As an artist, I’ve always hated modern art. It’s so incredibly ugly. There’s an art museum on my college campus and it’s incredible to see the difference between the student art which is usually just a bunch of paint splatters and angsty words on a canvas vs on the other side of the gallery, stunning study sketches of parts of the Sistine Chapel’s painted ceilings.
When i took art classes all through high school, I always wondered why most works were angry, angsty, and dark art. Our teachers required us to have preapproval of our designs before we started working on them, and time and time again my designs of imagery of love, kindness, or natural beauty like landscape art would be rejected for not being "deep" enough. Finally I got fed up with it and my last project was some dumb "save the planet" self-portrait where I drew the clothes as made out of trash I didn't really put my heart into, yet everyone loved it.
I’m the same. I hate the postmodernist rubbish in lots of fine art galleries. I’m an artist who studied illustration at university and fine art was also taught as a subject at the same university. At the end of my final year, the illustration exhibition and the fine art exhibition were on at the same time. It was such a stark contrast between the two and it was almost painful to walk round the ‘fine art’ exhibition. Every single piece was ugly or something a small child could have done in preschool. At least we were taught anatomy and life drawing in our course and most of the students could draw well. As a result, the standard of art in illustration was much, much higher. I think it’s because illustration is seen as a form of art that needs to depict subject matters well in order to be useful or profitable, whereas modern ‘fine art’ is about being as pretentious as possible to try to gain attention from other pretentious people. It’s incredibly sad and I pray for a revolution in the art world to return to valuing artistic skill.
Believe it or not, President Dwight Eisenhower (who sometimes painted as a stress-reliever in his free time) actually bemoaned this "modern art" movement nearly 60-65 years ago. He said that the paintings coming from it looked like "a canvas driven over by a Tin Lizzie" IIRC. Even in its earlier days, people could see what it often was. Sadly not enough spoke up though, and now we're stuck with this insanity.
Not all art is representationist. I prefer abstract expressionism and surrealism, broadly speaking, but also like and appreciate stuff more people go "ooh" and "ahh" at.
I’m non-denominational Christian, but also a professional visual artist, and one thing I really appreciate about Catholicism is its emphasis on beauty as an aspect of the divine. I have felt from a very early age that most modern art is complete garbage.
The church used to* have an emphasis on beauty. Not anymore sadly. Unfortunately it’s only schismatic groups that are still making beautiful churches and interiors
@@lucidlocomotive2014 sure, I definitely get that, I just mean that in Catholicism, the existence of beauty is used as an apologetic argument for the existence of God. I think the beauty of the churches are a product of that line of thinking.
@@reysolo3672 If it upsets or angers most people, it is evil or at least bad. If someone's ugly, but has a kind personality we see their inner self beautiful, since kindness is beauty. If someone's beautiful, but is a sadist we see their inner self as ugly and evil. A lot of people who are ugly have hatred for those more beautiful and do more criminal acts and we judge those who are ugly as being evil for are own safety. Seeing something ugly makes us feel uneasy and we view it has evil since it's giving us a similar feeling like being threaten. Horror movies make their monsters or characters ugly for that same reason. Seeing something beautiful makes us happy and at ease, looking at something ugly makes us unhappy and upsetting. What we see as abnormal or disturbed as being evil. The Momo statue cause real children to have nightmares just from looking at it, why? Because it's ugly and makes us feel uneasy. We know Momo is a statue, but we view it as evil because it's ugly and real people started uploading images of Momo on kids UA-cam and on Instagram, just to torture children. That's an act of evil just because of an ugly statue, which is way it's evil. Something ugly can cause others to do evil things and that's another reason for ugliness to be evil.
@@reysolo3672the ugly art is a clear symptom showing evil corrupting civilization. The art made by the Roman Catholic Church is so human centric and worldly and it is clearly done to move the focus away from God. How is that not evil?
I'm an atheist and I used to consider myself a leftist, but I agree with you wholeheartedly. I despise modern "art" and love the aesthetics of old churches. Classical art took immense skill, talent, time and dedication to create, whereas most modern art feels like it could have been made in 5 minutes by a toddler. I feel that these modern artists deliberately create ugly pieces since they lack the talent to evoke feelings with their art otherwise. Any time I talk with someone who defends modern art I feel like they're trying to gaslight me.
Brutalism does have a place... on freeways. If they tried to make freeway overpasses beautiful, it would: distract drivers, decorative details might fall off on to the cars below, and it would look like mismatched crap after it gets repaired. I once worked in a designer office building. It was designed to be reminiscent of a heavy industrial factory with a work floor. However, the work floor had tables and chairs and was a common space to "meet and collaborate." The offices with tiny. Everyone hated their tiny offices. Seeing all the empty unused space just made everyone even angrier.
Very true. I have an atheist friend who specifically goes to places like cathedrals when he travels because he craves the beauty. He loves what humans once created, and hates the oppressive ugliness of "modern art."
I submitted a 3D sculpture depicting the roman soldiers at the foot of the cross tossing dice for Jesus's clothing as Jesus suffered on the cross just above them. It was super realistic and anatomical correct, with particularly attention paid to historical accuracy in clothing and roman armor. I spent 2 years completing it. It was titled "Winners and Losers." The university that gave the "Art show" set my piece away in a corner and gave the award and prize to a work that consisted of a plastic toy elephant with two toy space shuttle boosters sloppily hot glued to the elephants sides and all that hot glued to a broken piece of plywood and it all was sloppily stripped with yellow paint. When the artist accepted the award, he was visibly distressed and would not look me in the eye when I offered him congratulations( I was expecting this kind of outcome and only wished to display the work for its message). Many of the visitors were upset about who received the award and were vocal about it, causing the university staff to leave the floor and they did not return.
I am very sad you had to experience that😢. Sadly the art world is all about nepotism and modern art is the perfect excuse for giving talentless artists awards they don t deserve. Almost all of the they give first place to the xyz friend or relative of the organizers regardless of their skill and creativity and if you question them they ll tell you that a yellow plastic elephant has more meaning to it then what you see and that you are uneducated and don t understand art. I am almost 100% sure that if you would have done a bit of research about the guy who won you d find interesting things about what relation he has with the professors of the university.
I ve had a 10 year experience with art competitions starting from a fairly young age. During my first few competitions with no serious award i always won but the moment i entered serious ones i was always left disappointed. I was 16 when i entered a national art competition and made a 2 meter painting of Antigone crying beside her dead brother. It was hyperrealistic, very detailed and looked like a photo. The other contestants all shuck my hand and congratulated that despite being a child i managed to make something not even they could after 30-40 years but the moment they showed the results i was heartbroken. A pretty young woman who drew 3 blue symmetrical dots on her canvas won. I broke into tears the older artists tried to comfort me, as i was on my way out i saw this girl kissing one of the judges i was disgusted. My next major competition was similar. I made a hyperrealistic painting of St Peter in Rome worked 2 months on it but ofc the winner ended up being a guy who made an abstract piece of a girl hugging a tree. But the person couldn t draw faces and it looked horrible. After doing some research i learned that the winner was the nephew of the organizer. All of my other competitions were like that the winner was always someone close to the judges and couldn t draw
It's an agenda. Those who 'own' the university decide what the professors can and can't do. The masses are being manipulated and controlled by the few, who want to keep us down. Just my two pennies. I suffered the same in my chosen sport - despite objectively demonstrating excellence, others were still chosen above me. There's a worldwide 'club' and we are not in it (and never will be).
I pray for your success. My home church was built in 1917 and has a lot of beautiful paintings and stained-glass windows and statues, but most of the time right now I go to this church that was made in the 1990s and its art is not nearly as good.
Any ideas as to how we can bring beautiful art to parishes? I know it obviously costs money to make large images but I don't know how much, any Catholic businesses?
I absolutely agree with you and I believe parishioners can help with this in multiple ways. Find beautiful art you think would look great in your church, or find an artist (whether known or unknown) and commission a beautiful work of art. Get an estimate, a sample/rendering of the project, and discuss it with your priest. If everything looks good and is agreeable to everyone, you could fund raise locally and even nationally (gofundme, givesendgo, etc). I bet you could make that work. Then, as a gift to donors, you could send professional pictures of the work - maybe even signed by the artist. A relatively unknown artist could become well known and receive lots of work for similar projects - and gift your church a new beautiful piece of art now and again 😊. This could become a routine donation or collection throughout the year. Parishioners could vote on a selection projects, big and small, and even locate artists for group review. Moreover, lithographs, calendars, and so on, can be made and sold by the church to bring in extra revenue. Those funds can be saved for future art projects, sponsor talented artists from around the world to work on projects in-house, or provide the funds for Gregorian Chant training throughout the diocese. Perhaps this endeavor would provide enough funds to support a local monastery or convent! I hope many, many prayers will yield positive action… and much beautiful artwork! God bless and God speed!!
Brutalism feels as if the concrete buildings are threatening to crush me rather than make me feel part of anything. It says "you are tiny, you are insignificant"
Exactly. Cathedrals makes me realize "Oh, I'm part of something huge, and I somehow have a place in it". Brutalism is more of a "You are in something huge, and you have no place in it". One draws you to something larger, the other pulls you to smallness.
Aw your feelies got hurt. Then go read your fairtytale book that tells you you're the center of everything, the universe etc. 😂 weak-ass people in tbis channel
As an artist, this new modern art makes it extremely difficult for actual artists. We're constantly being judged not for the beauty and meaning of our pieces, but for this odd, countercultural, abstractness factor. So a hyperrealistic piece of gorgeous art will sell for 10x less than ketchup on a canvas. That and the fact that now no one takes art seriously anymore. Art used to take the hidden, underlying beauty in God's creation and highlight it. It was an illustration of potential, essentially showing God in God's work. Now the art that is praised has lost all meaning and has become as repulsive as an indulgent concupiscence.
If modern (ugly) art is considered as critique of traditional values, then you should do your art as a critique of modern art. If art is just critique?
Yeah, I remember doing state art competitions and every time there would be the "what does it mean?" Part. I never knew what to put there. For the most part, I made my art because I just liked it. It was pretty, or a picture Id taken inspired me. Making stuff up to put there was always the worst part 😅
@@highroller-jq3ixwell in real life the neoliberal world order corrupts youths to hate chastity, think they are the opposite gender, and hate objective truths.
Art is an expression of the soul. Anyone who produces this sort of ugliness is not telling a story about society but are telling a story about themselves.
Bruh, "everyone knows their place in the collective" has to be one of the most horrifying dystopian ideals I've ever heard. And that dude was saying it like it was a good thing
To be fair, there are things about brutalist architecture that are beautiful. I have a background in architecture, and although I much prefer Gothic and Victorian styles, I do enjoy the sheer strength and power that brutalist architecture portrays (think of Arrakeen in the new Dune movies, for example).
@@thorzap1374 He's also wrong about brutalism too. At least in the USSR it was used to create temporary housing blocks to end homelessness until better houses could be made. It was rarely artistic to my knowledge.
