the play of forms
THE PLAY OF FORMS Nature, Culture and Liturgy By DOM H. VAN DER LAAN Translated by RICHARD PADOVAN With a Preface by KEES DEN BIESEN
BRILL LEIDEN · BOSTON 2005
This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Originally published in Dutch by E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands as Het vormenspel der liturgie (1985), ISBN 90 04 07618 2. This English edition was made possible in part by a grant from the Van der Laan Foundation. ISBN 90 04 14633 4 © Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS Preface ... .... ..... ..... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... vii I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
Introduction . ..... ..... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... Natural Forms .... ..... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... Cultural Forms ... ..... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... Liturgical Forms .. ..... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... The Three Form-Worlds .. .... ..... ..... ..... Functional Forms...... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... Expressive Forms ...... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... Monumental Forms ... ..... .... ..... ..... ..... The Principle of Liturgical Form .. ..... ..... Visible and Invisible Things ... ..... ..... .....
1 9 17 27 35 43 51 61 71 81
PREFACE When he was a novice in St. Paul’s Abbey in Oosterhout (NL), in the late 1920s, Fr. Hans van der Laan and his fellow novices were once asked to choose a personal motto. One after another they came forward with some pious quote from the Bible or with an impressive theological formula. Irritated by such display of selfaffirmation, Van der Laan defiantly said he chose Ima summis as his adage, leaving everyone quite baffled by something so cryptic. After having led a secret life for more than sixty years, this Ima summis reappeared as the key to the present book (readers will note its mysterious appearance on the first page of Chapter I). Its explanation is quite simple. A Gregorian chant from the Christmas season celebrates the birth of Christ “in whom God reconciled the ima with the summa,” that is, the world from below with the world from above. For Van der Laan, these words expressed an ascending movement of reconciliation that gave meaning to the whole of human life. This concept was his key to reality. He meant it to be the key also to this book, in which he reconciles different and often contrasting aspects of human life by establishing their relationships and ultimate purpose.
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In 1977, Van der Laan published De architectonische ruimte (‘Architectonic Space’), his synthesis of some forty years of teaching in the field of architectonic theory. A few years earlier he had started to write down some of the insights that had, from the very beginning, inspired and directed his exploration of the fundamental principles of architecture. His theory on architectonic space elaborates, in fact, just a single aspect of a wide-ranging vision on the relationship between nature, art, and religion and is, ultimately, comprehensible only within that context. This vision, previously set forth in short lectures to seminarians from 1974 to 1978, gradually took on the form of a meticulously formulated treatise which he completed in 1980. Van der Laan then focused on Richard Padovan’s translation of De architectonische ruimte which was published in 1983. Considering it to be the finest expression of his theoretical work, Van der Laan thought he could end his efforts to propagate his views on architecture. At that time, I was assisting him in his extraordinarily creative old age and I insisted very strongly that he also publish what seemed to be a work of equal importance. For methodological reasons he had eliminated, in the fifteen chapters of De architectonische ruimte, all elements that could be considered a strictly personal or nonarchitectonic explanation of the results of his research. Above all, his book was meant to fill a gap in contemporary teaching, namely the lack of an encompassing theory of architecture that was based on precise observations and reached objective and normative conclu-
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sions. Only in Chapter 14 did he give a modest sketch of a wider interpretative horizon of the phenomenon of the human habitat. Yet the breadth, depth and coherence of thought that Van der Laan reached in his treatise on the relationship between nature, art and religion revealed his extraordinary qualities as both an observer and a thinker. I therefore did not rest before I persuaded him to share such a profusion of insights with those interested in his work. We finished the final draft of the manuscript in 1984. The following year the book was published as Het vormenspel der liturgie (‘The Play of Forms of the Liturgy’). One of the reasons for Van der Laan’s reticence was his reluctance to be a real master, although despite himself he occasionally found himself to be one. His natural disposition did not allow him to get engaged in a true relationship between master and pupil. As a matter of fact, the innumerable hours we spent together in conversation and reflection more than anything else served him to clarify his own thought and not to explain himself or let himself be challenged. Over the years, he had restricted his teaching ever more to a pure presentation of facts and to a reflection on their normative implications, without allowing himself to get involved with his students’ formation in the true sense of the word. This explains the origin of the terse, objective and dispassionate style of De architectonische ruimte—a style that also marks out the present book, which in a certain way he wrote just for himself. It represents the fully mature articulation of his thought, of which it is the truly monumental expression, all enclosed in itself, anything but
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didactic, and without any intention to mediate between the author and his readers. Over the years I made German and Italian translations of both De architectonische ruimte and Het vormenspel der liturgie, in which I attempted to incorporate the experience of ten years of almost daily conversations that Van der Laan and I had from 1981 till his death in 1991. These conversations allowed me to take in and comprehend his thought in its subtlest and fullest form, beyond any written text. Only while I was working on the translations of Het vormenspel der liturgie did I realise how personal and idiosyncratic his way of expressing himself is in this little book, and I tried to use a more objective and clearer kind of language. A number of typical phrases coined by Van der Laan and certain Dutch expressions he was particularly fond of are difficult to translate into any language, but competent native speakers always proved to be invaluable and resourceful partners in the venture. In the present translation, Richard Padovan has once more succeeded in rendering Van der Laan’s thought in an accurate, yet readable way. We discussed a number of particular phrases and expressions and almost always found reasonable and elegant solutions to the problems they constituted. Terms like ‘geest’ and ‘geestelijk’ or ‘verstand’ and ‘verstandelijk’ cannot be translated with a single English term without being equivocal and have, therefore, been translated with a variety of terms according to their contexts. A particular problem was the distinction he draws between ‘functie’ and
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‘expressie’ on the one hand and ‘functionaliteit’ and ‘expressiviteit’ on the other, a distinction that is not supported by English language. The terms have almost everywhere been rendered with ‘function’ and ‘expression’ respectively. Richard Padovan also changed the title, somewhat in line with the one I had given the book in its Italian version, maintaining ‘the play of forms’ but replacing ‘liturgy’ by a subtitle which more efficiently expresses the contents of the book. Van der Laan distinguishes between ‘geloof ’ en ‘godsdienst’, i.e. between the Christian ‘faith’ and ‘religion’ in general, but is not always clear and consistent in his use of these terms. It is therefore important to realise that although the author is a Christian, uses typically Christian terms, and seems to be writing, above all, about catholic liturgy, his horizon is much wider and his intentions universal. It is quite impossible to describe that horizon with a single word or expression: Van der Laan does not only write here as an architect, but also, and much more, as a craftsman, liturgist, philosopher, artist, theologian, and man of prayer. He writes here as a searcher and thinker beyond all such categories to which he attached no value whatsoever. His work gives, in fact, a completely new definition of the relationship between Christian faith and the world, on the basis of an extremely rare balance, in his own person, between the artisan, the thinker, and the religious man. He was intimately familiar with the numerous materials he worked with, like stone and wood, linen and silk, metal and silver. At the same time, he also possessed the
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extraordinary ability to systematically reflect on the creative process itself, at times reaching a genuinely philosophical level. He moreover considered nature and the world of art to be the sole foundations of the expression of religious beliefs, i.e. he regarded nature and culture as the treasures which every religion has to draw from in order to manifest itself in language, symbols and rituals. This led him to develop a profound anthropological insight into the special importance that prayer and contemplation have in human life. According to Van der Laan, Christianity lost its vital contact with human culture many centuries ago, turning in on itself and creating a subculture characterized, in particular, by a so-called ‘sacred’ symbolism. He fiercely rejected the traditional distinction between secular and sacred art, which he considered to be a betrayal of Christianity’s very essence, of its relationship with the world, and of art itself. His secret was a mode of thought that is best described as ‘analogical’. Every single aspect or level of the reality in which we live can certainly be analyzed and interpreted separately by logical and causal thought, but only analogical thought is able to establish the relationships between all such aspects and levels and to understand them as parts of a single, all-encompassing and meaningful whole. In his view, only analogical thought corresponds to the very structure of human existence and defines the fundamental role of Christian faith—to offer the hermeneutic key that enables us to establish the true sense and meaning of both nature and culture, of both ritual and the invisible world.
