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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
But is this true of every work of art that one who believes thusly perceives? And surely much the same might be said of art which such an individual considers to be "bad" - that the negative reaction enhances understanding.
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To that I would echo Elrond: it is dangerous to study too closely the arts of the darkness. I refer you back to the Victorian pornography; studying it would enhance understanding of what? And is it worth it? If there is ultimate Truth and Goodness, then the answer to "Is it worth it" is most likely No-- with the narrow exception that someone might be trying to reach out to victims of the not-good, and thereby be pursuing enough understanding of what is not-good to be able to counter it. Yet I still call that risky.
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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
And does that render valueless to the believer the enjoyment of art by the non-believer that he or she finds to be "good"?
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I think rather than using the terms "believer" and "Non-believer" (really, ARE you trying to get me excommunicated from the Downs??)... Personally for the sake of this argument I would prefer something more along the lines of Truth-seeker and Indifferent.
But to answer your question: not at all. In fact, the 'believer'(Truth-seeker) should expect that in enjoying 'Good/True art', something is happening deep within the the 'non-believer' (Indifferent) that has, or might have, or hopefully will have, the effect of drawing him towards Good and/ or Truth (same thing, in the end)-- and in that the Truth-seeker would rejoice. In fact, the Truth-seeker may actually place a higher value on the Indifferent one's enjoyment, since the Truth seeker has hopes that the enjoyment may, in the end, have an eternal effect.
Is a eucatastrophe-- a glimpse of Truth-- any less of a eucatastrophe if the person who gets the glimpse doesn't fully realise what he is seeing? I think it depends on the heart; and who can judge that? The glimpse of Truth may sow something transcendant in the soul that that does not come to fruition for many years.
(Frodo's dreams of the sea come to mind.)
On to Aiwendil's post:
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Quote: And must "good art" necessarily reveal some truth as to the human condition (customarily, I avoid the dreaded capital 'T' )?
My answer is a resounding "NO" - and not just because I fear
another "canonicity" argument.
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(poor Aiwendil!)
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There are any number of criteria that might define "good art". Personally, I still say that good art is that which is most aesthetically pleasing.
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Aiwendil, I would point to "most aesthetically pleasing" and say that beauty, goodness, truth, and Aesthetically pleasing all derive from (capital 'T') Truth, which is (capital-G) Goodness, and (capital-B) Beauty. I will go further, and call that Tolkien's Evangelium; and I will go yet further, and state that everything "beautiful" in all of Tolkien's works is his sub-creative reflection of Truth. Other sub-creators form other reflections. But having said all that, and recognizing that there are many on this forum and on this thread that do not consider Truth to exist in it's "capital-T" state, that if one finds something aesthetically pleasing, and it is indeed something which (for example) Tolkien sub-created in a reflection of Truth, then that aesthetic enjoyment (in my opinion) works because the Truth was there to be reflected in the first place.