty too much into account to assess the conceptions of the people in those days. Even when dealing with art history we must not, never, look back at things to assess them but always compare what follows to what has come before. In this case he should have compared medieval art - exclusively - with roman art et celtic-nordic-germanic art without forgetting that the chirstianization of the Roman Empire and the Germanic invaders also brought a complete shift from what was done for the free elite of a fundamentally slave-society to something that was supposed to be done for everyone within the church, the liturgy, but also mass events like pilgrimages, fairs and carnavals, or the famous Masses of Fools or Danses Macabres. It was, in our world, the first time ever the whole society was associated to cultural and artistic activities that were integrated in general social life not as an entertainment or a decoration but as something meaningful, even if we can consider the necessity for that meaning to be religious or articulated on a religious dimension as being a limitation. And these elements were quasi-permanent since situated in all the churches and taking place at all religious occasions, as well as non-religious occasions. We will then note that Troubadors were a regression when they were playing and singing only for the noble elite, though from Eco's point of view they were progress since they introduced a new conception that was closer to our modern conception of poetry. From the slave-owning elite, to mass christian pedagogy, and then to the new noble feudal castle-enclosed elite. From refined feelings going along with the barbarity of circus games, slavery and gladiators, to the massive culture of the Peace of God and God's arts and beauty going along with the barbarity of some warmongering local or not so local barons and other nobles, and then to the refined troubador music and poetry for the castle-protected nobles going along with the continuation of the religious oriented arts for the people abandoned by the poets and the musicians. Maybe the Middle Ages were looking for a uniformized society too much, but it is a selective elite practice that came out of it for the superior social class of the nobility. The Middle Ages is a period that tries to manage its contradictions in a balanced way hence shifting from one elitist contradiction to another elitist contradiction. Umberto Eco misses this last point.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Rating: 
Summary: Strike Out
Review: Umberto Eco's best efforts are probably contained in this rather labyrinthine and meandering effort to codify Thomistic philosophy. Thomism doesn't have a philosophy of the "aesthetic,' a notion wholly alien to the medieval mind. So Eco has to kind of create such a notion from a plethora of Thomas' writings. Fortunately, Eco does stay on track, even if he creates and follows tangents widely, by staying focused on the contribution ART (vis-a-vis "aesthetics") offers to modern sensibility. Frankly, if one wants a better understanding of Medieval attitudes toward art, Emile Male's "Gothic" is incomparable. Male's work is a tour d'force and a "must" for anyone seriously interested in medieval art. Even Jacques Maritain's "Art and Scholasticism" does a better job of presenting Thomistic views on art and beauty. The same can be said of Josef Pieper, who has written many books on art and the scholastic mind. Eco, who made a name for inviting deconstruction into the Italian worldview, is better skilled at directing his attentions to that field than the medieval notions, concepts, and theories of art and beauty. If one wants a more concolidated assessment of the "philosophical" underpinnings of scholasticism's attitude toward art, simply read Aristotle. The scholastic view isn't much different, except that it is differently deployed in a manner consistent with Male's "Gothic." This book bored me.
Rating:
Summary: Strike Out
Review: Umberto Eco's best efforts are probably contained in this rather labyrinthine and meandering effort to codify Thomistic philosophy. Thomism doesn't have a philosophy of the "aesthetic,' a notion wholly alien to the medieval mind. So Eco has to kind of create such a notion from a plethora of Thomas' writings. Fortunately, Eco does stay on track, even if he creates and follows tangents widely, by staying focused on the contribution ART (vis-a-vis "aesthetics") offers to modern sensibility. Frankly, if one wants a better understanding of Medieval attitudes toward art, Emile Male's "Gothic" is incomparable. Male's work is a tour d'force and a "must" for anyone seriously interested in medieval art. Even Jacques Maritain's "Art and Scholasticism" does a better job of presenting Thomistic views on art and beauty. The same can be said of Josef Pieper, who has written many books on art and the scholastic mind. Eco, who made a name for inviting deconstruction into the Italian worldview, is better skilled at directing his attentions to that field than the medieval notions, concepts, and theories of art and beauty. If one wants a more concolidated assessment of the "philosophical" underpinnings of scholasticism's attitude toward art, simply read Aristotle. The scholastic view isn't much different, except that it is differently deployed in a manner consistent with Male's "Gothic." This book bored me.
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