There's a lot of beautiful brutalist architecture, as well. It's just that many have their hearts too corrupted to even make the attempt at reaching that beauty.
That makes sense. If post-modern artists are ingrained with things like Critical Race Theory, Feminism, Darwinian Evolution, etc. it would follow that their art reflects this belief that the world is primarily about power dynamics; the artistic process and the product of the process is about power.
@@josiahalexander5697 As a Cartholic, I believe in Darwinian Evolution; however, I think God created us through this process and that man's fall into sin happened at some point when early humans existed.
@@dr.danburritoman1293 Oh no problem. I think there is some valid science in the theory of evolution but a lot of proponents of Darwinian evolution (and I think this might be because of a misunderstanding, I don’t know if Darwin would actually agree with this) tend to put a large emphasis on power.
In 1963, an excerpt from the book , “The Naked Communist”, was made part of the congressional record, outlining 45 “communist goals”. If you decide to look this up and read them, it will be a wake up call for you. The following are two of them: 2. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms." 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
Communism was a disgrace to humanity. They not only have a terrible civilization and regime, but they also want to destroy other civilizations and regimes... Crab mentality.
Art isn’t just painting or “fine arts.” Art is all-encompassing. It includes music, literature, film, and photography, amongst other mediums. It’s silly and arrogant to dismiss art movements past a certain era. It’s like saying you refuse to listen to music recorded past the 1970s.
And even then, the majority of impressionists aren't particularly good. However, there are some, those who grasp what impression is MEANT to be, that were absolutely brilliant. But yeah, if I were teaching art, impressionism is where I'd pretty much end. If I were to go any further, it would be to find the selection of current artists actually returning to skill and beauty despite the insistence of society to devalue art.
I spent my 20s entrenched in the world of the arts and hung around all the best artists of my area. I understand from experience around this world that the goal of modern art is an extension of critical theory. The aim is to visually tear down anything that is accepted as traditional. The goal is to also shock others, and the only way to shock other people is to keep crossing the line of what is currently accepted as normal. Eventually you get so far out on the periphery of what was considered normal, that you venture into extremely weird sex stuff, pedophilia, or even just publicly destroying something beautiful to post online as a sort of performance art (we are here). Modern art is also fueled by pride and individualism. Why create something beautiful? That has all been done before. The goal is to do something shocking enough that will gain you notoriety and fame. The more "triggered" the "conservatives" are, the more attention you receive, and the more you will be congratulated by your peers for causing a stir with the backwards people. By accomplishing this, you can feel a sense of superiority over most of the population, and a sense of pride that you belong to a clique of special people who "get it". I feel like there's so much to say about this topic. Living in modern times and looking back on 2,000 years of Christian and secular art and being able to track its devolution is a fascinating thing...
Agreed. Also, re: "Why create something beautiful? That has all been done before." The hilarious thing is that's what they really say and think... while then producing and promoting work that's very basically rehashing things that were already boring and overdone by the end of the 1950s (eg all the splatters and people are still copying Rothko all these decades later or all the gross bodily fluids "art") and yet they claim that's somehow new and innovative still but beautiful art is old and boring.
I agree I have been a glassmaker for over 20 years, In our world, what the museums are passing off as Art today and what was considered Art when I started making Glass are two different worlds. The refined traditional teachers are no longer teaching at Glass schools in America. I’ve spent 20 years learning to make Italian crystal flame work. And have accomplished my goal now I cannot even get representation. There are literately 5 to 10 people in the world that are capable of making the scale, soft Glass and Crystal that I flame work with. Museums In America have an agenda. So most of my work is now sitting in wooden crates. And I picked up a camera and started shooting real estate to make a living.. In America, it’s no longer about who makes good proportion and composition within a refined traditional format. Mind you you can still express yourself a while making very good composed symmetrical pieces of work. And to make sure that my Art doesn’t fall into the wrong hands when I die. My will, and a small bank account has it stated that my work is to be sent to an Italian Glass museum, where it will be appreciated or stored by people that understand it’s true value.. When I went to Corning, they had a traditional red Venetian chandelier that was very well done. And it was purposely dropped on the floor, made to look like it was shattered…. And then they had some taxidermist stuff a bunch of dead crows. And made it look, as if The crows were picking at a dead corpse. In my eye of the beholder. It is the biggest FU . To the teachers and multiple glass masters that came here to teach this craft. But if you’re a lesbian or a transgender. Making very ugly and stupid installation you will be promoted.. PS if you want good glass, please go to Venice, Italy, and visit the island of Murano Instagram Beale__Glass
In eastern culture, art is a path of strive for achieving perfection. It's about dedicating all your efforts on constant improvement of any field you choose. It can be music, dance, pottery, trade, even war. What they call "modern art" is nothing but excuse for being lazy. Eastern culture appreciates the amount of work an artist put in his piece. I agree that beauty is subjective, but an artist's dedication on his field shall reflect on his piece. For example, eastern art like in Bali, Java etc depicts hideous/scary figures that may be considered "ugly". However, the amount of attention to details, traditional rules and standards etc is paramount. Javanese/Balinese artist spends decades of his life in apprenticeship, training under guidance of a master since early age. Japanese classic art, on the other hand, values simplicity. However, even in its simplicity, one can see the amount of hardwork and years of dedication to pursuit perfection.
The last modern art museum I visited was in Chicago. One prominent display was a glass cabinet with an old vacuum cleaner, a bottle of sand and a jar of buttons. That's not art, that's an insult.
Trent -please make a follow-up talking about beauty of traditional music versus the modern music today, not just in society but also the cheapening of liturgical music in the likes of 'peter paul and Mary'. I think the subjective language in Musicam Sacram led to too much liberties in introducing ugly music into masses among others
The more you look at the church post Vatican II and the NO the more difficult it gets to say that Vatican II was not a massive rupture with the tradition and how terrible the NO is on the whole. There are definitely some problematic documents in V II as well. We need to return to only offering the traditional Latin Mass or force all NO to be ad Orientum and chanted with Gregorian chant exclusively.
@@Justin-yn5py The New Lectionary removes emphasis from sin (it ommitts the passage on unworthy communion) and the New Offertory removes emphasis from the Sacrifice of the Mass by design. While the Roman Canon was stripped of its symbolic gestures during the liturgical reform. The problem isn't merely on the surface with things like ad Orientem and Sacred Music, it goes deeper than that
Thank you for this! As someone who’s been working in the art world for over 20 years, the avant-garde walked off the cliff - their art is just non-sensical self-indulgent memes. I admire the clarity with which you articulated the argument.
the designer of the nativity scene talking of how it was made to look mass produced is wild to me, I would never think when making art that I want it to look like a dull unoriginal practical object. also I think some Brutalist architecture can be good in it's right place such as the Kyoto International Conference Center, but nobody should live or worship in a brutalist concrete slab.
I think you really hit the nail on the head at 8:30 -- that older architecture and art is _generous._ I love describing truly beautiful art and architecture that way! Older, beautiful buildings and art clearly display that the time, money, and painstaking master craftsmanship it took to make the building _beautiful_ was _worth it,_ because the people inside the building are worth it. The way almost all buildings and art nowadays emphasize sparseness and extreme minimalism just says to me "neither you or any of the people in here are worth the time, money, or craftsmanship it would require to make this space that beautiful." Also, buildings that are truly beautiful inside and out -- even in small ways -- make you want to stop and take in the beauty! Modern warehouse stores, boxy plain office buildings, and even modern churches (especially protestant ones) ALL are so simple and boxy that I don't even register them as I walk through them. Those buildings are just a box I'm moving through to do whatever it is I need to do. Why NOT make every building so beautiful that people feel uplifted just by being there??
Kubrick used brutalist architecture in A Clockwork Orange very thoughtfully to represent a liberal dystopia. Brutalist apartments send a shiver of revulsion down my spine when I encounter them in the city.
I don't think one has to be Catholic to think this way. I'm not Catholic, either. And the ideas of beauty far predate even Christianity. The Ancient Greeks prized the same principles. I think that Catholics have always specifically put an emphasis on beauty in their worship, though, and I think that it may be especially offensive to some to see the lack of beauty in their worship spaces -- places that, of all things, ought to utterly glorify God in the richest possible ways. I totally get that, it's why I do what I do personally in focusing on religious buildings and their beauty.
There is something deeply ugly about the people so invested in perpetuating the lie that beauty is subjective. It's as if they know beauty can not be colonized for their usages, so the next best thing is to render it impotent by effectively denying its existence outside of feefees.
@@nsinkov And?? The fact it has a biological origin only shows that our brains are wired to perceive some things as beauty. Sounds objective to me, since that biological imperative that shapes the notion of beauty is shared by all individuals.
@@igorlopes7589 we're not biologically identical. Symmetry is generally preferable, but not always. There are always disagreements about what is beautiful. So beauty is subjective, don't you agree?
Like you said bad/ugly art can be appreciated in the right context, this is also true in music. Music theory teaches which notes/chords sound good together, but sometimes a "bad" note can sound great/interesting when contrasted against a pattern of "good notes". However, our ears can always pick out the note that sounds wrong, even untrained musicians can do this. The picture of the dead tree in the middle of the field looked hauntingly beautiful actually. The problem I have with the art shown at the beginning of the video is that it looks low effort to me.
That Marco Rupnik bit reminds me of the scene in That Hideous Strength when the the NICE puts Mark in a room full of subtlety distorted religious art. Mark comes to the opposite conclusion they intended by realized that if the evil NICE hates Christianity, then Christianity is probably good.
Dude!! Love this video! I'm a high school art teacher and my favorite music to play while the students draw/paint is "80s Synth Wave"! I have found that it puts them in a positive zone--there's no singing to distract, and the variations of synth music is infinite. So it's hard to get tired of it. Wow! Funny you mentioned 80s Synth Wave!
I genuinely like The Resurrection (0:28). It's really efficient in making me think about our mortality and the afterlife. I can't recall any other sculpture that make me feel that strongly like that.
The urinal (Fountain by Duchamp, signed "R Mutt) was most likely a critique of modern art, as he submitted it under a pseudonym, and the committee overseeing the art exhibit had no choice but to accept it since he paid his art fees.
As a Catholic sacred artist, my #1 goal with every piece has been to make it beautiful. Because I know that if I succeed in making it beautiful, it will also have something of goodness and truth in it. It will lift the viewer’s heart and mind to God. Every painting is a journey into the heart of God as he reveals himself to me through beauty. ❤
This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but to add to the "Everything is Beautiful" portion of the video, I think objective beauty can even be found in video games, and I have two examples that I think demonstrate it. First and foremost: Shadow of the Colossus in it's entirety. It is a game about triumph and devastation. And much like "Nighthawks," it has a way of transporting the player into it's beautiful, but barren landscape. I will not spoil the story but in many ways, it mimics the Fall in the Garden of Eden, and redemption that comes of being born again. I think those who have completed the game will understand what I'm talking about. Example 2: The Megalith/Angus Dei soundtrack of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. The Latin lyrics are about Christ Himself. Unfortunately, the soundtrack has become part of a meme that divorces it from it's original context and cheapens it somewhat, but the soundtrack is gorgeous AND elevates the mind to higher things. The soundtrack plays in the final level of the game, which uses explicitly christian symbolism.
