Michelli, "Art and Spirituality," cont'd
Figured marble and granite are among the most brightly coloured natural stones. Their range of hue is extraordinary, they take a high polish, and it are extremely durable. The most durable marble is the deep reddish purple porphyry, which is rare and therefore extra special. Another rare stone is lapis lazuli, which is the brightest, most glorious blue. Both cost a fortune and need to be used in vast quantities - but nothing less would be good enough for God, would it?
Other Classically beautiful materials include gold, the only naturally occurring yellow metal. This takes such a high polish that it positively glows with light, while it catches and reflects the colours around it. More importantly still, it never tarnishes: it stays perfect. So, expensive as it has always been, it is necessarily used for the house of God.
Pearls were also used in abundance for churches, crosses, chalices, patens, candle sticks, book covers, and ecclesiastical vestments. They were far more special in the Middle Ages than they are today. Think of them in Classical terms: made from a tiny speck of dross and coated over the Ages with layer upon layer of tangible light until they become spheres, the most perfect form possible to the Classical mind. Relish this idea: they are perfect globes of solidified light!
Stained glass takes the idea further. It is not only solidified coloured light, but by bearing the image of Christ, his prophets, saints and angels, it represents beauty in the act of manifesting God - a visible miracle.
The best available science may have proved that these are the only materials fit for God, but for that very reason they have always been highly priced. Their tendency to engulf funds that could otherwise have been spent on the poor has always raised moral indignation.
As Susan Dixon mentioned to Revd Brewster, in the Gothic period Abbot Suger believed his ambitious restoration of St Denis Abbey was blessed by God, as proved by the frequent miraculous supply of essential costly materials. And when parts of it were completed, he was quite sure they were capable of transporting him somewhere close to heaven. His contemporary St Bernard, on the other hand, always objected to this use of money. As he wrote to one abbot, "your walls are clothed with gold while your beggars go in rags". St Bernard's ideal church was a plain geometrically proportioned building whitewashed inside and out.
In the Gothic period and for long afterwards, this issue could never be resolved. Nothing and no one is more important than God, and in an age when human judgement was considered too fallible to be exercised without the guidance of established knowledge, the best available knowledge supported Abbot Suger. Fallible human conscience alone supported St Bernard.
Today, of course, the issue is very different. Our new best science denies the validity of most Classical thought. Matter is not sewage, the soul is not lodged in the brain, pearls and glass are not tangible light, and beauty has become a matter of personal taste rather than established rule. The idea of manifesting God and ennobling the soul through beauty now seems a cynical justification for the most disgusting greed. On the other hand, St Bernard has apparently been justified. Pragmatism seems self-evidently true: people matter more than things, suffering is evil, relieving poverty relieves suffering and must therefore be good. Self-imposed austerity releasing funds for good works becomes a measure of spiritual integrity, and beauty becomes a distraction.