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Analogical thought always starts ‘from below’, as he used to say, so as to be able to move upwards. The crucial step of this upward movement consists in what Van der Laan calls the ‘expression’ of our artefacts. Together with the ‘plastic number’, this notion constitutes his most important discovery. The present book shows that the ‘expression’ of functional forms establishes the relationship between matter and spirit. But, in addition, this expression also constitutes the reference point of the analogies that enable us to relate to each other the triad of nature, culture and liturgy and the triad of the visible world, the invisible world, and the Creator of both. Van der Laan was totally fascinated by the wonderful human response to nature, that is art, by the beauty and density this response achieves in its very apex, the rituals of liturgy, and by the invisible world that he considered to be the source and destination of all that is visible. His love and passion for every tangible object, the breadth of his vision, and the heights to which he aspired are embodied in this smallest of his writings. He hoped this ‘testament’ would stimulate others to explore, parallel to his own architectonic research, the numerous other fields of human creativity, and to discover their importance for the whole of human life. Kees den Biesen Giove, February 2005
ima summis
I INTRODUCTION 1. When Prosper Guéranger, the founding father of the Benedictine congregation of Solesmes, published his studies on the liturgy in the late 1870s, he began the first part of his Institutions liturgiques with a simple but very exact definition: ‘Considered generally, the liturgy is the entirety of symbols, hymns, and actions by which the Church manifests and gives expression to its worship of God.’ So liturgy is broadly a system of external forms: significant objects, carefully chosen words and conscious gestures. We encounter the same forms in social life and culture, where they enable people to communicate with each other. Only in liturgy, however, do these forms serve to express people’s shared communion with God; in other words, religious worship. The external forms common to both liturgy and culture stand out as specific forms against a more general background. Symbols are special objects, i.e. objects from which a particular meaning can be read. Song consists of words of which the sound and duration have been so refined in melody and rhythm that they take on a meaning beyond their purely intelligible content. And gestures are human actions whose intention is not only physical but also mental. Thus liturgical form is based on objects, words and gestures derived from the cultural order, and these in
Dom Guéranger’s definition
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turn can be considered as particular forms of something still more general, because the forms of the things we make are always modifications of natural forms. Since we cannot bring such objects into existence out of nothing, we always make them out of something else, and that thing is in the last instance a natural given. In the same way, words are sounds formed in the mouth, the basis of which is a natural phenomenon of vibration. Finally, our gestures are movements made by a living being, and such movements are always reactions to the natural force of gravity. Liturgical forms are ultimately based, therefore, on the forms of nature: things, sounds and movements. But before these are absorbed into the liturgy they have undergone transformation by human culture. Vatican II definition
2. Like Dom Guéranger, the Second Vatican Council gave a short summary of its doctrine concerning liturgy. The Constitution on the Liturgy entitled Sacrosanctum Concilium contains a definition of liturgy that is at the same time a description of the divine service of the Church. In the seventh article we read: ‘The liturgy must be seen as the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ, in which the sanctification of human beings is signified by sensorily perceptible signs, and brought about in a way that is proper to each of them. The complete public worship is exercised in the liturgy through the mystical Body of Jesus Christ, comprising Head and members.’ Thus in liturgy the two aspects of worship—human salvation and divine honour—are signified and realized by means of outward signs. What will concern us here
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is the form of these signs, and specifically the form of the symbols or significant objects. Liturgical singing and gesture are beyond our scope. 3. Liturgy is as it were a celestial undertaking that is played out here on earth. The Vatican Constitution speaks of a complete honouring of God, the true worship that is due to him, the same that is paid to him by the angels and saints in Heaven. Furthermore it speaks of sensorily perceptible things: signa sensibilia, which belong here on earth and are bound to time and space. The world that we call the liturgy is played out between these two poles: created matter and uncreated spirit. To deny that God is directly involved in this is as wrong as to deny that material things have a part in it. The unique quality of liturgy is precisely its combination of the two: the involvement of earthly things and phenomena in the worship of God and the eternal salvation of human beings. The reality of this involvement should excite in us the greatest respect for these external forms.
Earthly things and reverence to God
4. The earthly things that play a role in liturgy are in the first place rooted in the human word, the human action and the human artefact: in the outward forms that we encounter in every culture, where these forms of word, action and object are developed in song, gesture and symbol. One might therefore be inclined to regard liturgy as one of the many manifestations of culture. However, the liturgical order is no less radically distinct from the cultural one, than is the latter from the
Distinction between the three earthly contexts
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order of nature. Human culture cannot be considered as one of the many natural phenomena, because the rules by which culture is ordered are made by human beings, in contrast to the great laws that order nature. In the same way, the rules of liturgy and the demands that it imposes on its forms have a unique character, distinct from those of culture. Certain natural phenomena have a striking resemblance to particular forms that occur in human culture. The mutual cooperation of individuals such as occurs in flocks of birds and in colonies of bees and ants resembles collaboration in human societies—and it is an ancient wisdom that human beings can learn from the example of such animals. However, this does not detract from the fact that true human culture begins only with the emergence of intellect. What arises faultlessly in nature under the influence of the creative power of the divine intellect is handed over, in human culture, to our created intellect. Similarly, circumstances arise in culture that resemble those of liturgy, such as gatherings and feasts with singing, dancing and tangible marks of honour; but there is still no question of liturgy, because this only comes into existence with the appearance of faith and true knowledge of God. Matter, intellect and faith
5. All this follows from the fact that as human beings we belong simultaneously to three worlds. We are created as one of the material beings that compose nature. Through our intellect, however, by which we rise above the conditions of matter and thus transcend time and
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space, we form a separate entity, within nature, that must maintain itself by means of a culture that it itself brings into existence. Furthermore, through our faith we belong to a still higher world, which transcends both matter and intellect. 6. As material beings we are drawn from the earth and absorbed into the natural order. We are bound to the earth by our weight, we breathe the air and we feed on plants and animals, and when we die our bodies are given back again to the earth. As such we communicate with beings that lie below us in the order of creation: we share with them our material existence, despite the fact that through our intellect we rise above them. In the same way, animals are superior to plants—even the smallest animals to the largest trees—for, being guided by their senses, they can move freely over the earth’s surface. And plants are in turn superior to all the dead matter in the universe, because they are alive and grow according to an inherent principle. However, as intelligent beings we are also absorbed into a cultural order that we ourselves must create and through which we communicate with beings that are not our inferiors but our equals: our fellow humans. Just as plants and also animals need each other—if only for procreation—humans too depend on each other to maintain their existence. As a result of our physical differences we have each our own talents and must help each other out. But our mind, too, which from childhood onwards develops through sensory perceptions, draws support from the experience of others, and even
Nature, culture and liturgy
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that of the people of earlier times, in order to grow to its full potential. The mind must be trained, so the relation of teacher to pupil is intrinsic to our created intellect. In a certain sense this is true even of the angels, despite their being pure spirit: they must hand on to each other the light that they receive from God. Finally, as Christians we are absorbed into a liturgical order, through which we communicate with beings that stand above us in the hierarchy of creation: with angels, pure spirits, and with God, the creator himself. Looking, thinking and praying
7. To this external communication, which takes place in three different contexts, corresponds an internal communication that manifests itself in three distinct mental activities: looking, thinking and praying. In the first instance we must derive our knowledge from material things by means of sensory images that we form of them by looking; from these the intellect can abstract its ideas. So our mind is occupied with things that lie below it in the order of creation, and which it puts to its own use: that is, with sensory images. Once in possession of these ideas we can bring them into relation with each other by thinking, and so broaden and deepen our knowledge. We then let our perception rest: our mind is occupied with things on its own level, with concepts. Even repeated looking and thinking, however, cannot enable us to reach that for which in the last instance we are created: knowledge of the creator himself. For this we must put aside not only looking but also thinking, in order to enter into ourselves and to concentrate our
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spiritual faculties on the one thing necessary, as the Gospel puts it. Now our mind is occupied with things that lie above it. 8. Although these three occupations of our interior life are clearly distinct from each other they are nevertheless intimately connected. In the same way, the three external contexts of our life—nature, culture and liturgy—must be seen as mutually distinct but never as detached from each other. We distinguish between them precisely in order to relate them. Just as every material thing has length, breadth and height and is unthinkable if one of these dimensions is missing, so too all three contexts of our external life are needed to give it its full reality, and all three ocupations of our interior life are necessary for the full growth of our mind.
Unity of the three contexts
9. The close bond between the three contexts is shown clearly by the fact that culture cannot exist without nature, nor liturgy without culture. Of these three, only the natural context is an objective given; the other two must be deduced from it. Nature with all its created forms is the only firm ground for everything that we must add to it to answer the needs of our existence, our culture and our liturgy. We need only think how all our making must start out from something given by nature. We cannot make anything in its entirety, for our making is always the reshaping of some natural thing. We can only transform natural forms, so our creativity is necessarily relative. Our thinking, too, is dependent
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on sensory perceptions of material things, and our faith must be grafted onto our intellectual faculties. Therefore in what follows we shall first consider the intrinsic properties of each of the three contexts, in order later to relate them together. We shall see liturgical forms emerge, by way of cultural forms, from the repertoire of natural forms. Liturgical objects
10. In the Book of Ecclesiasticus we read that we are dependent on nature for food, clothes and a house; and since food requires utensils, culture clearly manifests three great categories of artefacts. The same three categories reappear in the liturgy: the altar vessels, the vestments and the church building; they all have their origin in the natural necessities of our bodily existence. To these must be added the icon to support our sensory perception and the book with the written word to support our intellect.