How is that example of "objective" beauty differentiable from just regular usage of "beauty" (subjective by nature)? Is it because your momma/God said you're a very handsome, special boy who has the most special opinions? @TheCounselofTrent This goes for you too.
I stated it facetiously, but I'm sincere in my question- WHAT do you mean it's "objectively beautiful"? It literally just sounds like you're using "objective" as a stand-in to say: "I feel VERY strongly that this is beautiful and I think people who disagree with my take are degenerate."
I remember a comment that Peter Kreeft made about the appreciation of beauty, in which he compared it to the appreciation of food: The subjective part: Taste. You can't argue about what someone thinks tastes good. The objective part: Nourishment. You can certainly argue about what food is healthy or nourishing for the human body. Still thinking about this distinction, but it seems to be helpful for understanding how people relate to beauty!
Oh my gosh, didn’t expect the 80s synth mention! It’s so fun. Thanks for this video, I appreciate the nuance that it’s not modern art that is bad. But there is definitely a lot of ugly art out there that people elevate. Thankfully I don’t have to see it that often. :)
This is spot on.. my dad when I was young used to tell me about why they made those ugly buildings in the communist countries and how they are starting in Europe and over here and how it’s all the communist ideology to have nothing beautiful. I always thought he was nuts but man the more I learn he was spot on. And even the architects admitted it
I'm a craftsman, not an artist. But classic art makes me want to come back and see it again. Modern art is more like early 1900s circus freaks. They hit you hard to get your attention one time, but after that you think "Eh...you've seen one man with three legs you've seen them all.
"And when everyone's super... No one will be." - Trent Horn, March, 2024 (probably) Never heard it put quite this way, but I appreciate the perspective. I miss beautiful buildings.
"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, GREATER EVEN THAN THAT OF ANY OTHER ART" (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 112, emphasis mine). Sadly, in many churches we don't get that. Bad art, bad music. Gregorian chant? hardly any place at all.
It's true - where I live, I'm happy even to hear decent praise and worship-style because of how bad par performance is. Gregorian Chant is like a whole different world.
The fact the liturgical reformers destroyed gregorian chant shows how much traditional they are. I don't understand why people often dissociate this: "oh, they weren't traditional in art or theology but surely they were traditional in the new Rite they created!". Not saying that thats you, but I tend to see a lot people who care about tradition in Sacred Art and then magically stop caring when its about the Roman Rite
We could easily have Gregorian chant at all of our churches. But the 60 year old Susans whose money allows the church to pay the bills would complain and stop going to Mass because of that "creepy weird music"
Thank you for addressing this so thoroughly. I've felt these things to be true since I was a child. And as a child, I intensely disliked the silly, simplistic, ugly religious "art" that was presented to me in churches, or for coloring or following along in textbooks. Conversely, I loved illustrations in non-religious books because they didn't treat me like an idiot, or depict people as potatoes. Hilary White's quote about the "visual gibberish" style implying "that the Christian things it depicts are silly, imprecise and ultimately irrelevant nonsense" is exactly right in my opinion.
But the visual gibberish had the support of occultists, molesters and freaks like Joseph Bernardin, Howard Hubbard, Blase Cupich and their crowd, plus you know there's "obedience" and all that...
There’s a catholic parish not far from me that’s semi-brutalist architecture but circular shape that looks like a fancy flying saucer. I even call it the “spaceship church” cold and ugly as Hell and the interior is not any better! The parish had an old beautiful country church before but it got replaced by the flying saucer guess when? 1970s of course! Was everybody smoking something awful back then? Sheesh! And then the Baptist church nearby that Catholic parish looks like a big wear house or shopping mall! I wouldn’t be shocked if it had a food court in it! If mixing religion with government is bad imagine mixing religion with corporations! My Catholic parish while nowhere as beautiful as it used to be but still today looks better than many churches today! It has arches everywhere that resembles the arches you find in the orient like the Taj Mahal. My priest is seriously thinking of renovating the church to make it more traditional looking thank God and he’s no traditionalist by any stretch of the imagination! Though it certainly won’t look anything like the gothic cathedral of course but I am glad he seems to want to make it more traditional looking!
Art in the modern age has also become an almost infallible means of laundering money. Two parties want to make a questionable exchange of money? Introduce a product that's value is entirely subjective, and make the exchange for it.
Marcel Breuer is one who comes to mind that designed a lot of brutalist architecture for Catholic clients such as Annunciation Monastery (North Dakota) and St. John's Abbey (Minnesota).
These are extaordinary buildings that of course reflect a specific period in time and they are still great spaces today. Go and visit them and at least give them a close look.
Why would a Catholic diocese hire these horrid architects to design their churches? When you have the power why subject yourself and your parishioners to this hideous garbage
I once went to a modern art exhibit at a major museum. After a few moments inquisitively admiring a big pile of garbage that was piled behind cordon ropes, i looked about for the Title card that would have some ironic word that would make the piece all make sense. It turns out it was actually just garbage from some renovations being done.
Yall should read Nihilism by Fr Saraphim Rose. The first time I read it I was like "interesting but kinda extreme" Now I'm like oh, this is a pretty sober look at the current state of things.
C.S. Lewis made similar observations in "The Abolition of Man" where he argued that some things are objectively "sublime" while some new educators were pushing subjectivity (our feelings determine the value of everything).
For some really good Christian art, 3 contemporary artists I recommend are: 1) Full of Eyes - really great in depicting Christian theology through symbolic illustrations and he even has lengthy explanations for each of his piece accompanied by Bible verses. He also posted some animations in his UA-cam channel. 2) Yong Sung Kim - very famous for his very warm, spring-like traditional paintings of Jesus. My favorite artwork from him is "The Hand of God" 3) Jonas Pfeiffer - a 3D artist who makes jaw-dropping 3D animations of biblically accurate angels. For animated videos to help with our faith and learning the Bible, I recommend these YT Channels: 1) The Bible Project 2) IMBeggar 3) Impact Video Ministries If you like Anime/Manga , there's a 6-volume manga series based on the Bible called "Manga Bible" by Hidenori Kumai and Kozumi Shinozawa For movies and other series, Angel Studios is the goat.
Beauty is not subjective. Beauty is relational - contingent on the relation of the subject to the object. If beauty was purely subjective, why would we not be experiencing beauty at all times, regardless of whatever object is within our vicinity and perception? A lot of the arguments against solipsism also work pretty well at dismantling the lie that beauty is subjective. Beauty is relational, specifically a recognition and appreciation of the goodness outflowing of a particular object (and "object" here is used in a philosophical sense, not a material one).
Anybody can make art as unimaginably beautiful as heaven, a heaven so beautiful that it’d make Garden of Eden into a magical eco friendly paradise taken to the hideously beautiful extreme. Art can also be scary and beautiful at the same time, like how I did a Guillermo Del Toro version of Snow White.
People criticize the brutal apartment blocks in Russia but when the same buildings are built in America or Europe they think they are beautiful and innovative. What is the difference?
It is also ironic that Trent mentions the resurrection sculpture in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall in his video. As far as I understand it, this sculpture is meant to capture the horrors of nuclear war and Jesus rising from it. Trent says that this is not awe-inspiring as Christ's resurrection itself. That is like the Protestant argument that the empty cross depicting Christ's resurrection is to be preferred over the crucifix
But without knowing the title and historical context of the work it is nothing but a big burst of ugliness. I'm on board woth the idea of studying titles and historical context, they add depth to an art piece. But if a piece is horrifyingly ugly on its own, you're really arguing that title and context transform it into something beautiful, provocative and inspiring? That rings false to me
And yet, my first impression, on seeing a photo of it was that it was something demonic, not something related to Christ, or nuclear war or whatever. Modern art is horrendous and should be avoided at all costs.
That nativity scene at the start is hilarious. The main issue is the drive to constantly "make it new" at the expense of other artistic principles. Factor in money laundering, hiding wealth in art, tax write offs, budget surplus expenditure etc. and you have a recipe for a hideous artistic landscape.
Great video. Can you also do a follow up video talking about modern church architecture and how it turned so ugly? What happened to the cruciform style where you can look straight ahead and up to focus our gaze on the Altar? Now they are all designed like an auditorium where you're forced to look at other congregants, and there's barely any art. It just seems so utilitarian rather than transcendent, and we're all supposed to pretend that they're just as beautiful as the churches built 100+ years ago. Puh-lease.
Do you really not know? It’s money. Christianity boomed rapidly and needed churches to be put up fast, not slowly and carefully rendered and shaped by artists who were paid almost nothing or volunteered their time. Building materials have only increased with time and labourer expenses have skyrocketed to reduce tacit slavery. It’s why we have generally uglier architecture now even outside the Church. If you want people to wait 60 years for their church to be built and to pay no one a living wage then you can afford a gothic cathedral. We simply don’t have the means to do that anymore.
@emiliawisniewski3947 That is so far from accurate, it's comical. It's clear you do not know your history. It's not the lack of money that produces ugly churches but the lack of will.
It depends on who the artist knows or is related to. Since there's no objective barometer for determining art from crap, it pretty much comes down to whether the artist finds favor with the powers that be.....which, again, usually lands on the artist knowing or being related to someone amongst the powers.
Minimalist or bland Catholic architecture is way less expensive to build than ornate, traditional forms, which mostly explains its adoption throughout the US in the 70's and 80's. In industrial/business contexts, the same is true, but it is was rationalized by the ideology used to justify it for corporations that were not strapped for cash in order for them to maximize profits. Once the ideology took hold, minimalism's "value" skyrocketed, and now even minimalist, modern Catholic art and architecture are ridiculously expensive - and also subversive to traditional values as an added bonus. Most (though not all) modern art aspires to be "meaningful" not true, "valuable" not good, "interesting" not beautiful.
Notice that in the case of the cathedral of Brazil's capital they literally hired the most famous architect of the whole country to build an ugly modernist Church that doesn't even look like a Church
Yeah and those gorgeous, ornate churches took sometimes centuries to complete in full, they took the extra time. The same amount of time isn’t necessarily taken anymore - and we don’t even need to take centuries at this point since technology has become so advanced that it would only take several decades now likely. You just need the patience and people willing to donate
I grew up in East Germany in one of those Russian-style prefabricated buildings... I can't say it didn't feel like home... and yes, these buildings are really ugly, but you can beautify ugliness. Every month there was a meeting in every block community, there wasn't much you could do about the ugliness of the house, but you could beautify the area....plant trees, create flowerbeds or hang art in the hallways....or just do it Collecting the rubbish that careless people left behind....we even created a small goldfish pond and set up benches.... Over time, small parks and oases of beauty emerged in the midst of dreariness. Of course, this only works if you have people around you who follow along... The need for beauty is innate in us....if your house doesn't feel like a home, then make it your home!
