Aesthetics and Religion Pt.

3
by
Lyra A. Utami, Ph.D

Home Sanctuary- Author (Peguyangan, 2018)

A review…

[Aesthetics] emphasises
[Aesthetics] concerns
the experience of art as
with the pleasures of
MEANS of KNOWING -
the imagination -
Alexander Gottlieb
Joseph Addison
Baumgarten
(1672- 1719)
(1714-1762)

Aesthetica - Aesthetics [Estetika]

“relating to perception by the senses (sensuous cognition)”
[first book ‘Aesthetica’ 1750 - A.G. Baumgarten]
Aesthetic Experience in Religion
Reflections on aesthetic experience have a long and vital tradition in the Arabic, Persian, and Indian context as well, long
before ‘aesthetics’ became a field of study. Similar to the classical Greek philosophical tradition, Eastern thinkers
associated aesthetics with rhetoric, logic, psychology and metaphysics….much constructed from spiritual experience.

Yenii Camii and the Port of Istanbul- Jean-Baptiste Hilair (1753 - 1822)
 The aesthetics of religious experience:
Einstein, for example, writes: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious side of life. It is the deep
feeling which is at the cradle of all true art and science. In this sense, and only in this sense, I count myself amongst the
most deeply religious people.’ For Einstein as for Pascal (Pensées, Fr. 267): ‘The last proceeding of reason is to
recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.’
「陰影礼賛」的な体験 - Author (Shirakawa-go, 2018)
 Concerning Mediation of Religious Teachings

Late 18th–early 19th century Qur’an manuscript - Louis E. and Theresa S. Seley Purchase Fund for Islamic Art, 2009
Defining Christianity, Christians, and the Christian Religion - Dan Kitwood (year unknown)
What will it be like upon our Trial?- Author (Ijen, 2016)
The Dhikr - Eugène Baugniès (1842~1891)
A woman bears offering at Chhat Puja in Mumbai, India - David Shiddiqui (Reuters/Mumbai, 2016)
In Borobudur’s Lalitavistara, one could perceive the history of Buddha Gautama in 120 panels of
beautifully sculpted bas-relief. The story starts from his descent from Tushita, to his enlightenment
under the Bodhi tree, and finally to his first teachings in the city of Vanarasi.
 The dome of Blue
Mosque is filled with
the canon of Islamic
decoration;
calligraphy, geometry,
arabesque.
The main dome inside the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul- Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (Turkey, 2009)
“The Sanghyang Dedari ritual dance, performed by young girls aged between 7 and 12 before they reach puberty, is a personification of
purity. During the ritual, the girls are somewhat possessed and in a state of trance, which enables them to do things fearlessly. After
performing the dance, the girls are left not remembering what they have just done.”

Dancers perform the sacred ritual, during which they dance like goddesses and sway like stems of rice - Agung Parameswara (The Jakarta Post, 2019)
 ‫یار کو ھم نے جا بجا دیکھا‬
Performance that mediates (I saw my Beloved in all I saw)
Religious Teaching ‫کہیں ظاہر کہیں چھپا دیکھا‬
(At times revealed, hidden at times)

Pakistani singer ‘Queen of Sufi’ Abida Parveen visited Oslo - Tore Urnes (Oslo, 2007)
 “everything [in this world] is impermanent”

Tibetan monks destroying sand Mandala - Len Wood (Hancock College’s Ann Foxworthy Gallery, 2019)
Concerning emotional aspect…

A woman cries as she prays on the first day of Ramadan - Allison Joyce (Dhaka, 2018)
 “Beauty” according to Imam Al-Ghazali [Chapter I of Kimia al-Saadah (The Alchemy of
Happiness)]
Physical beauty - external beauty to be perceived by external sensorium.
Moral beauty - emotive in nature, relates to a person’s character and his/her inner excellences (Aql and Qalb).
Spiritual beauty - the most sublime, directly connected to the Almighty and is attained through ecstasy.
[“The heart of man has been so constituted by the Almighty that, like a flint, it contains a hidden fire which is evoked by music and
harmony, and renders man beside himself with ecstasy. These harmonies are echoes of that higher world of beauty which we call the world
of spirits; they remind man of his relationship to that world, and produce in him an emotion so deep and strange that he himself is
powerless to explain it….For a Sufi, harmony is an essential component of life. To be in harmony with ones environment, with others, and
with one’s self facilitates the persons quest in gaining an insight into the nature of the Almighty”]

Mevlevi dervishes whirling in Pera - Jean-Baptiste van Mour (1720~1737)

Jewish Passover Seder meal gathering - Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times (year unknown)
When religion, science and morality are shaken (the last by the strong hand of
Nietzche) and when outer supports threaten to fall, man withdraws his gaze from
externals and turns it inwards. Literature, music and art are the most sensitive
spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt. They reflect the dark
picture of the present time and show the importance of what was at first only a
little point of light noticed by the few. Perhaps they even grow dark in their turn,
but they turn away from the soulless life of the present toward those substances
and ideas that give free scope to the non-material strivings of the soul.
(Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, p. 33)