II NATURAL FORMS 1. The three contexts of human life—nature, culture and liturgy—are clearly distinct from each other, but form nevertheless a single whole. Because they are interdependent, a true vision of liturgy and of the demands it places on its forms is only possible against the background of the other two form-worlds. For a true vision of the form-world of nature—the ultimate given—and of the way we interact with it, we must start with creation, first as it is revealed to us in the pages of Holy Scripture, and second as we experience it in everyday life. Of all creatures, we are the last created. The book of Genesis makes it appear that God deliberated over our creation: ‘Let us make human beings, who in our image will rule over all creation’. Whereas before God had only to speak for all other beings to be called into existence—God spoke and it was—now the word ‘create’, with which the creation story begins, is three times repeated: ‘So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’. The appearance of intellect in the world of matter is described as a masterpiece, which brings the whole creation to completion and prepares it as it were for the Incarnation.
The creation story
10 Commentary of St Gregory of Nyssa
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2. The ascent of creation towards its completion by humanity is beautifully described by St Gregory of Nyssa in his dispute with his sister Macrina concerning the soul and the resurrection: The Word teaches us that God approached the creation of humankind in a specific way, following an orderly progression from one thing to the next. For we did not appear on earth as soon as the universe had been created, but were preceded, as the history tells us, by the non-rational creatures, and these in turn by the plants. In this way the Word makes clear, in my opinion, that the life force was mingled step by step, as it were, with corporeal nature: it first established itself in creatures without sensory perception, then it reached those endowed with senses, and finally it ascended to spiritual and rational beings. So all beings are either corporeal or rational. Corporeal existence is either animate or inanimate (by animate I mean that which partakes of life). Of the living beings, some are endowed with the faculties of sensory perception, others not. And of the beings with faculties of sensory perception some are endowed with reason, others not. Sensate life cannot exist without matter, and mental life cannot occur in a body except in conjunction with sensory perception. Therefore the creation of humankind comes last in the story, as of a being that contains every other life-form within itself: those that we encounter in the plant world no less than those we meet with among the non-rational beings. Humans share with the plants the need to feed themselves and grow: observe how plants take up food through their roots and give it out again in the form of fruit and leaves. And in common with the non-rational beings, humans have the ability to guide themselves by sensory perception. But the thinking and reasoning faculty is something unmixed and unique which human beings independently possess.
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In this text St Gregory analyses the whole structure of creation. First he makes a distinction between all material things and the angels, which are pure spirit: the visibilia and invisibilia of the Creed. Then he distinguishes within the sphere of material things between dead matter and everthing that lives, after which he points to the difference between the vegetative life of plants and the sensate life of animals. Finally he separates human beings with their intellect from the animals whose life is purely sensual. 3. St Gregory pursues a line of thought in which he follows the creation story step by step, and shows how we contain within ourselves all forms of existence and how we surpass them by reason of our intellect. St Augustine in his turn condenses this in the following aphorism: ‘We share being with the stones, life with the plants, feeling with the animals and knowing with the angels.’
Affirmation by St Augustine
4. It was the ancient view that the material universe is composed of four elements: fire, air, water and earth. This agrees with the creation story in so far as these elements correspond to the phases of creation before the appearance of plant life, and constitute as it were the prehistory of living beings. Every creature is formed within its own element: plants and animals on the earth, fishes in water, birds in the air, and all of these under the sun.
The ancient view
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Human experience of nature
5. We too live upon the earth, and owing to our weight we are subject to the forces that hold the universe together. Yet we are not like the stones, which lie where they fall. Because we are alive we can move and so counteract the forces of nature. Like plants and trees we can stand erect, and like animals we can move from place to place, guided by our senses. Every manifestation of the material world lies within our range, but in us these assume a quite different character through being commanded by our intellect and free will. The animals, despite their independent form, cannot free themselves from the cycle of nature into which they are absorbed. They are bound by their instinct and their lack of an independent will to become faultless links in the natural chain. We, however, can not only move freely in time and space but even rise above them by means of our intellect. Thanks to our memory and our imaginative faculty we can set them objectively before the mind and create as it were our own space and time, of which architecture, with its delimited spaces, and music, with its own beginning and ending, are outstanding manifestations. We are thus in a real sense made to be the culmination of the visible creation, and as such we stand midway between the creator and his creation.
Humankind as the link between creator and creation
6. Formed in God’s image and likeness, we are an image of God with respect to the rest of creation. With respect to God, on the other hand, we form a condensed image of the whole creation. The Dutch
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poet Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679) expresses this beautifully in the third book of his Considerations on God and Religion: The great world’s mirrored ball I leave aside And see first humankind, by Greeks raised up And exalted with the name mikros kosmos; For we portray and measure out on earth in miniature That which is reflected at full size in the whole universe, And God has condensed and poured himself out in us, Making us viceregents in his stead, And all other creatures subject to our intellect.
Here is plainly expressed how for God we condense within ourselves, as microcosm, the whole creation, and ourselves act as his deputies on earth. 7. We must always keep in mind this concept of creation, in which humankind appears as the intermediary between God and his work, because it is in this perspective that our life here on earth and our interaction with things take on their true meaning. For our intellect allows us not only to master the things that lie below us in this world, but also through them to gain knowledge of God, who stands above us. Our interaction with the visible world tells us something about our relation to God, because it resembles God’s interaction with the whole creation, human beings included. Our senses are the means by which we make contact with the visible things around us. From them we derive the interior images on which we base our knowledge. The sensory images that we form of things, and which
The sensory image is the link between matter and mind
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The great analogy
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form the connection between the material and mental worlds, can be compared to humanity itself, which as image and condensation of the whole creation provides the link between it and the creator. On one side there is a relation between matter and mind, and on the other a relation between creation and creator. Just as for us things are condensed in images, for God the whole creation is condensed in humankind. Interaction with his creation is for God interaction with human beings; interaction with the things around us is for us interaction with the image that we form of those things. So these two worlds resemble each other: first, God and the whole creation with humankind as intermediary; and then, within that creation, humans and the things around them with as intermediary the sensory image. Or as Vondel expresses it: For we portray and measure out on earth in miniature That which is reflected at full size in the whole universe.
Affirmation by Dionysius
8. Consequently if the mind is to rise to the spiritual level where it belongs, and not confine itself to regulating our material and sensual existence, then it must be guided towards the world of the spirit and the knowledge of God by the perception of material things. For as Dionysius the Areopagite writes at the beginning of his book on the celestial hierarchies: ‘A mind such as ours can rise to the immaterial conception and contemplation proper to the celestial hierarchies (the angels) only by allowing itself to be guided towards it by way of the material things that lie within its reach.’
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9. Thus our sensory contact with the forms of nature has a twofold aim. In the first place its purpose is to guide the actions and movements of our body and integrate our physical existence with nature. This does not happen instinctively as it does with animals, which translate the sensory impressions they receive from the things around them directly into actions and movements. By means of perception we form interior images to which we react consciously and intentionally (that is, by using our intellect and our will) and so guide our actions and movements. Furthermore our memory and our imaginative faculty enable us to retain these images and make use of them later for our intellectual development. Our sensory contact with things is directed not only downwards but also upwards: towards our spiritual wellbeing.
The twofold significance of our contact with things
10. Now, this upward movement can take place in two ways. As we have already seen, our intellect can derive concepts from sensory images, and by reasoning and deduction it can develop these in order to arrive at knowledge of the truth. Here the emphasis is chiefly on the causal connection between things. But as we now see, that sensory image can also serve, in its role as intermediary between our intellect and the world perceived by the senses (that is, between mind and matter), as the basis for a comparison with the relation of creator and creation, in which we ourselves appear as the intermediary. Here the main stress is on the analogous relation between things.
The twofold movement of our mind
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In order to connect these two movements of the human mind we must first distinguish clearly between them, for it is through this connection that each can come fully into its own. The first movement proceeds by way of reasoning and deduction, which is by nature complicated and necessarily multiple. The second movement follows a quite different path, basing itself on external things in order to rise by means of analogies to the contemplation of the simple truth. The first movement is characterized by the word ‘because’, the second by the words ‘just as’. The second kind of process is more poetic than the first, but both are equally necessary in our life. The daily liturgy of the monastic hours honours the one just as much as the other, comprising as it does both readings and psalms, while it even alternates the readings with chants. And what is most striking is that the Gospel gives preference to the analogical movement, by which the mind rises directly to the contemplation of truth through comparisons based on its contact with external things. The parables clearly follow this process: in each, a simple natural or cultural circumstance is the starting point for an analogical description of the invisible reality that is the Kingdom of God.