Having to reply with “well, beauty is subjective after all” belies the cope. People only say that as a response to recognizing that something is in fact ugly, and having to go “well, it’s not my place to judge, who am I to say what’s beautiful? Another culture might find this beautiful” or some bs like that.
As a Slovene hearing you talk about Rupnik feels so odd. I've been to centrum Aletti in Rome, been to a church featuring his mosaics right in Ljubljana where I studied. I don't remember exactly how his style was described (though in Aletti where they told us how artists are taught to make mosaics was described in a spiritual way that reminds me of (what i know of) sacred iconography. This was all before this whole scandal came to light, and I have finished my theology studies before it so I'm not well familiar with what is said about this at the university. However, from what I've read in various Catholic papers, there has been debate over what those uncovered scandals mean for how we view his art - and mostly it was about whether we can separate the art from the artist, is the art valuable on its own even if the artist did bad things, should it be removed from churches. But this is the first time that I recall seeing his art criticized for its style rather than for its artist. (Though it is also true I didn't specifically study sacred art - those visits to Aletti and that one church were excursions, outside of the regular curriculum for me) So this is a lot to take in. I suppose I should look into it more.
Many dead trees seem beautiful to me and lift my spirit up to God. As a biologist, I call them snags and see them as an important resource that should be left in their environment. I would not compare them to a banana taped to the wall. It's not the sort of beauty I need to see reproduced, but by finding the beauty in decay we learn to love ourselves as our physical form becomes less beautiful over time. We learn to look closer and see nuance and develop our awareness. That dead tree may no longer be a "good tree" but it may catch the light just right to sparkle now that it's shed it's bark; and it provides food and shelter to a diversity of life that change it and grows new beautiful forms. Moss, mushrooms, holes for bats and other small mammals or birds, food for insects that is food for woodpeckers, this list could go on for pages if we got microscopic! I think our rejection of stuff like this in the landscape leads to the lack of appreciation for elders and a culture obsessed with youth. A culture that can't embrace change, which is unfortunate because change is the only thing that is inevitable. By rejecting the beauty of dead, decaying and dying things, we feed our fear of mortality. And we're all gonna die, so think about it and let the idea that you are aging and will die someday guide your actions. But I'm with you on modern art, especially the blank canvasses and things that clearly take no skill. It's strange, but I think the Emperor has No Clothes story sums up what's going on in that situation. As for ugly art that does take skill to create, I think the admirers of that art are sometimes disconnected youth, hurting at the soul level, and creating or admiring art they identify with can make them feel less alone, or help them heal. I agree with you on Brutalism, it is a tool to bring down the spirit of others.
And then, you see that beautiful dead tree growing a huge Chicken of the Woods! And in that moment you feel God's Glory and the nourishment of mother earth, the planet created to support and nurture us. There is one earth, and we were sent here to be stewards and take our home planet's glory to another level.
Those artists can call their ugly works whatever they want. I am not wasting my time to look at it. There are many beautiful things to appreciate in our very short life.
1:02 Funnily enough, the nativity like that was not sponsored on italian TVs. At all. Usually we get at least one mention of it on TV. But not this time, the media knew they were ugly.
Okay but how about some traditional Catholic art that really is also quite ugly? Some depictions show people in a really unrealistic not not very esthetically appealing way.
…seems like Aquinas was wrong, again. And I’m glad Trent’s totalitarian view of art is not main stream and we do have a wide spectrum of artworks and architecture, what we might consider as ugly or beautiful….
I got recommended this video randomly. I figured it was The Algorithm Gods demanding I engage, so I left a few snarky but also thought-out responses. I'm not familiar with Trent's audience but I'm guessing y'all are mostly rightwing trad here?
As someone who's probably not your typical viewer (pretty liberal, not religious, and often enjoys weird art), I can't really say I disagree with you about a big chunk of modern art, especially Brutalist architecture. Whether that can be chalked up to "moral relativism," or some inherent flaw of liberalism? That one still feels like a bit of a leap, at least for me. One thing I think you might not have taken into account when trying to understand modern art/architecture, is how much of it, especially in the 20th/21st Centuries, is more influenced by academic theorizing. Most art schools today put too much emphasis on theory, and not enough on teaching craftsmanship. And the current art market (especially at the high-end) tends to be overly enamored with fashionable intellectual fads, rewarding that kind of instruction. The art world has gotten way too hermetic; it alienates a big chunk of the ordinary public, and is overdue for a reckoning. On the other hand, I'll tell you this story: Years ago, I saw a Kiki Smith exhibit, at the Whitney. One of the pieces on display, was a wax sculpture of a female body, life-sized but without skin or hair, an anatomically-accurate model of her musculature, like something you'd see in a medical classroom or textbook. The title of this piece? _The Virgin Mary._ Sure, the title was a bit provocative-- I would understand if someone like you might be offended by it. But the piece captivated me. You see, I've always found most depictions of the Virgin Mary, especially in churches/shrines, more than a little creepy. The porcelain sculptures really freak me out, especially. They remind me of those horror movies, where dolls come to life and try to eat people. Also, even though my parents' families are mostly Catholic, I still don't understand the whole "venerating Mary" thing... In fact, much of the way religious people talk about Jesus or Mary, make them seem so remote, almost inhuman, so these characters never seemed real to me. But standing in front of Kiki Smith's _Virgin Mary,_ she finally felt like she could've actually been a plausibly flesh-&-blood human being who lived two-thousand years ago... Mary finally felt "real" to me. Granted, I didn't have some magical conversion experience, and I'm still pretty much an atheist, but of all the images of Mary, that one is still the most powerful for me. Maybe beauty really _is_ in the eye of the beholder. Beauty standards have come-&-gone throughout history; after all, even Renaissance art and Gothic architecture had its detractors, in their time. And sometimes certain artistic conventions become stale, and need need to experience both evolution _and_ revolution. Otherwise, there's no real growth without some kind of change. Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the matter; if you had the patience to read this whole thing, I appreciate you. All the best, my friend. By the way: For anyone interested, the UA-camr featured @10:33, is a guy named Stewart Hicks. His video-essays explore all kinds of different architecture, not just Brutalism. He's a really interesting, insightful guy, and his videos are pretty informative. (I'm a subscriber, and immediately recognized him, hahaha.) you can find him here: www.youtube.com/@stewarthicks
The fact that the local bishop at Lourdes still had to take time to consider whether to rwmove rupnik's artwork at the Lourdes shrine even after his sexual deviancy came to light just goes to show how blind some of our modern day clergy have become and how deep the rot is within the instituitional aspect of the church
As an artist, I’ve always hated modern art. It’s so incredibly ugly. There’s an art museum on my college campus and it’s incredible to see the difference between the student art which is usually just a bunch of paint splatters and angsty words on a canvas vs on the other side of the gallery, stunning study sketches of parts of the Sistine Chapel’s painted ceilings.
When i took art classes all through high school, I always wondered why most works were angry, angsty, and dark art. Our teachers required us to have preapproval of our designs before we started working on them, and time and time again my designs of imagery of love, kindness, or natural beauty like landscape art would be rejected for not being "deep" enough. Finally I got fed up with it and my last project was some dumb "save the planet" self-portrait where I drew the clothes as made out of trash I didn't really put my heart into, yet everyone loved it.
I’m the same. I hate the postmodernist rubbish in lots of fine art galleries. I’m an artist who studied illustration at university and fine art was also taught as a subject at the same university. At the end of my final year, the illustration exhibition and the fine art exhibition were on at the same time. It was such a stark contrast between the two and it was almost painful to walk round the ‘fine art’ exhibition. Every single piece was ugly or something a small child could have done in preschool. At least we were taught anatomy and life drawing in our course and most of the students could draw well. As a result, the standard of art in illustration was much, much higher. I think it’s because illustration is seen as a form of art that needs to depict subject matters well in order to be useful or profitable, whereas modern ‘fine art’ is about being as pretentious as possible to try to gain attention from other pretentious people. It’s incredibly sad and I pray for a revolution in the art world to return to valuing artistic skill.
Me too! I gave my art practice to Jesus and had a breakthrough. I have so many ideas from Him!
Believe it or not, President Dwight Eisenhower (who sometimes painted as a stress-reliever in his free time) actually bemoaned this "modern art" movement nearly 60-65 years ago. He said that the paintings coming from it looked like "a canvas driven over by a Tin Lizzie" IIRC. Even in its earlier days, people could see what it often was. Sadly not enough spoke up though, and now we're stuck with this insanity.
Not all art is representationist. I prefer abstract expressionism and surrealism, broadly speaking, but also like and appreciate stuff more people go "ooh" and "ahh" at.
I’m non-denominational Christian, but also a professional visual artist, and one thing I really appreciate about Catholicism is its emphasis on beauty as an aspect of the divine. I have felt from a very early age that most modern art is complete garbage.
My dad likes modern art. I honestly don't get why
The church used to* have an emphasis on beauty. Not anymore sadly. Unfortunately it’s only schismatic groups that are still making beautiful churches and interiors
@@lucidlocomotive2014 sure, I definitely get that, I just mean that in Catholicism, the existence of beauty is used as an apologetic argument for the existence of God. I think the beauty of the churches are a product of that line of thinking.
@@lucidlocomotive2014 vice robs us of our gifts
Good thing you never grew up.
"Evil despises beauty and flourishes amidst ugliness"
Did you make that up? I love the quote!
Bro it’s just goofy art, it’s not that deep.
this has nothing to do with being evil. making ugly art isn't evil.
@@reysolo3672 If it upsets or angers most people, it is evil or at least bad. If someone's ugly, but has a kind personality we see their inner self beautiful, since kindness is beauty. If someone's beautiful, but is a sadist we see their inner self as ugly and evil.
A lot of people who are ugly have hatred for those more beautiful and do more criminal acts and we judge those who are ugly as being evil for are own safety.
Seeing something ugly makes us feel uneasy and we view it has evil since it's giving us a similar feeling like being threaten. Horror movies make their monsters or characters ugly for that same reason. Seeing something beautiful makes us happy and at ease, looking at something ugly makes us unhappy and upsetting.
What we see as abnormal or disturbed as being evil. The Momo statue cause real children to have nightmares just from looking at it, why? Because it's ugly and makes us feel uneasy. We know Momo is a statue, but we view it as evil because it's ugly and real people started uploading images of Momo on kids UA-cam and on Instagram, just to torture children. That's an act of evil just because of an ugly statue, which is way it's evil.
Something ugly can cause others to do evil things and that's another reason for ugliness to be evil.
@@reysolo3672the ugly art is a clear symptom showing evil corrupting civilization. The art made by the Roman Catholic Church is so human centric and worldly and it is clearly done to move the focus away from God. How is that not evil?
