On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 18:00:42 -0400, TonyB
<ben### [at] panamaphoenixnet> wrote:

>Did you know that the Pope has written to me, to Ken, to Lance, to
>Gilles, and all of us here? Yes. The Pope wrote a letter to Artists this
>year. I read it. I like it. I would like to share a few lines of it here

A lot of what he wrote sounds very nice. I agree with much of it, but
he seems to be completely negating the value of art that isn't
considered "beautiful" in appearance. There are serious works of art
that contain important and valuable messages. Not all of these are
pretty to look at, listen to, or experience (depending on the relevant
media involved.) To blindly chose beautiful art as the only truly
valuable art is shortsighted at best. I hope the Pope doesn't really
feel that way.

It's fine and good to encourage beauty, and I personally believe that
beauty should be encouraged, but to negate the importance of things
not beautiful would be wrong. Using a similar logic to the Pope's: If
God created all things beautiful and "not-so-beautiful", which of us
would have the nerve to tell God that his "not-so-beautiful" creations
are of lesser value simply because of our perceiving them as less
beautiful?

I need to point out that this is NOT an attack on the Pope. I repeat,
this is NOT an attack on the Pope. I respect the Pope as a sincere,
benevolent, and educated person. I just found this one little aspect
of his comments a bit out of balance. Perhaps if the Pope had written
a book on Art, then he might have gotten around to including a chapter
on the value of art that isn't immediately recognizable as beautiful.
Perhaps he has similar feelings as mine, but didn't get around to
saying all of them in the letter you read. The world may never know. I
just wrote this to augment what he has said, and not as any sort of
personal attack on the Pope, nor is this any attack on Christianity or
upon "beauty" itself. 

I just wanted to take a moment to point out that something doesn't
have to be traditionally beautiful to be valuable as a work of art.
I'm sorry for this long disclaimer near the end, but I wanted to avoid
any possible misunderstandings and resultant hard feelings.

I believe the world certainly has room for more beautiful things, and
I welcome their creation, but I also place value on many things that
would be considered "less than beautiful" by much of society. A
"balanced diet" is something to strive for, and the concept applies
equally as well to art. Having too much "eye candy" tends to make the
intellect fat, lazy, and ineffectual. Having none, can make one's soul
bland, sour, or bitter..


Later,
Glen Berry

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