III CULTURAL FORMS 1. Besides the natural forms that surround us, human life involves a whole other world of forms: that of the things we make ourselves. We have to add this second, artificial world to the natural one in order to hold our own in nature. Animals find in nature, and specifically in the natural element in which they are created, everything they need to keep alive and develop themselves fully. By instinct they direct themselves infallibly towards their intended goal. Despite their autonomy, animals are wholly caught up in the cycle of nature, from which we humans are detached by our intellect and free will. Our existence is not determined in a fixed way; we ourselves must choose our goal and find the means to attain it. How we fit our lives into nature is largely up to us. The first things needed for our integration into nature have already been mentioned: food, clothes and a house. To these must be added utensils for the food and the implements needed for the preparing and making of all these things. In the case of animals, nature provides everything they need. Their limbs are completely designed for their narrowly specific functions, whereas we have to equip our limbs with tools according to the particular task in hand. So in order to fit our existence into the natural envi-
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ronment we must create intermediary forms designed to bring about a harmony between our body and nature. This is achieved by adding these forms to one or other of the two terms, body or nature. Thus the house is added to nature, clothing to the body. The dependence of artificial things on nature
2. For the making of these additions we are dependent on the natural form-world in two respects. The necessary materials must always be extracted from the earth or from living things: stone and wood for our houses, wool and linen for our clothing, and self-evidently the food we prepare in order to adapt it to our needs. Our making is not creative in the sense of bringing things into being out of nothing: it is no more than a reflection or shadow of the creation of nature. Since we are made in the image of God, our making is an image of his making. That which in nature occurs on the basis of an unlimited, creating intelligence, happens with our artefacts on the basis of a limited, created intelligence. Our creation can be only a re-creation. Similarly, with respect to the form of the things we make, we depend in the first instance on the forms of nature. The intellect, which must direct the making of these things, can only develop itself by means of images that we derive through our senses from the external world.
The bodily and intellectual use of artefacts
3. A consequence of this characteristic of our created intellect—that it must derive its information from things perceived by the senses—is that we cannot instantly make the things we need in their perfect form.
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Paradoxical as it may sound, it is by making things that we have to learn how to make them: we must always proceed by trial and error. The mental image that guides the intellect in the making process must be derived in the first instance from natural things, and developed further in response to the form of the artefact itself. Therefore the form of the thing we make has a twofold goal: it must aim not only at the physical purpose for which it is intended, but also at a mental purpose, because the intellect needs that form for its own development. The first aim of the form is a contact between the body and nature, and the second a contact between the thing made and the mind. Consequently the forms of our artefacts must be both functional, with a view to the body, and expressive, with a view to the mind. 4. The functioning of the things we make is achieved through carefully balanced relations between their form and the natural datum to which they are added. It is by means of this addition, either to the body or to nature, that the sought-after harmony is established. Thus clothing is functional when it fits the body. It is a matter of a relation between the form of the artefact and a natural given; the form of the artefact is only one of the two terms of the relation. But when it is a matter of the intellect being informed about the thing’s function through the perception of its form, this information can come only from relations that can be read within the form itself. The form of the
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artefact must itself embody relations between terms, which express, by a kind of reflection or analogy, the primary functional relation between the artefact and either the body or the natural environment. If the function of a garment is to clothe the naked body, then in order to express that function it must enable us somehow to rediscover both terms—garment and body—in its own parts. A common usage is to distinguish between under- and over-garments: this is something that arises from the very function of the clothing, since the over-garment is thereby protected from direct contact with the body. Then, with a view to expression, the underclothing (left partly visible) plays the role of the naked body and the over-garment that of the clothing proper, so the clothing as a whole becomes an image of the clothed body. In order to express the function of clothing, the clothing itself is clothed. Function is a matter of the relation of the artificial form to the natural given; expression is a matter of the relation between the parts of the artificial form itself. Functional and expressive forms
5. This double aspect of the artefact leads to the existence of two categories of forms that arise in human culture. First there are the forms of things in which the emphasis is on function, use by the body, and secondly those forms in which the stress lies rather on expression, use by the mind. At a primitive stage of human culture it is enough for things to function satisfactorily, without their forms
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being specially refined with a view to the development of the mind. But at a more advanced stage people discover the value of expression. Although this has no direct impact on the body it will stimulate in turn the further development of functionality. The forms of tools, which play only a temporary role during the preparation of things, may easily fail to develop beyond the purely functional stage. But even then some people will appreciate the importance of expression for the use of the tools, despite its temporary nature. 6. Because all human beings must provide for their basic needs in similar ways, the things they make in similar circumstances will more or less resemble each other. The artefacts thus provide each other with models, and this stimulates constant improvement. Artefacts made by different members of a given culture can interact fruitfully, just as, in the life of the intellect, concepts derived from sensory images and mutually related by reasoning can develop one another. What is true of each artefact separately—that it is developed step by step through experience—applies equally, therefore, to cultural products as a whole. The evolution of their design also comes about gradually, developing from a primitive stage into a classic period, whose products serve as a yardstick for yet further refinement. It is characteristic of all great civilizations to stress the expressive aspect of design; sometimes, through decadence or over-civilization, this is pursued at the
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expense of functionality. The fundamental purpose of things is thus lost sight of, for in the case of things intended to serve the body this lies in their function.
Monumental forms for communication between people
7. The things we need for our body (and which, to make them completely human, we also make accessible to the intellect) do not, however, exhaust the world of cultural forms. For we communicate not only with the material nature around us, but also with our fellow humans. This is neither a contact of matter with matter nor of matter with mind, but of mind with mind. Such communication cannot occur, however, without the mediation of material things: sounds, movements or objects. This shows once more the particular condition of our spirit: its being tied to matter. We always need to entrust our thoughts to external forms, from which others can then read them off. If they are to serve as intermediaries in human communication, the sensory images that we derive from the visible world, and which take on a mental, invisible existence in our personal contact with things, must be returned once more to the external world and take on an autonomous and visible form. First, things assumed the subtle form of mental images; now these images are converted into signs. Objects become symbols, movements gestures, sounds language. They become as it were distillations: abbreviated forms of that from which they are derived. A meal is reduced to a toast, a single drink; a house to a monument, a single upright
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stone, like that of Jacob in Bethel; clothes to insignia, for which a single button, bow or seam is enough. All these signs derive their significance in human communication from the nature of that which they represent. The full development of the armoury of signs required for the smooth functioning of a culture is made possible by a system of mutual agreements and conventions. Mental images are all that is needed for one’s individual interaction with things. Signs appear as soon as people have to interact with each other: when mind speaks to mind. 8. The expressive power demanded to make understandable the form of signs is derived in the first place from the expressive form of the things we need for our physical existence. It is of the greatest importance for human communication that in designing the everyday things required for our physical existence we give sufficient attention to the expressiveness of their form. Therefore a great civilization will refine even the tools and other things that serve a merely temporary physical purpose, with a view to their expression. From the point of view of their physical purpose or function our artefacts have a mainly individual significance. But their expression gives them not only an individual significance but above all a cultural one, because from this expression we derive the means to communicate with each other.
The importance of expressive forms
9. We therefore distinguish three kinds of form within the world of cultural forms, irrespective of whether
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these involve sounds, movements or objects. These are: first, forms in which the stress is laid on physical purpose (functional forms); second, forms in which the emphasis is placed on their mental objective, this being to inform the intellect about the physical purpose (expressive forms); and third, forms that serve purely for communication between minds (signs or monumental forms). These are the three types of form that determine the appearance of culture. Using our innate faculties, we add them to the created forms of nature. The two categories of monumental forms
10. Monumental forms, whose purpose is the exchange of thoughts, are thus wholly distinct from the two other types of form whose principal aim is physical. We can make a further distinction between functional and expressive signs; for there are signs whose external form is purely intended to convey a specific thought, but others whose form is specially refined with the additional aim of expressing, through relations between the parts, their function as signs, i.e., their ability to convey thoughts in general. This happens for instance in poetry, where sounds and rhythms are weighed out with respect to one another with a view to an expression that transcends the meaning of the words as such. The words are allowed to speak to each other, as it were. One might ask whether there are also monumental signs in which the function of conveying thought is abandoned altogether. In this context one thinks of St Paul’s reference to glossolalia in his first epistle to
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the Corinthians. The question is interesting because he excludes the ‘gift of tongues’ from liturgical gatherings, preferring ‘five intelligible words’ to ‘thousands of words spoken in the language of ecstasy’.
IV LITURGICAL FORMS 1. Since we cannot call our making genuine creation, but rather a reshaping of one or other element of the created world of nature, we must regard the whole play of cultural forms, not as an autonomous form-world, but as a human reaction to the order of nature. It is a way of adapting that order to human existential needs: to the needs of the body by means of the function of our artefacts, and to the needs of the mind through their expression. By these means natural things become both usable and intelligible. The limitless variety of natural forms with their inscrutable order and harmony gives way to a very limited range of forms whose connections are readily intelligible; for instance, we can count up to large numbers by reducing them to those few relations to the unit that enable us to count up to ten. One has only to consider how architecture, which arises from our need of habitation, has the power to give measure to the measureless space of nature, which thus becomes knowable for us; or how in song and dance the continuous passage of time takes on discrete form, and is thus made countable. The whole creation is represented and made intelligible for us through the cultural order. That order is the great concrete image that we form for ourselves of nature.