I'm an atheist and I used to consider myself a leftist, but I agree with you wholeheartedly. I despise modern "art" and love the aesthetics of old churches. Classical art took immense skill, talent, time and dedication to create, whereas most modern art feels like it could have been made in 5 minutes by a toddler. I feel that these modern artists deliberately create ugly pieces since they lack the talent to evoke feelings with their art otherwise. Any time I talk with someone who defends modern art I feel like they're trying to gaslight me.
If you think that classical art refers to Chrisian churches, you are too stupid to pass kindergarten.
Atheist here as well. Give me the religious frescos of the Renaissance any day over modern abstract art.
@@abesapien9930 So according to Horn of Empty and the OP, that makes you a wingnut.
Brutalism does have a place... on freeways. If they tried to make freeway overpasses beautiful, it would: distract drivers, decorative details might fall off on to the cars below, and it would look like mismatched crap after it gets repaired. I once worked in a designer office building. It was designed to be reminiscent of a heavy industrial factory with a work floor. However, the work floor had tables and chairs and was a common space to "meet and collaborate." The offices with tiny. Everyone hated their tiny offices. Seeing all the empty unused space just made everyone even angrier.
Very true. I have an atheist friend who specifically goes to places like cathedrals when he travels because he craves the beauty. He loves what humans once created, and hates the oppressive ugliness of "modern art."
I submitted a 3D sculpture depicting the roman soldiers at the foot of the cross tossing dice for Jesus's clothing as Jesus suffered on the cross just above them. It was super realistic and anatomical correct, with particularly attention paid to historical accuracy in clothing and roman armor. I spent 2 years completing it. It was titled "Winners and Losers." The university that gave the "Art show" set my piece away in a corner and gave the award and prize to a work that consisted of a plastic toy elephant with two toy space shuttle boosters sloppily hot glued to the elephants sides and all that hot glued to a broken piece of plywood and it all was sloppily stripped with yellow paint. When the artist accepted the award, he was visibly distressed and would not look me in the eye when I offered him congratulations( I was expecting this kind of outcome and only wished to display the work for its message). Many of the visitors were upset about who received the award and were vocal about it, causing the university staff to leave the floor and they did not return.
It's definitely a political agenda and part of critical theory. So sad it has infiltrated so much of academia.
Can’t believe this is what the world has come to. Must’ve been tough working so much just to lose to some third grade art project.
I am very sad you had to experience that😢. Sadly the art world is all about nepotism and modern art is the perfect excuse for giving talentless artists awards they don t deserve. Almost all of the they give first place to the xyz friend or relative of the organizers regardless of their skill and creativity and if you question them they ll tell you that a yellow plastic elephant has more meaning to it then what you see and that you are uneducated and don t understand art. I am almost 100% sure that if you would have done a bit of research about the guy who won you d find interesting things about what relation he has with the professors of the university.
I ve had a 10 year experience with art competitions starting from a fairly young age. During my first few competitions with no serious award i always won but the moment i entered serious ones i was always left disappointed. I was 16 when i entered a national art competition and made a 2 meter painting of Antigone crying beside her dead brother. It was hyperrealistic, very detailed and looked like a photo. The other contestants all shuck my hand and congratulated that despite being a child i managed to make something not even they could after 30-40 years but the moment they showed the results i was heartbroken. A pretty young woman who drew 3 blue symmetrical dots on her canvas won. I broke into tears the older artists tried to comfort me, as i was on my way out i saw this girl kissing one of the judges i was disgusted. My next major competition was similar. I made a hyperrealistic painting of St Peter in Rome worked 2 months on it but ofc the winner ended up being a guy who made an abstract piece of a girl hugging a tree. But the person couldn t draw faces and it looked horrible. After doing some research i learned that the winner was the nephew of the organizer. All of my other competitions were like that the winner was always someone close to the judges and couldn t draw
It's an agenda. Those who 'own' the university decide what the professors can and can't do. The masses are being manipulated and controlled by the few, who want to keep us down. Just my two pennies. I suffered the same in my chosen sport - despite objectively demonstrating excellence, others were still chosen above me. There's a worldwide 'club' and we are not in it (and never will be).
I'm passionate about bringing better art into my local parishes. I need prayer in this endeavor.
I pray for your success. My home church was built in 1917 and has a lot of beautiful paintings and stained-glass windows and statues, but most of the time right now I go to this church that was made in the 1990s and its art is not nearly as good.
Any ideas as to how we can bring beautiful art to parishes? I know it obviously costs money to make large images but I don't know how much, any Catholic businesses?
I absolutely agree with you and I believe parishioners can help with this in multiple ways. Find beautiful art you think would look great in your church, or find an artist (whether known or unknown) and commission a beautiful work of art. Get an estimate, a sample/rendering of the project, and discuss it with your priest. If everything looks good and is agreeable to everyone, you could fund raise locally and even nationally (gofundme, givesendgo, etc). I bet you could make that work. Then, as a gift to donors, you could send professional pictures of the work - maybe even signed by the artist. A relatively unknown artist could become well known and receive lots of work for similar projects - and gift your church a new beautiful piece of art now and again 😊.
This could become a routine donation or collection throughout the year. Parishioners could vote on a selection projects, big and small, and even locate artists for group review.
Moreover, lithographs, calendars, and so on, can be made and sold by the church to bring in extra revenue. Those funds can be saved for future art projects, sponsor talented artists from around the world to work on projects in-house, or provide the funds for Gregorian Chant training throughout the diocese. Perhaps this endeavor would provide enough funds to support a local monastery or convent!
I hope many, many prayers will yield positive action… and much beautiful artwork! God bless and God speed!!
Good luck against the cadre of middle aged female busy bodies who unfortunately run most parishes
Prayers to you!
Brutalism feels as if the concrete buildings are threatening to crush me rather than make me feel part of anything. It says "you are tiny, you are insignificant"
I know that feeling; my high school is like that.
Edit: fixed punctuation.
Depends because some are very pretty and expresses it just depends on how they do it.
Exactly. Cathedrals makes me realize "Oh, I'm part of something huge, and I somehow have a place in it". Brutalism is more of a "You are in something huge, and you have no place in it". One draws you to something larger, the other pulls you to smallness.
Aw your feelies got hurt. Then go read your fairtytale book that tells you you're the center of everything, the universe etc. 😂 weak-ass people in tbis channel
It's exactly the point though. It's funny how art reflects some trends that are present in society
As an artist, this new modern art makes it extremely difficult for actual artists. We're constantly being judged not for the beauty and meaning of our pieces, but for this odd, countercultural, abstractness factor. So a hyperrealistic piece of gorgeous art will sell for 10x less than ketchup on a canvas. That and the fact that now no one takes art seriously anymore. Art used to take the hidden, underlying beauty in God's creation and highlight it. It was an illustration of potential, essentially showing God in God's work. Now the art that is praised has lost all meaning and has become as repulsive as an indulgent concupiscence.
Please continue doing what you are doing, brother/sister. Our world needs beauty and transcendence. Please keep adding to it.
If modern (ugly) art is considered as critique of traditional values, then you should do your art as a critique of modern art. If art is just critique?
Rebel by being great
Yeah, I remember doing state art competitions and every time there would be the "what does it mean?" Part. I never knew what to put there. For the most part, I made my art because I just liked it. It was pretty, or a picture Id taken inspired me. Making stuff up to put there was always the worst part 😅
„Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin good forces have invented or made.“
JRR Tolkien
Sauron and Melkor corrupted elves and turned them into Orcs.
@@Lucas-q2l5e Yes, in a fantasy.
@@highroller-jq3ixwell in real life the neoliberal world order corrupts youths to hate chastity, think they are the opposite gender, and hate objective truths.
Art is an expression of the soul. Anyone who produces this sort of ugliness is not telling a story about society but are telling a story about themselves.
I agree with you 100%
No, art isn't an expression of an imaginary thing.
VERY well said!
All art comes from the end result of all combined knowledge and experiences and what makes you you distilled through your own skills.
@@highroller-jq3ix You are very fun at parties, huh...?
"Anyone who thinks beauty is only in the eye of the beholder has never been to a strip mall in the suburbs" - Caravaggio
lol
"beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is always an excuse for ugliness
@@marvalice3455 except beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder
@@SenorCinema no
@@marvalice3455 yes
That clip of the man professing the virtues of brutalist architecture sounded like an advertisement for the Borg.
Bruh, "everyone knows their place in the collective" has to be one of the most horrifying dystopian ideals I've ever heard. And that dude was saying it like it was a good thing
To be fair, there are things about brutalist architecture that are beautiful. I have a background in architecture, and although I much prefer Gothic and Victorian styles, I do enjoy the sheer strength and power that brutalist architecture portrays (think of Arrakeen in the new Dune movies, for example).
It explains why their ship is shaped as a cube!
@@thorzap1374 He's also wrong about brutalism too. At least in the USSR it was used to create temporary housing blocks to end homelessness until better houses could be made. It was rarely artistic to my knowledge.
There's a lot of beautiful brutalist architecture, as well. It's just that many have their hearts too corrupted to even make the attempt at reaching that beauty.
Once you realize that shitty art has become a way to signal cultural, intellectual and moral superiority, everything starts to make sense
That makes sense. If post-modern artists are ingrained with things like Critical Race Theory, Feminism, Darwinian Evolution, etc. it would follow that their art reflects this belief that the world is primarily about power dynamics; the artistic process and the product of the process is about power.
@@josiahalexander5697 it’s also a way to bring in the whole idea of “interpretation.”
“You don’t like my art? That’s just your interpretation!”
@@bathcat3759
Gahhh! 😂
I think the book of Judges has something to say about the time we’re in 😅
@@josiahalexander5697 As a Cartholic, I believe in Darwinian Evolution; however, I think God created us through this process and that man's fall into sin happened at some point when early humans existed.
@@dr.danburritoman1293
Oh no problem. I think there is some valid science in the theory of evolution but a lot of proponents of Darwinian evolution (and I think this might be because of a misunderstanding, I don’t know if Darwin would actually agree with this) tend to put a large emphasis on power.
In 1963, an excerpt from the book , “The Naked Communist”, was made part of the congressional record, outlining 45 “communist goals”. If you decide to look this up and read them, it will be a wake up call for you. The following are two of them:
2. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American
Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute
shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive,
meaningless art."
I was JUST ABOUT to post this.
Everyone needs to read this.
I've been meaning to read that.
Communism was a disgrace to humanity. They not only have a terrible civilization and regime, but they also want to destroy other civilizations and regimes... Crab mentality.
As always the comunas with their crab mentality.
I always knew communists have evil intentions. Things like these only solidify them.
My kids attend a Catholic grade school and I love their art teacher. She said she doesn't pay any attention to any art made after the impressionists.
Art isn’t just painting or “fine arts.” Art is all-encompassing. It includes music, literature, film, and photography, amongst other mediums. It’s silly and arrogant to dismiss art movements past a certain era. It’s like saying you refuse to listen to music recorded past the 1970s.
Neat. A stupid art bigot.
That is an awesome statement!
If you think there's been 0 good art in the past 100 years that's a you problem.
