Off-Modern Catholic Aesthetics: Rethinking the Role of Religion in Twentieth-Century Art and Architecture [Hardback]

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations



Introduction

1 Off-Modern Profiles

2 Unpacking the Dynamics of Catholic Modernisation

3 The Eclipse of God: Transplanted Artists

4 Background Metaphorics: Exchanges between Art and Religion

5 Structure of the Book



1 Antinomies of Art and Theology. Marie-Alain Couturier and the
Contradictions of Modern Sacred Culture

Introduction: Couturiers Conceptual Zig Zags

Prelude. Paris,
1953. the Contradictoires Text

Sacred Art between the Mechanical and Natural Attitudes

1 Le Saulchoir/Paris,
19181930. Catholic Endgame, or the Narrative of
Decline

1.1 Down with the Republic, Long Live the King!: Couturiers Romantic
Anti-Capitalism and the Return to Order (Paris, 19191925)

1.2 Couturiers Neo-Thomist Aesthetics (Le Saulchoir, 19251930)

2 Rome/Paris,
19301940. the Gospels and Fraternal Catholic Modernism

2.1 The Human Truth of the Gospel (Rome, 19301932)

2.2 The Art of the Incarnation (Paris, 19351937)

3
19401953. the Secular Prophet. Couturier on Modern Sacred Architecture

3.1 The Politics of French Artistic Modernity

3.2 Artistic Abstraction and Catholic Humanism

3.3 Conflicted Temporalities of Aesthetic Categories in Couturiers Late
Writings

3.4 Modesty: a Critical Counter-Concept to Modernity

3.5 On the Autonomy of Modern Art and Artists

3.6 On the Uses and Abuses of Poverty in the Modern Era



2 Between Mysticism and Industry: the Bauhaus Diaspora, the Benedictines and
the Ambiguities of Architectural Symbolism

Introduction: Mechanics, Symbols and History

1 Navigating the Divide. Breuer and the Benedictines on Architectural
Symbolism

1.1 Breuers Pre-Modern Imaginary

1.2 Breuers Architectural Symbolism: Tension-Structures

1.3 Liturgy and Labour

1.4 Benedictine Symbolism, Form, and Function

2 Form and Symbolism: the Language of Religious Experience

2.1 1959: a Divided Committee

2.2 Albers on Form and Tradition

2.3 Albers: Spirituality Contra Science

2.4 The Public Dimension of Symbols

Coda. Unpacking the Semantics of the Sacred in Modern Architecture



3 Catholic Metaphorology. Dominique de Menil and the Role of Conversion in
Aesthetic Education

Introduction

1 ???

1.1 Dominique de Menils Rothko Chapel Speech, 1971

1.2 An Intellectual Apprenticeship: Typologies of Engagement

1.3 Conceptual Ramifications: from Religion to Aesthetics

2 Catholicisme Ondoyant

2.1 The Intellectual Context of Congars Montmartre Lectures in 1936

2.2 A Source of Congars Pluralism: Thomas Cajetan on the Image

2.3 Organic and Embodied Metaphors

2.4 The Social Dimension of Catholicism: Yves Congar on Unbelief in 1930s
France

3 Putting Conversion to Work After World War II

3.1 Art Education and Social Justice in the 1960s

3.2 From Heritage to Tradition in Dominique de Menils Notebooks

3.3 The Soil Metaphor

3.4 The Fire Metaphor

3.5 Dominique de Menils Art Historiography

Coda: A Note on Dominique de Menils Catholicism and Mark Rothkos Abstract
Art



4 Recast Eyes. Jean Labatut and the Concept of Crisis in Post-World War II
Architectural Education

Introduction: Unpacking Labatuts Intellectual Framework

1 The Language of Experience. Phenomenology, Visuality and Religion in Jean
Labatuts Intellectual Universe

1.1 Architectural Humanism in the United States after World War II

1.2 Labatuts Visual-Industrial Complex: the Princeton Architectural
Laboratory

1.3 Historical Consumption

1.4 Catholic Conversations: Eidetic Visualisation and Cultural
Hylomorphism

2 Learning from Labatut. the Divergent Paths of Labatuts Architectural
Programme

3 Diversity with Unity. Francis Prokess Theological Dimension of
Architecture

3.1 Choice: Christian Existentialism as a Framework

3.2 Involvement: the Theological Grounds of Interdisciplinarity

3.3 Purpose: Theology and Architectural History

4 Visual Historiography: Robert Venturis Context in Architectural
Composition

4.1 Venturis Princeton Formation

4.2 Venturis Theory of Perception: Gestalt

4.3 Appropriated Contexts

Coda: A Forgotten Path to Postmodernism



Epilogue: Disentangling the Semantic Knot Between a Secular Infinite and a
Catholic Eternal



Bibliography

Index

Samuel O'Connor Perks, Ph.D. (2021), is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He has published articles on Catholic thought and aesthetics in journals such as the Journal of Art Historiography and Architectural Theory Review.