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Two cycles
2. We must look upon the small cycle of our making, in which the form of the things made returns as information to the intellect that makes them, as the counterpart of the great cycle of creation, which issues from God in order to return to him. Called into being out of nothingness, creation must ultimately be created for God himself. The form making of culture as a whole performs the same role in relation to the forms of nature as does the expression of each separate artefact with respect to its function. Expression is the means by which the things we make return to the intellect, the foundation of their form; the products of a whole culture serve to return the entire creation to its foundation, almighty God.
Interior prayer and liturgy
3. As long as we turn to God only as individuals, our experience of the things around us, the products of nature as well as of culture, provide us with an adequate image of our relation to God. For such private devotion no liturgy is needed; when borrowed from the liturgy, such interior prayer must be seen as a derivation. Genuine interior prayer brings us into direct contact with God through the contact we have with the things around us. It is as it were the archetypal form of liturgy: through our interaction with things, we learn to communicate with God.
The testimony of St Augustine
4. In the sixth chapter of the tenth book of his Confessions St Augustine gives us a striking instance of this phenomenon when he asks: ‘But what do I love, when I love my God? Not material beauty or beauty of a tem-
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poral order; not the brilliance of earthly light, so welcome to our eyes; not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self, when my soul is bathed in light that is not bound by space; when it listens to a sound that never dies away; when it breathes fragrance that is not born away on the wind; when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating; when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfilment of desire. That is what I love when I love my God.’ Thus all personal prayer is nothing else than a translation of our relations with things into our relation with God. The parables in the Gospels teach us exactly that. 5. But as soon as human beings turn collectively to God specific external forms become necessary, just as when people exchange ideas among themselves. In human communication, the interior images by which we communicate with things acquire an independent existence and become signs. Likewise, in our collective communication with God, the great real image of the creation represented by the cultural formworld acquires an independent existence as a supreme sign, which we call liturgy. If we want to condense that image into an external form or sign, that sign must be an abbreviated form of the whole world of cul-
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tural forms, comprising both the things we need for our physical existence and the signs we use to communicate with each other. We derive from our interaction with things the signs or monumental forms we need in order to communicate with each other. We must derive the signs we need for communion with God—liturgical signs—from our interaction both with things and with our fellow humans. Form-types and form-worlds
6. Within the cultural order a cycle exists between a functional form that serves and an expressive form that presents us with an intelligible image of the function. In order that we may communicate with each other, these two forms are complemented by the monumental forms of signs. Similarly, a great cycle exists in the whole creation, between the created forms of nature and the world of cultural forms, the latter giving us an intelligible image of the former; and for the sake of our collective communication with God these two form-worlds together are complemented by the signworld of the liturgy.
The basis of the liturgical sign
7. In the limited cycle of human culture, forms or signs are based on the expressive forms of the things we need to sustain our body, such as houses, clothes, and utensils for our food. These signs are reduced to distillations of the expressive forms because, as signs, the function of these forms is purely fictitious. We find the same pattern repeated on a larger scale in the great cycle of the whole creation. Liturgical signs
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rely not only on the expressive forms of culture, but on the cultural order as a whole; in other words, it rests on the intelligible image of nature that culture provides us with. Consequently we must see the liturgical formworld as an abbreviated form or distillation of the complete treasury of cultural forms. The abbreviation is no longer applied to each form in itself, as with the signs used by human culture, but to the liturgical forms in their entirety. The liturgy as a whole is a sign. That is why Dom Guéranger speaks of the entirety of external forms needed to give expression to the worship of God. 8. The result of this is that in the liturgy the ordinary things of our daily lives, and even the signs that serve in communication between people, reappear as signs intended for our communion with God. Together they form a résumé, an autonomous image, of our whole human existence in relation to nature and our fellow humans. We rediscover in liturgy the entirety of words, gestures and objects that govern our daily life, but reduced to a few typical words, typical actions and typical objects. Houses, clothing and utensils, the paintings and books of ordinary life are represented by a single aula, a great hall that manifests the basic form of the human dwelling in all its purity; by a few vestments, but such as bring to light the archetypal form of human clothing; by the basic types of utensil used at an ordinary meal, a dish for food and a cup for drink; by a few effigies of Christ and Mary; and by the book of all books, the Holy Scripture.
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So the ordinary things become signs, but they retain their normal appearance. They are still real houses, real garments and real utensils. The actions and movements employed in liturgy are the normal ones, and the ordinary monumental forms of communication are used: language, gesture and symbol. But all these take on a wholly new significance, because they now serve for communication with God. In all these cases, however, the original intention of the things derived from human culture—to complete nature and adapt it to human existence—is abstracted. Just as, with monumental cultural forms, the physical functioning survives only as a foundation for expression, likewise with liturgical signs the completion of nature survives only as background and motivation for the world of cultural forms. Precisely because in liturgy the completion of nature, with its ever-changing circumstances, no longer applies, these forms can be raised to a pure universality. Liturgical and cultural forms essentially the same
9. Thus liturgical forms are essentially no different from cultural forms. Churches are human habitations, which are not used to live in, however, but to express dwelling with God. But in order to better fulfil their liturgical function, which consists only in their being a sign, they must be exemplary types of the human dwelling. Liturgical vestments, too, are real garments, although in the liturgy they no longer serve their function as clothing but are used purely as a sign and worn over ordinary clothes. The external forms of liturgy have thus a quite
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different value from that which the same things have in culture. Even the signs, which serve in culture for mutual communication between individuals, now serve purely for a shared communication with God. They thus take on an entirely new significance. 10. The way to guarantee this new liturgical value of both ordinary things and signs is to create a hiatus, as it were, in the two fundamental conditions of our material existence: space and time. Within this interval things have their liturgical significance. By appointment and institution, pieces of space and time are set apart, within which things and signs hold their liturgical value. This has been understood since ancient times: people have set aside special places and times reserved for religious worship. These are solemnly consecrated for sacred ceremonies, so from that moment on all other use of them is regarded as sacrilege. Liturgical and profane use can no more coincide than sign and function in the cultural context. Within the walls of the sanctuary dedicated to acts of worship, things have only their liturgical significance. As soon as the bell sounds to announce the start of the religious service, words and actions are withdrawn from their normal meaning in order to carry only their appointed liturgical meaning. Likewise at the end of the mass the faithful are dismissed and returned to normal life. ‘And each returns to his good work,’ as the Roman Missal puts it. All peoples have always had, therefore, their holy places and festivals, for without sacred places and times
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communal worship is impossible. It is the only way to distinguish the forms of the things, actions and words of the liturgy from those of normal culture, and to ensure their liturgical significance.
V THE THREE FORM-WORLDS 1. We have now formed a complete picture of all the external forms involved in our lives here on earth. They correspond to the three main aspects of our existence and can therefore be classified under three categories: natural forms, with which we are involved as material beings; cultural forms, with which we are involved in our intellectual existence; and liturgical forms, with which we are involved in our Christian life. Together they comprise a single great whole, as does our own life despite its distinct aspects. All artificial forms have their origin in the forms of nature, which are created by God. The cultural and liturgical forms added to natural forms are reshapings, brought about by human intelligence and skill, of those same natural forms. Consequently there is a certain resemblance between the three categories: they all stem from nature, and belong as it were to one family. A resemblance of this sort is not an identity but an analogy. It contains elements of both sameness and difference: sameness from one viewpoint, difference from others. When cultural forms and manners have become unnatural they cannot be revived, but instead they will be destroyed, by imitating natural forms. Likewise liturgical forms and manners that have become too cut off
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from the cultural order are not restored but obliterated by identifying them with cultural ones. The secret of a healthy cultural and liturgical formmaking is to distinguish them clearly from each other and from natural forms, each according to its own nature, but at the same time to make essential connections between them. 2. If we want to understand the essential properties of liturgical forms we must set them off appropriately against the background of nature and culture, just as, within that background, cultural forms must be appropriately delineated against the general background of nature. Cultural forms crown the natural ones, as it were, and spread over them the light of intellect. Liturgical forms in turn crown the whole composed of culture and nature, and spread over it the light of faith. It is only a very small part of nature that we make our own by reshaping its forms. One could describe this polishing or civilizing of natural forms as played out within the walls of a city, for there we find nature wholly adapted to the service of human life. In the same way, but to a still greater degree, a very small part of the cultural order enclosed within a city is involved in liturgy. These liturgical forms are then enclosed by the walls of the church building, within which things surrender their cultural relevance in order to take on their value as signs within the context of the liturgy.
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3. The resemblance between these three distinct worlds of form must be sought in the fact that this great triad reappears at a reduced scale in each world considered separately. We see in nature the inanimate earth with upon it plants and trees that live and grow yet still form a single whole with the earth. This whole provides the background of the animal world with its independent life. Animals not only grow and move, but free themselves from the earth and move about upon it. Thus we see the static forms of the earth as the background for the animate forms of plants and trees, and these together as the background for the autonomous life of animals.