And even then, the majority of impressionists aren't particularly good. However, there are some, those who grasp what impression is MEANT to be, that were absolutely brilliant.
But yeah, if I were teaching art, impressionism is where I'd pretty much end. If I were to go any further, it would be to find the selection of current artists actually returning to skill and beauty despite the insistence of society to devalue art.
I spent my 20s entrenched in the world of the arts and hung around all the best artists of my area. I understand from experience around this world that the goal of modern art is an extension of critical theory. The aim is to visually tear down anything that is accepted as traditional. The goal is to also shock others, and the only way to shock other people is to keep crossing the line of what is currently accepted as normal. Eventually you get so far out on the periphery of what was considered normal, that you venture into extremely weird sex stuff, pedophilia, or even just publicly destroying something beautiful to post online as a sort of performance art (we are here).
Modern art is also fueled by pride and individualism. Why create something beautiful? That has all been done before. The goal is to do something shocking enough that will gain you notoriety and fame. The more "triggered" the "conservatives" are, the more attention you receive, and the more you will be congratulated by your peers for causing a stir with the backwards people. By accomplishing this, you can feel a sense of superiority over most of the population, and a sense of pride that you belong to a clique of special people who "get it".
I feel like there's so much to say about this topic. Living in modern times and looking back on 2,000 years of Christian and secular art and being able to track its devolution is a fascinating thing...
Agreed.
Also, re: "Why create something beautiful? That has all been done before." The hilarious thing is that's what they really say and think... while then producing and promoting work that's very basically rehashing things that were already boring and overdone by the end of the 1950s (eg all the splatters and people are still copying Rothko all these decades later or all the gross bodily fluids "art") and yet they claim that's somehow new and innovative still but beautiful art is old and boring.
That figures, it's Jewish.
I agree I have been a glassmaker for over 20 years, In our world, what the museums are passing off as Art today and what was considered Art when I started making Glass are two different worlds. The refined traditional teachers are no longer teaching at Glass schools in America. I’ve spent 20 years learning to make Italian crystal flame work. And have accomplished my goal now I cannot even get representation. There are literately 5 to 10 people in the world that are capable of making the scale, soft Glass and Crystal that I flame work with. Museums In America have an agenda. So most of my work is now sitting in wooden crates. And I picked up a camera and started shooting real estate to make a living.. In America, it’s no longer about who makes good proportion and composition within a refined traditional format. Mind you you can still express yourself a while making very good composed symmetrical pieces of work. And to make sure that my Art doesn’t fall into the wrong hands when I die. My will, and a small bank account has it stated that my work is to be sent to an Italian Glass museum, where it will be appreciated or stored by people that understand it’s true value.. When I went to Corning, they had a traditional red Venetian chandelier that was very well done. And it was purposely dropped on the floor, made to look like it was shattered…. And then they had some taxidermist stuff a bunch of dead crows. And made it look, as if The crows were picking at a dead corpse. In my eye of the beholder. It is the biggest FU . To the teachers and multiple glass masters that came here to teach this craft. But if you’re a lesbian or a transgender. Making very ugly and stupid installation you will be promoted.. PS if you want good glass, please go to Venice, Italy, and visit the island of Murano
Instagram Beale__Glass
Very well said. Your post explains so much of modernity.
Yea but it still doesn’t take talent to piss on a Monet. It did however take talent for him to make those works
Don't forget skill and lack of skill. Modern art lacks skill and is disgustingly plain.
The only time I see brutalism as fitting is if you're building a prison. It visually resembles the feeling of a prison.
That's cruel and unusual punishment
@@jackieo8693exactly. It dehumanizes and demoralizes those in prison…and many of those affected prisoners are then sent back into society.
@@DeannaWillistonOFS and some of them are not guilty, or are guilty of small things.
@@DeannaWillistonOFS…so you think the purpose of prison should be to dehumanize prisoners?
@@AngelineProductions absolutely not. I’m saying it’s part of what destroys those who get sent to prison, even for smaller crimes.
In eastern culture, art is a path of strive for achieving perfection. It's about dedicating all your efforts on constant improvement of any field you choose. It can be music, dance, pottery, trade, even war.
What they call "modern art" is nothing but excuse for being lazy. Eastern culture appreciates the amount of work an artist put in his piece. I agree that beauty is subjective, but an artist's dedication on his field shall reflect on his piece.
For example, eastern art like in Bali, Java etc depicts hideous/scary figures that may be considered "ugly". However, the amount of attention to details, traditional rules and standards etc is paramount. Javanese/Balinese artist spends decades of his life in apprenticeship, training under guidance of a master since early age.
Japanese classic art, on the other hand, values simplicity. However, even in its simplicity, one can see the amount of hardwork and years of dedication to pursuit perfection.
This is key: For something to be considered art it must reflect skill.
The last modern art museum I visited was in Chicago. One prominent display was a glass cabinet with an old vacuum cleaner, a bottle of sand and a jar of buttons. That's not art, that's an insult.
There's very little more insulting than "found art." Like, come on! Put even a TINY BIT of effort into it!
Trent -please make a follow-up talking about beauty of traditional music versus the modern music today, not just in society but also the cheapening of liturgical music in the likes of 'peter paul and Mary'. I think the subjective language in Musicam Sacram led to too much liberties in introducing ugly music into masses among others
Sing a new Church comes to mind
Please make a follow-up talking about the beauty of traditional Liturgy versus the modern Liturgy today
The more you look at the church post Vatican II and the NO the more difficult it gets to say that Vatican II was not a massive rupture with the tradition and how terrible the NO is on the whole. There are definitely some problematic documents in V II as well. We need to return to only offering the traditional Latin Mass or force all NO to be ad Orientum and chanted with Gregorian chant exclusively.
@@Justin-yn5py The New Lectionary removes emphasis from sin (it ommitts the passage on unworthy communion) and the New Offertory removes emphasis from the Sacrifice of the Mass by design. While the Roman Canon was stripped of its symbolic gestures during the liturgical reform.
The problem isn't merely on the surface with things like ad Orientem and Sacred Music, it goes deeper than that
@@igorlopes7589 very true
When your movement is about tearing down walls, then you’ll inevitably be left with nothing but ruins. Simple as that
This is a conversation I been having in my head for years, but very specifically in the past few months. Thanks for the video.
Thank you for this! As someone who’s been working in the art world for over 20 years, the avant-garde walked off the cliff - their art is just non-sensical self-indulgent memes. I admire the clarity with which you articulated the argument.
Well said!
the designer of the nativity scene talking of how it was made to look mass produced is wild to me, I would never think when making art that I want it to look like a dull unoriginal practical object. also I think some Brutalist architecture can be good in it's right place such as the Kyoto International Conference Center, but nobody should live or worship in a brutalist concrete slab.
The conference center doesn't look so brutalist tbh
For a good laugh and a hearty shake of the head look up "minimalist nativity set" 😂
The only beautiful modern art is environmental friendly, because it atleast seeks to glorify nature, which was after all created by G-d.
12:57 "A lot of modern art is bad because it focuses primarily on the artist."
The exact opposite of worship.
Well, it IS worship -- just worship of the self. Which is, quite literally, satanic.
I think you really hit the nail on the head at 8:30 -- that older architecture and art is _generous._ I love describing truly beautiful art and architecture that way! Older, beautiful buildings and art clearly display that the time, money, and painstaking master craftsmanship it took to make the building _beautiful_ was _worth it,_ because the people inside the building are worth it. The way almost all buildings and art nowadays emphasize sparseness and extreme minimalism just says to me "neither you or any of the people in here are worth the time, money, or craftsmanship it would require to make this space that beautiful."
Also, buildings that are truly beautiful inside and out -- even in small ways -- make you want to stop and take in the beauty! Modern warehouse stores, boxy plain office buildings, and even modern churches (especially protestant ones) ALL are so simple and boxy that I don't even register them as I walk through them. Those buildings are just a box I'm moving through to do whatever it is I need to do. Why NOT make every building so beautiful that people feel uplifted just by being there??
Kubrick used brutalist architecture in A Clockwork Orange very thoughtfully to represent a liberal dystopia. Brutalist apartments send a shiver of revulsion down my spine when I encounter them in the city.
Interesting...
They were also used in Robocop, Coma, Planet of the Apes, Logan's run etc
Lol go to Eastern Europe,they are EVERYWHERE
The Brits used to call them rabbit hutches...but I thought that sounded like animal cruelty.
I'm not Catholic but I do largely agree with your points. Postmodern, brutalist, Picasso-style civilization is utterly soul-killing.
I don't think one has to be Catholic to think this way. I'm not Catholic, either. And the ideas of beauty far predate even Christianity. The Ancient Greeks prized the same principles. I think that Catholics have always specifically put an emphasis on beauty in their worship, though, and I think that it may be especially offensive to some to see the lack of beauty in their worship spaces -- places that, of all things, ought to utterly glorify God in the richest possible ways. I totally get that, it's why I do what I do personally in focusing on religious buildings and their beauty.
Agree. Art should be original, attractive, mystical and intuitively challenging...😊
should be uplifting.
There is something deeply ugly about the people so invested in perpetuating the lie that beauty is subjective. It's as if they know beauty can not be colonized for their usages, so the next best thing is to render it impotent by effectively denying its existence outside of feefees.
But beauty IS subjective. Attraction to symmetry, etc, has a very clear biological origin.
@@nsinkov And?? The fact it has a biological origin only shows that our brains are wired to perceive some things as beauty. Sounds objective to me, since that biological imperative that shapes the notion of beauty is shared by all individuals.
@@igorlopes7589 we're not biologically identical. Symmetry is generally preferable, but not always. There are always disagreements about what is beautiful. So beauty is subjective, don't you agree?
@@nsinkovwrong. Beauty is relational. Next.
@@newglof9558 relational is a given, but it's still subjective
Like you said bad/ugly art can be appreciated in the right context, this is also true in music. Music theory teaches which notes/chords sound good together, but sometimes a "bad" note can sound great/interesting when contrasted against a pattern of "good notes". However, our ears can always pick out the note that sounds wrong, even untrained musicians can do this. The picture of the dead tree in the middle of the field looked hauntingly beautiful actually. The problem I have with the art shown at the beginning of the video is that it looks low effort to me.
Good take, I fully agree.
Video games too
That Marco Rupnik bit reminds me of the scene in That Hideous Strength when the the NICE puts Mark in a room full of subtlety distorted religious art. Mark comes to the opposite conclusion they intended by realized that if the evil NICE hates Christianity, then Christianity is probably good.
Good catch! That is such a spot on comparison too.
Part of the Communist plot to demoralize America so they could take over.
Dude!! Love this video! I'm a high school art teacher and my favorite music to play while the students draw/paint is "80s Synth Wave"! I have found that it puts them in a positive zone--there's no singing to distract, and the variations of synth music is infinite. So it's hard to get tired of it. Wow! Funny you mentioned 80s Synth Wave!
I genuinely like The Resurrection (0:28). It's really efficient in making me think about our mortality and the afterlife. I can't recall any other sculpture that make me feel that strongly like that.