Relations between the form-types of nature
4. Thanks to the spirit, which was breathed into us at creation, we humans are able to build up a whole new world of forms. We reshape natural forms in order to adapt them to both our physical and our mental existence. Without that adaptation to our mind, the things we make for our body would remain as it were lifeless. By being opened up to the intellect as expressive forms they take on a sort of life, but a life that remains wholly bound to the service of the body, just as plants remain rooted in the earth. Their expression is rooted in their function. However, when we detach these expressive forms from their physical function and cultivate them purely for human communication, these artificial forms acquire as it were an autonomous existence, just as animals do in nature. They become monumental forms,
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signs. So there is a resemblance between the triad of cultural forms and that of natural forms: their respective form-types have a corresponding relation to each other. Relations between the formtypes of liturgy
5. Within liturgy too we can distinguish a lesser triad of forms. First, we encounter signa sensibilia, external signs, that comprise tangible, space-occupying things: buildings, furniture, clothing, utensils. Together these provide a fixed background for the other liturgical forms, just as in nature the lifeless earth provides a fixed background for living plants and animals. Next we find in liturgy signa sensibilia that involve movement: postures and gestures, dispositions and displacements of the body in space. These are not only tied to space but also to time, as they have a certain duration. They are, so to speak, animate forms which nevertheless remain wholly dependent on the fixed framework of concrete things, just as plants and trees are rooted in the earth. Lastly, there are signa sensibilia for which we use forms that occupy no space at all and depend only on time: words and singing. 6. Like those of nature and culture, the three liturgical form-types are interrelated. Here the fixed framework is provided by the church-space with its furniture and objects. It is brought to life by the spatial dispositions and gestures of the ceremonies, and this whole is animated by spoken word and song. The words and singing must always be considered against the background of gestures and objects, just
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as animals cannot be considered in isolation from the earth with its plants and trees. Every word, every song is therefore accompanied by gesture and posture, and is located by its spatial disposition within the great, fixed frame of the church building and its furniture. There is thus a direct relation between the three form-types of liturgy: word, gesture and object. The vestment accompanies the gesture, the gesture the word. 7. Corresponding to this relation between the forms of the three secondary triads there is the great relation between the three form-worlds of nature, culture and liturgy. For a proper understanding of liturgical design we must pay particular attention to the analogy between the major complex of three form-worlds and the minor complex of the three cultural form-types: functional, expressive and monumental form. Because we ourselves bring them into being and engage with them in our daily lives, it is with these three form-types that we are most familiar. From their interconnections we can develop a concept of liturgical form in its relation to cultural and natural form. Liturgical form plays the same part in the major complex as monumental form plays in the minor one. The signs used by culture are based on its expressive forms, of which they are an abbreviated reflection, while these expressive forms derive in turn from functional forms, which they open up to the intellect. Similarly, the whole complex of liturgical forms is based on that of cultural forms, of which it is an abbreviated
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reflection, and the cultural form-world derives from the natural one, of which it gives us an intelligible image. We can therefore gain an insight into the intrinsic character of the liturgical sign by comparing it with the signs or monumental forms of culture, in the light of the analogy between the minor triad of the cultural formtypes and the major triad of the three form-worlds. The analogical way of thinking
8. Although the analogical way of thinking has today become unfamiliar to us, it is fundamental to the teaching of the Gospels, as is shown by the many parables they contain. The fathers of the church, too, constantly employed this mode, together with the development of thought through logic. Without this thought pattern a liturgy entirely built upon signs is incomprehensible, for these signs are all based on analogies. Analogy is not just a way of arranging in an orderly fashion the forms we engage with in our daily lives; it is an essential foundation of the structure of our very existence, for after all we are created in God’s image and likeness, and that again is an analogical relation. A very instructive and pertinent example of this way of thinking is to be found in the creed called (after its opening word) Quicumque, and traditionally but incorrectly ascribed to St Athanasius. Together with those of the Apostles and of Nicaea it completes the trio of great Christian creeds. In the second part, which deals with the Incarnation, it is said of Christ that he is: ‘Wholly God, wholly man, consisting of a rational soul and human flesh; absolutely one, not formed by the admixture of two natures, but
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by the unity of one person.’ This declaration is then elucidated by the following analogy: ‘For just as the rational soul and the flesh compose one man, so are God and man one Christ.’ First the two terms of the analogy are clearly distinguished: on one side ‘God and man’ and on the other ‘rational soul and human flesh’; then they are brought together by the words ‘just as’ and ‘so’, and the unity of the one term is compared with that of the other. 9. It is precisely this analogy that we must bear in mind with respect to liturgy. It is the key to the unity between its external forms and what they signify and bring about. Since the liturgical order is a distillation of the cultural one, the forms of which are based on the adaptation of natural forms to fit our physical and mental existence—body and soul—this analogy in the Athanasian creed forms as it were the final link in the chain of analogies that ascends from the forms of nature up to the object of our worship. Consequently liturgical forms remain rooted in those of nature and are nevertheless capable of signifying and realizing the mysteries of our faith. 10. In the ascent from natural forms to those of liturgy, the treasury of cultural forms clearly plays an intermediary role. As long as a culture considers itself the complement of nature purely in what concerns its physical welfare, it only half completes its task. Care of the body may be a matter of immediate necessity, for without it care of the mind would be pointless; but it is the
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latter that is of ultimate significance. And our spiritual welfare demands the cultivation of expression, in order that forms be opened up to the world of intellect. This cultivation of expression is in turn of immediate necessity, however, for a culture that intends its forms to fulfil an intermediary role with respect to liturgy. Without this particular concern for cultural expression, liturgical form making must languish, despite its ultimate significance, through failure to reach the soil that nourishes it. A materialist culture considers itself satisfied with purely functional forms that nourish only the body and senses, providing no food for the mind. The ascent to the forms of liturgy is blocked by the absence of expressive forms. The form making of such a culture remains as it were dumb. Despite the perfect guidelines and institutions for the renewal of liturgy given by the Second Vatican Council, liturgy will not flower unless oases are created in our culture: islands in which a healthy play of cultural forms is cultivated, the only climate in which the liturgy can thrive.
VI FUNCTIONAL FORMS 1. The form-world of liturgy is connected by analogy to the monumental forms of culture: it plays the same part in the major complex of the form-worlds of nature, culture and liturgy as monumental form plays in the minor, cultural complex of functional, expressive and monumental form-types. Thus by studying the genesis of the cultural sign we gain an insight into the foundations and structure of liturgical form. The system of cultural signs that enables us to communicate as mind to mind has its origins in the artefacts that we add to the order of nature to sustain human life. To integrate our life into that order we must complete both nature and our own existence by adding things to them. This we must do according to circumstances, and on our own initiative. Without these additions the natural form-world is incomplete, for it includes a species—the human race—that although part of nature must itself add things to nature in order to survive.
Completion of nature by artificial things
2. In itself, the form of our artefacts is far inferior to that of created things. Artificial form is no less distinct from natural form than is our limited, created intellect from the limitless creating intellect, these being the respective foundations of the two sorts of forms.
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Nevertheless, if artificial forms are produced with insight, they play a superior role among the forms of nature, for they bear witness to the human intellect, which transcends all the rest of creation and is able to make things on its own initiative. Thus the created world of nature contains within itself an expressive image of its own origin. Dependence of human creativity
3. Although our making resembles creation, it is not a question here of genuine creativity. Our making does not happen ex nihilo, out of nothing, as is the case with creation; it is always a re-making of an already existing natural given. Therefore our artefacts have a double origin: a natural and an artificial source. In them, art and nature always go hand in hand. In this union of art and nature in one and the same form we find expressed the relation of the whole artificial order to the natural one, and from this relation we can go on to form an image of the ultimate relation between humanity and its creator. Therefore human intervention in the natural given can never go so far that all trace of that given is eliminated, while on the other hand it cannot be so limited that our artefacts are barely distinguishable from nature. In the final analysis, it is through a well-balanced combination of the two aspects that we find a depiction of our relation to the creator. To that extent one can say that this combination is the first step towards liturgical form. If our artefacts are well formed, they carry within themselves the embryo of the signa sensibilia of which the Constitution on the Liturgy speaks.
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4. Thus we owe to our human existence all sorts of artefacts. Now, because our existence is played out on three distinct levels—living body, senses and intellect— we come in contact with natural things in three ways. We experience their materiality by touch, we see their form by means of a visual image, and we gain an insight into their nature through a clear understanding of their compositional structure. In the case of things that occupy space this is first and foremost a question of quantity, i.e., of size. The things we ourselves make also have their materiality, their form and their gradations of size, but these are all severely limited because of the limitation of our human nature. From the unlimited matter of nature we remove only a limited part for our artefacts, and we reshape the arbitrary form of this limited piece of matter into one of the limited range of forms we can readily distinguish. Finally, we can fix the dimensions of these forms only by using a limited range of measures that corresponds to our rational insight.
Union of nature and art
5. Walls are built of stone extracted from the unlimited mass of the earth, and with these walls a limited part of the limitless space of nature is separated off to make it habitable for us. Threads are spun from wool or flax, and from these threads rectangular lengths of cloth are woven with which to drape the body. And dishes and pots are baked from a little clay in order to contain the small amount of food that we extract from nature. Houses, clothes and utensils are the first things we have to make in order to maintain our existence in nature.