There's also a lot of artists who have made a living without the skill and ability for realism, and it's considered impolite to say so.
Like Biden's son.
The urinal (Fountain by Duchamp, signed "R Mutt) was most likely a critique of modern art, as he submitted it under a pseudonym, and the committee overseeing the art exhibit had no choice but to accept it since he paid his art fees.
I'm not catholic and I'm barely christian, but you're speaking to ancient truths and virtues that are barely here anymore and I thank you for that.
I love your descriptions of art. 😄
I want a “Trent Horn Reviews Art” series so bad 😁
Trent Horn saying “This is just a urinal” during one of his videos was not in my 2024 card.
This was much deeper and more hard hitting than I was expecting by far! Well done, Trent.
As a Catholic sacred artist, my #1 goal with every piece has been to make it beautiful. Because I know that if I succeed in making it beautiful, it will also have something of goodness and truth in it. It will lift the viewer’s heart and mind to God. Every painting is a journey into the heart of God as he reveals himself to me through beauty. ❤
This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but to add to the "Everything is Beautiful" portion of the video, I think objective beauty can even be found in video games, and I have two examples that I think demonstrate it. First and foremost: Shadow of the Colossus in it's entirety. It is a game about triumph and devastation. And much like "Nighthawks," it has a way of transporting the player into it's beautiful, but barren landscape. I will not spoil the story but in many ways, it mimics the Fall in the Garden of Eden, and redemption that comes of being born again. I think those who have completed the game will understand what I'm talking about.
Example 2: The Megalith/Angus Dei soundtrack of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. The Latin lyrics are about Christ Himself. Unfortunately, the soundtrack has become part of a meme that divorces it from it's original context and cheapens it somewhat, but the soundtrack is gorgeous AND elevates the mind to higher things. The soundtrack plays in the final level of the game, which uses explicitly christian symbolism.
Shadow of the Colossus is a great game and the design is beautiful.
How is that example of "objective" beauty differentiable from just regular usage of "beauty" (subjective by nature)?
Is it because your momma/God said you're a very handsome, special boy who has the most special opinions?
@TheCounselofTrent This goes for you too.
I stated it facetiously, but I'm sincere in my question- WHAT do you mean it's "objectively beautiful"? It literally just sounds like you're using "objective" as a stand-in to say: "I feel VERY strongly that this is beautiful and I think people who disagree with my take are degenerate."
I remember a comment that Peter Kreeft made about the appreciation of beauty, in which he compared it to the appreciation of food:
The subjective part: Taste. You can't argue about what someone thinks tastes good.
The objective part: Nourishment. You can certainly argue about what food is healthy or nourishing for the human body.
Still thinking about this distinction, but it seems to be helpful for understanding how people relate to beauty!
Is it done on purpose because life imitates art?
It's done because beauty is painful to those in sin
Yes, art meant to provoke your notions of art, to express disorder will led to the same things in real life and in your spiritual life.
That is the question we should all be asking!
The “resurrection” sculpture looks like one of them creepy forms of some JRPG boss fight. 😂
Oh my gosh, didn’t expect the 80s synth mention! It’s so fun.
Thanks for this video, I appreciate the nuance that it’s not modern art that is bad. But there is definitely a lot of ugly art out there that people elevate. Thankfully I don’t have to see it that often. :)
This is spot on.. my dad when I was young used to tell me about why they made those ugly buildings in the communist countries and how they are starting in Europe and over here and how it’s all the communist ideology to have nothing beautiful. I always thought he was nuts but man the more I learn he was spot on. And even the architects admitted it
They like it because they don’t like things better than they can make themselves, same holds true for their ideology and politics.
“You’re so ugly you could be a Modern Art Masterpiece!” - R Lee Ermey
I'm a craftsman, not an artist. But classic art makes me want to come back and see it again. Modern art is more like early 1900s circus freaks. They hit you hard to get your attention one time, but after that you think "Eh...you've seen one man with three legs you've seen them all.
"And when everyone's super... No one will be." - Trent Horn, March, 2024 (probably)
Never heard it put quite this way, but I appreciate the perspective. I miss beautiful buildings.
"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, GREATER EVEN THAN THAT OF ANY OTHER ART" (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 112, emphasis mine). Sadly, in many churches we don't get that. Bad art, bad music. Gregorian chant? hardly any place at all.
Right, bad art goes with bad music.
It's true - where I live, I'm happy even to hear decent praise and worship-style because of how bad par performance is. Gregorian Chant is like a whole different world.
The fact the liturgical reformers destroyed gregorian chant shows how much traditional they are. I don't understand why people often dissociate this: "oh, they weren't traditional in art or theology but surely they were traditional in the new Rite they created!". Not saying that thats you, but I tend to see a lot people who care about tradition in Sacred Art and then magically stop caring when its about the Roman Rite
We could easily have Gregorian chant at all of our churches. But the 60 year old Susans whose money allows the church to pay the bills would complain and stop going to Mass because of that "creepy weird music"
Palestrina's Pope Marcellus mass, Bach's Mass in B Minor, etc., etc.
Thank you for addressing this so thoroughly. I've felt these things to be true since I was a child. And as a child, I intensely disliked the silly, simplistic, ugly religious "art" that was presented to me in churches, or for coloring or following along in textbooks. Conversely, I loved illustrations in non-religious books because they didn't treat me like an idiot, or depict people as potatoes. Hilary White's quote about the "visual gibberish" style implying "that the Christian things it depicts are silly, imprecise and ultimately irrelevant nonsense" is exactly right in my opinion.
But the visual gibberish had the support of occultists, molesters and freaks like Joseph Bernardin, Howard Hubbard, Blase Cupich and their crowd, plus you know there's "obedience" and all that...
There’s a catholic parish not far from me that’s semi-brutalist architecture but circular shape that looks like a fancy flying saucer. I even call it the “spaceship church” cold and ugly as Hell and the interior is not any better! The parish had an old beautiful country church before but it got replaced by the flying saucer guess when? 1970s of course! Was everybody smoking something awful back then? Sheesh! And then the Baptist church nearby that Catholic parish looks like a big wear house or shopping mall! I wouldn’t be shocked if it had a food court in it! If mixing religion with government is bad imagine mixing religion with corporations! My Catholic parish while nowhere as beautiful as it used to be but still today looks better than many churches today! It has arches everywhere that resembles the arches you find in the orient like the Taj Mahal. My priest is seriously thinking of renovating the church to make it more traditional looking thank God and he’s no traditionalist by any stretch of the imagination! Though it certainly won’t look anything like the gothic cathedral of course but I am glad he seems to want to make it more traditional looking!
Art in the modern age has also become an almost infallible means of laundering money. Two parties want to make a questionable exchange of money? Introduce a product that's value is entirely subjective, and make the exchange for it.
Often the written descriptions of this ugly art are often such sublime acts of effrontery, they deserve a Pulitzer Prize.
Marcel Breuer is one who comes to mind that designed a lot of brutalist architecture for Catholic clients such as Annunciation Monastery (North Dakota) and St. John's Abbey (Minnesota).
These are extaordinary buildings that of course reflect a specific period in time and they are still great spaces today. Go and visit them and at least give them a close look.
Why would a Catholic diocese hire these horrid architects to design their churches? When you have the power why subject yourself and your parishioners to this hideous garbage
I call this “Little Season art”.
God bless you, Trent. 🙏🏼✝️🕊️
now let's have an open and honest conversation about the beauty of the liturgy
I actually liked the resurrection artwork, it is more akin to the ancient artworks
Art reflects culture. If the culture is chaotic, ugly, disconcerting, etc, then the art will reflect it.
I once went to a modern art exhibit at a major museum. After a few moments inquisitively admiring a big pile of garbage that was piled behind cordon ropes, i looked about for the Title card that would have some ironic word that would make the piece all make sense.
It turns out it was actually just garbage from some renovations being done.
Haha!
Thank you for saying out loud what I have thought for a long time
Important and relevant topic. Very good production value. I think you should wear a tie.
Art is an expression of the innermost self, and if that is ugly, then what does that say about the artist?
Yall should read Nihilism by Fr Saraphim Rose.
The first time I read it I was like "interesting but kinda extreme" Now I'm like oh, this is a pretty sober look at the current state of things.
C.S. Lewis made similar observations in "The Abolition of Man" where he argued that some things are objectively "sublime" while some new educators were pushing subjectivity (our feelings determine the value of everything).
"The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own."
For some really good Christian art, 3 contemporary artists I recommend are:
1) Full of Eyes - really great in depicting Christian theology through symbolic illustrations and he even has lengthy explanations for each of his piece accompanied by Bible verses. He also posted some animations in his UA-cam channel.
2) Yong Sung Kim - very famous for his very warm, spring-like traditional paintings of Jesus. My favorite artwork from him is "The Hand of God"
3) Jonas Pfeiffer - a 3D artist who makes jaw-dropping 3D animations of biblically accurate angels.
For animated videos to help with our faith and learning the Bible, I recommend these YT Channels:
1) The Bible Project
2) IMBeggar
3) Impact Video Ministries
If you like Anime/Manga , there's a 6-volume manga series based on the Bible called "Manga Bible" by Hidenori Kumai and Kozumi Shinozawa
For movies and other series, Angel Studios is the goat.
Decent artist understanably upset about being overlooked by "abstract" and degenerate art...I have heard this story before.
Beauty is not subjective. Beauty is relational - contingent on the relation of the subject to the object.
If beauty was purely subjective, why would we not be experiencing beauty at all times, regardless of whatever object is within our vicinity and perception? A lot of the arguments against solipsism also work pretty well at dismantling the lie that beauty is subjective.
Beauty is relational, specifically a recognition and appreciation of the goodness outflowing of a particular object (and "object" here is used in a philosophical sense, not a material one).
Anybody can make art as unimaginably beautiful as heaven, a heaven so beautiful that it’d make Garden of Eden into a magical eco friendly paradise taken to the hideously beautiful extreme. Art can also be scary and beautiful at the same time, like how I did a Guillermo Del Toro version of Snow White.
People criticize the brutal apartment blocks in Russia but when the same buildings are built in America or Europe they think they are beautiful and innovative. What is the difference?
16:44
I would like to remember Fr Rupnik never was punished in the Vatican and never lost his favor in either Rome or his home country
Bergoglio protects and rewards evil
It is also ironic that Trent mentions the resurrection sculpture in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall in his video. As far as I understand it, this sculpture is meant to capture the horrors of nuclear war and Jesus rising from it. Trent says that this is not awe-inspiring as Christ's resurrection itself.
That is like the Protestant argument that the empty cross depicting Christ's resurrection is to be preferred over the crucifix
Yeah, that sculpture is both impressive and insightful. Not a good example of bad modern art.
@@Lothlorian142agreed! I was with him until he mentioned that specific sculpture
He expands further on that sculpture later in the video.
But without knowing the title and historical context of the work it is nothing but a big burst of ugliness.