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Thus in place of the limitless matter of nature we have a small portion of matter; in place of the limitless range of natural forms, the small range of our artificial forms; and in place of the fathomless extent of the natural order, which stretches from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, we have a limited range of measures that we can relate to each other. The measure of this limitation
6. This human limitation does not go so far, however, that we are restricted to a single choice, like a bird that can make only one form of nest. Our limitation lies midway between the endless variety found in nature as a whole and the predetermined way of life of its separate species. We always have the choice between a certain number of possibilities that our intellect is able to comprehend, and which it can derive from the unlimited range of natural possibilities. With the eight tones of the octave we build up our musical repertoire, and from the continuous series of colours that merge imperceptibly into each other we distil the six colours that we can give names to. The human wisdom of every civilization has applied itself to these limited ranges of forms, colours and measures. They must be neither too extensive for the human mind to grasp easily, nor so limited that they do not offer the necessary scope for our adaptation to nature in differing circumstances.
Basic forms of the house
7. The spatial delimitation of our houses offers two principal forms, which we classify as longitudinal and centralized building. They arise from the fact that flat
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walls cannot divide off a three-dimensional space in a single step. When for instance we wrap an object in paper we wrap it first in two of its dimensions and then close it in the third. Now, since the vertical direction of space differs markedly from the two horizontal ones, the two principal types of spatial separation are determined by the order in which the three dimensions are delimited. In centralized building the length and breadth are delimited first and then the roof is added, whereas in longitudinal building the length and height are first defined, after which the two ends are closed off. The two types are already clearly distinct in the case of primitive tents: there is the round tent with a central tent-pole, and the oblong tent with a pole at each end. Both types are also found among our old farmhouses: a square type with pyramid roof in West Friesland, and an oblong type in the eastern parts of The Netherlands. In church building we find the central type with a cupola mainly in eastern Europe, and the longitudinal form with an apse in the west. From these two principal building types a limited family of forms is developed, all of which can be traced back to one or other of the two basic forms. 8. We find the same thing in clothing. Here too there are two principal forms to which all other forms can be reduced: the vest or tunic form and the cape or mantle. The Romans spoke of tunica and of toga or penula, the Greeks of chiton and himation. In all great civilizations we rediscover the same two basic types.
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Just as, in the case of the centralized building form the two horizontal dimensions are first defined and then the space enclosed from above, so with the cape the length of cloth is arranged around the body and then closed at the neck. In this kind of clothing the arms are contained within the garment. The tunic, in contrast, covers first the front and back of the body, continuing over the shoulders, and is later closed at the sides. In this type the arms are not contained within the garment and must eventually be provided with separate sleeves. A limited family of possibilities is again developed, all more or less directly connected with one or other of these two principal types. Basic forms of vessel
9. Lastly, we have two basic forms of vessel: dish and cup. The dish starts out from a flat disk, the edge of which is slightly raised to contain the food. The cup begins instead with the sides of the vessel and is then closed at the bottom. From these two principal forms, too, a limited range of utensils has developed, characteristic for every civilization. Each variant has its own name, but they are all more or less related to the two main forms.
Basic forms of figurative art
10. We do not add things to nature only to maintain our physical existence. The mind too needs the support of such artefacts. They must sustain our mental activity by removing the obstacles caused by its bondage to matter. Although the mind as such is free from space and time, it is nevertheless to some extent subject to
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the here and now within which we physically exist. It liberates itself from time and space in so far as it can represent to itself things that are elsewhere, and remember things that existed or occurred in the past. But because the mind is used to informing itself by direct sensory perception it must provide itself with representations of these things in order to underpin memory and imagination with actual information. The functional basis of our figurative art lies in this need to support the senses in fulfilling their task at the service of the life of the mind. Since these representations make use of material derived from nature, here too art and nature are combined in one object, with the same consequences as apply to the other artificial things we add to nature. Here again two basic forms immediately present themselves: painting and sculpture. The first consists of coloured figures against the flat ground of walls or panels; the second arises from the shaping of threedimensional materials like wood or stone. Relief sculpture, comprising forms raised or hollowed out from a surface, combines the two processes.
VII EXPRESSIVE FORMS 1. We must complete nature with our artefacts and by so doing give our human existence the support it needs. A part of the space and matter of nature is adapted to our existence by certain defined modifications: this is the work of our hands, guided by our senses under the direction of the intellect. Alongside the unlimited space and matter of nature with their limitless ranges of forms and sizes there comes into being a new play of forms with limited matter and space and limited ranges of forms and sizes, the foundation of which is our limited intellect. Inasmuch as these forms supplement nature, we have called them functional forms.
Function
2. However, we know that our form making is not completely determined by this supplementation of nature, because our intellect, on which it is based, must find in this same form making the information it needs for its own development. This mysterious cycle, in which the intellect develops itself through the making of things, must be seen as the great image of creation itself, in which the creator is glorified by everything that he has created. In the words that conclude the work of each day of the creation, we find expressed the completion of this great cycle: ‘And God saw that it was good’. And at the end of the week
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it is even written: ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good’. Just as God’s creatures start out from and return to his unlimited creating intelligence, so our artefacts start out from our limited intellectual faculties and return to them in order to develop and sustain them. But as with every analogy it is here a question of both sameness and difference, and we must recognize a profound distinction underlying this comparison. Whereas the cycle of creation begins with the creator, the cycle of our making begins not with our intellect but with created nature, from which we must derive the limited material and limited ranges of forms and sizes. Our intellect is activated initially by the perception of natural things; later, the stimulus comes also from the things that we ourselves make. The forms of nature are always the objective starting point of our making, which here locks onto the creation of nature in order to supplement and complete it. Thus the ascending and descending movement between our intellect and our artefacts begins with the artefacts and not with the intellect. That is why our making must always develop by trial and error. What animals can achieve instantly and perfectly thanks to their instinct, we must learn in the process of doing. The last nest built by a bird is not better than the first. But we must learn how to make from the things that we make: the process is activated from below. Our breathing begins at birth with an inhalation and ends at death with an exhalation; in the same way, we must consider the influence of the form of our artefacts
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on the intellect to be the life-giving movement. This influence is the expressive power of form, which must be grafted onto the functionality of the artefact. 3. Nowadays we are mistakenly inclined to lay the stress on a so-called expression that comes from the individual feeling of the maker, and for which the form of the artefact is only the medium. Because our artefacts must be brought into being by trial and error, they cannot all achieve an equal perfection. As individuals, we all leave traces in our work of the greater or lesser development of our skill. The more highly our skill is developed, the more universal the forms of our artefacts will appear, and the fewer traces will survive in them of the individual maker. Skill in making develops principally through the care given to an objective expression that proceeds from the work itself. When this objective expression is lacking, design remains stuck at the level of functionality, which is dependent on material, technique and use. As a result of these temporary and fluctuating influences the forms are naturally prey to subjective forces, the consequences of which are then esteemed as the personal expression of the maker. However, this is quite contrary to the opinion of all great civilizations, which have always held in esteem the objective expression that proceeds from the artefacts themselves. We find an echo of this in the wise tale of the Chinese king who, abdicating his throne to his son, exhorts him to cultivate good building and good singing throughout the kingdom. For, so the story goes,
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if space and time are well ordered, the mood of the people will also be orderly and tranquil and there will be no revolution. St Benedict too teaches us in the nineteenth chapter of his Rule that in the choir one must sing in such a way ‘that our mind is in harmony with our voice’, and not the converse, as we now tend to assume. So we must be thoroughly aware of the condition under which our mental faculties can operate: they can only develop by means of material things that are perceived by the senses. Expression at the material level
4. The fact that our making begins with the observation of material things, and first of all the observation of natural things, has consequences for all levels of our making: that of matter, which corresponds to our material existence; that of form, which corresponds to our sensory faculties; and that of size, which corresponds to our intellect. At all these levels, our making takes place against the background of a natural given, and this relationship can continue in every further determination. When we build a house we separate off an inside space by means of solid walls, and this space is set off against the background of the outside space of nature. If we want to further subdivide the interior space we can in turn separate off within it more intimate spaces, and we can do so in such a way that the primary relation of the inside with respect to the natural outside is repeated in a certain sense within the house. We say for instance that we go out of the room into the corridor; thus the
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corridor is an outside with respect to the room, just as nature is an outside for the whole house. The same applies to clothing, which is set off against the background of the natural form of the body. This first relation is repeated within the clothing itself, if we allow an over-garment to be set off against an undergarment as ground. And we see the same even with utensils. The vessel serves to hold food, and we can echo this primary relation to the natural given within the vessel itself, for instance by placing a teacup on a saucer, and then possibly these together on a tray. 5. The forms of things, which correspond to our visual faculties, behave in the same way. We can only perceive a form against a formless ground, and in the first instance that ground is the formless space of nature. Likewise, form cannot be separated from its natural complement, and every subsequent determination of form must refer back to this primary relation of the form to its formless ground. Therefore, in each successive articulation of the form, secondary forms must again stand out against a relative formlessness. That which was form with respect to the natural ground now in its turn becomes the ground for a new determination of form. We find a typical example of this in the Scottish tartan, the chequered woollen plaid originally worn by shepherds. This large length of cloth 180 cm wide and at least three times as long served both as clothing and as shelter from the cold. In the harsh climate this plaid was the most important artefact the shepherds