I'm on board woth the idea of studying titles and historical context, they add depth to an art piece.
But if a piece is horrifyingly ugly on its own, you're really arguing that title and context transform it into something beautiful, provocative and inspiring? That rings false to me
And yet, my first impression, on seeing a photo of it was that it was something demonic, not something related to Christ, or nuclear war or whatever. Modern art is horrendous and should be avoided at all costs.
Imagine designing a prison in such a way that every detail symbolizes redemption and a new beginning. I wonder how many people would still re-offend?
That nativity scene at the start is hilarious. The main issue is the drive to constantly "make it new" at the expense of other artistic principles. Factor in money laundering, hiding wealth in art, tax write offs, budget surplus expenditure etc. and you have a recipe for a hideous artistic landscape.
This!
10:46
I was fully expecting that soccer ball to hit that guy in the crotch, lol
Too much time spent on the internet watching funny compilations 😅
Great video. Can you also do a follow up video talking about modern church architecture and how it turned so ugly?
What happened to the cruciform style where you can look straight ahead and up to focus our gaze on the Altar? Now they are all designed like an auditorium where you're forced to look at other congregants, and there's barely any art. It just seems so utilitarian rather than transcendent, and we're all supposed to pretend that they're just as beautiful as the churches built 100+ years ago. Puh-lease.
Do you really not know? It’s money. Christianity boomed rapidly and needed churches to be put up fast, not slowly and carefully rendered and shaped by artists who were paid almost nothing or volunteered their time. Building materials have only increased with time and labourer expenses have skyrocketed to reduce tacit slavery. It’s why we have generally uglier architecture now even outside the Church. If you want people to wait 60 years for their church to be built and to pay no one a living wage then you can afford a gothic cathedral. We simply don’t have the means to do that anymore.
@emiliawisniewski3947 That is so far from accurate, it's comical. It's clear you do not know your history.
It's not the lack of money that produces ugly churches but the lack of will.
as an artist myself, think it's important to have diffrent forms of arts with diffrent styles.
It depends on who the artist knows or is related to.
Since there's no objective barometer for determining art from crap, it pretty much comes down to whether the artist finds favor with the powers that be.....which, again, usually lands on the artist knowing or being related to someone amongst the powers.
Minimalist or bland Catholic architecture is way less expensive to build than ornate, traditional forms, which mostly explains its adoption throughout the US in the 70's and 80's. In industrial/business contexts, the same is true, but it is was rationalized by the ideology used to justify it for corporations that were not strapped for cash in order for them to maximize profits. Once the ideology took hold, minimalism's "value" skyrocketed, and now even minimalist, modern Catholic art and architecture are ridiculously expensive - and also subversive to traditional values as an added bonus. Most (though not all) modern art aspires to be "meaningful" not true, "valuable" not good, "interesting" not beautiful.
Notice that in the case of the cathedral of Brazil's capital they literally hired the most famous architect of the whole country to build an ugly modernist Church that doesn't even look like a Church
Yeah and those gorgeous, ornate churches took sometimes centuries to complete in full, they took the extra time. The same amount of time isn’t necessarily taken anymore - and we don’t even need to take centuries at this point since technology has become so advanced that it would only take several decades now likely. You just need the patience and people willing to donate
It must be ornate. We put our money in so we can have the amazing Church's that we have, it's why I love our Cathedrals etc....
I grew up in East Germany in one of those Russian-style prefabricated buildings... I can't say it didn't feel like home... and yes, these buildings are really ugly, but you can beautify ugliness. Every month there was a meeting in every block community, there wasn't much you could do about the ugliness of the house, but you could beautify the area....plant trees, create flowerbeds or hang art in the hallways....or just do it Collecting the rubbish that careless people left behind....we even created a small goldfish pond and set up benches....
Over time, small parks and oases of beauty emerged in the midst of dreariness.
Of course, this only works if you have people around you who follow along...
The need for beauty is innate in us....if your house doesn't feel like a home, then make it your home!
Having to reply with “well, beauty is subjective after all” belies the cope. People only say that as a response to recognizing that something is in fact ugly, and having to go “well, it’s not my place to judge, who am I to say what’s beautiful? Another culture might find this beautiful” or some bs like that.
Good art delights and surprises; bad art subverts expectation
As a Slovene hearing you talk about Rupnik feels so odd. I've been to centrum Aletti in Rome, been to a church featuring his mosaics right in Ljubljana where I studied. I don't remember exactly how his style was described (though in Aletti where they told us how artists are taught to make mosaics was described in a spiritual way that reminds me of (what i know of) sacred iconography. This was all before this whole scandal came to light, and I have finished my theology studies before it so I'm not well familiar with what is said about this at the university. However, from what I've read in various Catholic papers, there has been debate over what those uncovered scandals mean for how we view his art - and mostly it was about whether we can separate the art from the artist, is the art valuable on its own even if the artist did bad things, should it be removed from churches. But this is the first time that I recall seeing his art criticized for its style rather than for its artist. (Though it is also true I didn't specifically study sacred art - those visits to Aletti and that one church were excursions, outside of the regular curriculum for me)
So this is a lot to take in. I suppose I should look into it more.
Many dead trees seem beautiful to me and lift my spirit up to God. As a biologist, I call them snags and see them as an important resource that should be left in their environment. I would not compare them to a banana taped to the wall. It's not the sort of beauty I need to see reproduced, but by finding the beauty in decay we learn to love ourselves as our physical form becomes less beautiful over time. We learn to look closer and see nuance and develop our awareness.
That dead tree may no longer be a "good tree" but it may catch the light just right to sparkle now that it's shed it's bark; and it provides food and shelter to a diversity of life that change it and grows new beautiful forms. Moss, mushrooms, holes for bats and other small mammals or birds, food for insects that is food for woodpeckers, this list could go on for pages if we got microscopic! I think our rejection of stuff like this in the landscape leads to the lack of appreciation for elders and a culture obsessed with youth. A culture that can't embrace change, which is unfortunate because change is the only thing that is inevitable. By rejecting the beauty of dead, decaying and dying things, we feed our fear of mortality. And we're all gonna die, so think about it and let the idea that you are aging and will die someday guide your actions.
But I'm with you on modern art, especially the blank canvasses and things that clearly take no skill. It's strange, but I think the Emperor has No Clothes story sums up what's going on in that situation. As for ugly art that does take skill to create, I think the admirers of that art are sometimes disconnected youth, hurting at the soul level, and creating or admiring art they identify with can make them feel less alone, or help them heal. I agree with you on Brutalism, it is a tool to bring down the spirit of others.
And then, you see that beautiful dead tree growing a huge Chicken of the Woods! And in that moment you feel God's Glory and the nourishment of mother earth, the planet created to support and nurture us. There is one earth, and we were sent here to be stewards and take our home planet's glory to another level.
The bunny slippers on baby Jesus 😍
Those artists can call their ugly works whatever they want. I am not wasting my time to look at it. There are many beautiful things to appreciate in our very short life.
1:02
Funnily enough, the nativity like that was not sponsored on italian TVs. At all. Usually we get at least one mention of it on TV.
But not this time, the media knew they were ugly.
Because they hate beauty
Woke cultists hate everything and everyone, including themselves...
I don’t think they do, they just hate beauty.
These aren't Liberals they are progressive leftists.
I really like beautiful catholic art. And I also love @counsel of Trent bc he is awesome
Okay but how about some traditional Catholic art that really is also quite ugly? Some depictions show people in a really unrealistic not not very esthetically appealing way.
Thanks for an enlightened and beautiful commentary.
…seems like Aquinas was wrong, again. And I’m glad Trent’s totalitarian view of art is not main stream and we do have a wide spectrum of artworks and architecture, what we might consider as ugly or beautiful….
Amen
I got recommended this video randomly. I figured it was The Algorithm Gods demanding I engage, so I left a few snarky but also thought-out responses. I'm not familiar with Trent's audience but I'm guessing y'all are mostly rightwing trad here?
I'm an ex-Pentecostal, Satanic atheist btw in case you're curious what demographic YT recs these vids to.
@@marcomoreno6748 Very degenerate indeed.
Did somebody attacked your god?
As someone who's probably not your typical viewer (pretty liberal, not religious, and often enjoys weird art), I can't really say I disagree with you about a big chunk of modern art, especially Brutalist architecture. Whether that can be chalked up to "moral relativism," or some inherent flaw of liberalism? That one still feels like a bit of a leap, at least for me.
One thing I think you might not have taken into account when trying to understand modern art/architecture, is how much of it, especially in the 20th/21st Centuries, is more influenced by academic theorizing. Most art schools today put too much emphasis on theory, and not enough on teaching craftsmanship. And the current art market (especially at the high-end) tends to be overly enamored with fashionable intellectual fads, rewarding that kind of instruction. The art world has gotten way too hermetic; it alienates a big chunk of the ordinary public, and is overdue for a reckoning.
On the other hand, I'll tell you this story: Years ago, I saw a Kiki Smith exhibit, at the Whitney. One of the pieces on display, was a wax sculpture of a female body, life-sized but without skin or hair, an anatomically-accurate model of her musculature, like something you'd see in a medical classroom or textbook. The title of this piece? _The Virgin Mary._ Sure, the title was a bit provocative-- I would understand if someone like you might be offended by it. But the piece captivated me. You see, I've always found most depictions of the Virgin Mary, especially in churches/shrines, more than a little creepy. The porcelain sculptures really freak me out, especially. They remind me of those horror movies, where dolls come to life and try to eat people. Also, even though my parents' families are mostly Catholic, I still don't understand the whole "venerating Mary" thing... In fact, much of the way religious people talk about Jesus or Mary, make them seem so remote, almost inhuman, so these characters never seemed real to me. But standing in front of Kiki Smith's _Virgin Mary,_ she finally felt like she could've actually been a plausibly flesh-&-blood human being who lived two-thousand years ago... Mary finally felt "real" to me. Granted, I didn't have some magical conversion experience, and I'm still pretty much an atheist, but of all the images of Mary, that one is still the most powerful for me.
Maybe beauty really _is_ in the eye of the beholder. Beauty standards have come-&-gone throughout history; after all, even Renaissance art and Gothic architecture had its detractors, in their time. And sometimes certain artistic conventions become stale, and need need to experience both evolution _and_ revolution. Otherwise, there's no real growth without some kind of change. Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the matter; if you had the patience to read this whole thing, I appreciate you. All the best, my friend.
By the way: For anyone interested, the UA-camr featured @10:33, is a guy named Stewart Hicks. His video-essays explore all kinds of different architecture, not just Brutalism. He's a really interesting, insightful guy, and his videos are pretty informative. (I'm a subscriber, and immediately recognized him, hahaha.) you can find him here: www.youtube.com/@stewarthicks
The fact that the local bishop at Lourdes still had to take time to consider whether to rwmove rupnik's artwork at the Lourdes shrine even after his sexual deviancy came to light just goes to show how blind some of our modern day clergy have become and how deep the rot is within the instituitional aspect of the church