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possessed, so it goes without saying that they took great care in the weaving of the cloth to give it the expressivity demanded by the intellect. The characteristic of the tartan is a rectangular pattern that results from the combination of the alternating colours of the warp and weft. But the colour and width of the intersecting bands are so chosen that a broad band of a given colour always appears to act as ground for a narrower band of a contrasting colour, which then seems as it were to lie upon and stand out against it. These upper bands serve in turn as ground for other, still narrower ones that may be of the original background colour. This game is carried on until the final bands are only a few threads wide. Thus the relation of the overall form of the tartan to the natural environment against which it is delineated is continued and repeated on a minor scale in the tartan itself. Expression at the level of size
6. At the level of size, which corresponds to our intellectual appraisal, we are always dealing, once more, with a limitation of the original unlimited extension of nature. When a measure is regarded in this way, each part of that measure is seen as a limited size against the background of the relative limitlessness that we attribute to the whole measure. The part then becomes in its turn a relatively unlimited ground for a new, still more limited part. This can continue until an ultimate part is reached that is regarded as being no further divisible, and as such can serve as the unit. We can measure the larger parts and the whole by bringing them into rela-
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tion to such a unit of measure, and thereby gain an insight into their size. In this way, therefore, the material parts, forms and sizes of our artefacts are brought into relation with each other, each on its own level. Thus at every level the original relationship between art and nature—that is, between our making and creation—is manifested through secondary relations between different materials, different forms, different sizes, by which one material, one form or one size stands out against the background of another. 7. Thus at each level it is a matter not of a single datum but of a relation between two aspects of the artefact, whereby one aspect is set off against the other in the same way as the artefact as a whole is set off against the background of nature. Consequently a certain correspondence can exist between these respective relationships despite the fact that each level concerns a different quality. Furthermore, the levels are interconnected. Every form is borne by a material and is itself in turn the bearer of measures: it has length, breadth and height. Just as our sensory perception forms the link between our bodily experience and our intellectual insight, so the perceived form is the intermediary between the experienced material and the known quantity. In architecture the space divided off by walls is experienced as an inside with respect to the outside of natural space, but at the same time perceived as a space formed by walls. The walls are in turn perceived
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as formed masses with respect to the inside space, but at the same time as volumes delimited by planes and lines, the size of which we can assess. For this reason the relation between forms can be the same thing for our perceptual faculties as the relations between the parts of the material datum are for our physical experience. Similarly, the relations between measures are for our intellectual understanding what the relations between forms are for the eye. Complete expressiveness of the artefact
8. Our interaction with things begins with physical contact, even if merely the experience of our contiguity with things in the same space: looking and thinking come next. But the making of things begins with the intellect. First the size is determined; then the form is defined by its length, breadth and height; and finally the limited material is bounded by the form. The tailor begins by measuring, then cuts out the pieces of cloth, each according to its own form, and finally sews them together to make the garment. So design begins with measure, and the determination of measure penetrates as far as the material of the thing being made. For this reason we are able by our interaction with and contemplation of artefacts, which begin precisely with physical experience, to ascend from relation to relation until we reach the highest relation of all: the relation between sizes. In the last instance this is actually the relation of those sizes to the unit of measure, the smallest indivisible whole: a relation that gives us by means of number an insight into the entire quantitative order. At the same time, through the affinity between
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the relations on the three levels, this insight touches the primary relation between the artefact and the natural datum, to which all other relations refer back. So the function of the artefact—the supplementation of nature—becomes comprehensible, and the process of making returns to the making intellect. The intellect is informed about their function by the things it makes, in order that it can direct them accurately towards their goal. 9. This completion of the cycle of art gives rise also to a parallel with the great cycle of creation, which proceeds from God and returns to him. Created in God’s image, human beings imitate in their making God’s creative power. What the things of nature are with respect to the unlimited, creating intelligence, our artefacts are with respect to our limited, created intellect. So the design of nature, which for us is inscrutable, is reproduced in an apprehensible way in our own design, and this must be seen as the expressiveness we owe to our artefacts. They thereby correspond completely to our human material and spiritual existence, so that we too are able to say that they are good.
Our artefacts expressive of the creation
10. Because we belong to created nature and are even its crowning point, the things we are obliged by nature to make must also belong in nature. Without these human additions nature is incomplete. Just as clothing completes the body, architecture completes the space of nature. Creation awaits the work of our hands for its full achievement: with our work we supply what nature
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lacks. The precondition, however, is that the things we make must be entirely human, i.e., that their function be matched by a corresponding expression. In chapter XIX of his book Citadelle Antoine de Saint-Exupéry gives a clear description of this, when he has a prince address his architects as follows: ‘It is upon you, therefore, that the future city depends, not for its spiritual significance, but for the face that it will present and that will determine its expression. And I certainly agree with you that it is a matter of housing people happily, in order that they may enjoy the comforts of the city and not waste their efforts on useless complications or futile expenditure. But I have always learnt to distinguish the important from the urgent: that which is of enduring significance from that which is an immediate necessity. It is certainly urgent for a man to eat, because otherwise he ceases to exist, and that is the end of the problem. But love and the meaning of life and delight in God are more important than food. I take no interest in a species that pampers itself. I do not pose myself the question: shall mankind be happy, prosperous and comfortably housed, or not? I first ask myself which man shall be prosperous, housed and happy.’ The function of our artefacts may be urgent, but their expression is important.
VIII MONUMENTAL FORMS 1. In order to gain an insight into the mutual relations of the three great form-worlds of nature, culture and liturgy, and above all to see how liturgical forms are based on cultural ones, we shall employ an analogy between on one hand the complex of the three abovementioned form-worlds, and on the other the complex of the three form-types within culture. Having considered the first two form-types we now turn our attention to monumental forms: the signs by which we communicate as mind to mind with our fellow humans. With the other form-types it was a question of contact between matter and matter or mind and matter. Now it concerns a purely mental contact, albeit one that is realized through the intervention of material forms.
Human communication by way of matter
2. That in order to communicate mentally with our fellow men we must employ material, external things is inherent in the mind’s bondage to a material body. Angels, being pure spirit, have no need of such mediation and can communicate directly with each other as mind to mind. But we must call on the help of material things—objects, movements or sounds—to which we can entrust our thoughts so that others can read them off. This process indicates the relative weakness of our spirit.
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From the viewpoint of the material world, however, it is of great value that matter assists mind. It must be seen as the glory of all material creation, for by this means the creation of visible things is brought into necessary relation with the creation of invisible things. Although the things that allow us to communicate with each other are only distillations, they nevertheless have their source in the great whole that comprises the material creation. The earth is itself only a minute part of that whole—albeit a very important one, for it is prepared entirely for the reception of intelligent life. Of this tiny earthly whole it is again only a small part that is used to make artefacts for the maintenance of our physical existence, and of these artefacts we use only a few aspects in order to open them up to the intellect: the relations between the dimensions of the forms of their material elements. Finally, as we shall see, we need only a few of these relations for our signs: for communication from mind to mind. Then, finally, these last aspects of the whole material world yield fruit for the world of the spirit. We see something of the same kind in the plant world. An excessive amount of seed is produced, but only a few seeds produce roots and shoots. In the same way, we can marvel at the profusion of material forms, of which only a few reach the world of the mind. In order to be able to gauge the pre-eminent value of these forms, it is worth considering the long road that has led up to them.
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3. We must regard expressive form, therefore, as the culmination of a long preparation of the treasury of natural forms for our intellectual use. The forms that humanity surrounds itself with in a civilized society are a condensation of the whole abundance of form in nature, because they evoke in us images directly accessible to the intellect. Just as the light rays given off by an object come together in a camera lens, from which they then spread out again to project a small image, so the expressive forms evoke in us thoughts that enable us to build up our knowledge of the universe. This is not knowledge of phenomena, such as science strives to assemble for its functional purposes, but genuine insight into things by which we are enabled to ascend towards the creator. St Paul writes about this to the Romans, when he reproaches the pagans for not having honoured the creator although they had knowledge of him through the observation of natural things: ‘His invisible attributes, that is to say his everlasting power and deity, have been visible, ever since the world began, to the eye of reason, in the things he has made.’ Here Paul reiterates what is written in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon: ‘For the greatness and beauty of created things gives us a corresponding idea of their Creator.’ The whole cultivation of our human existence is directed towards making a connection between the visible and invisible worlds. The expressive forms of our artefacts are able finally to forge the decisive link in the long chain of stages in the development of the visible world. The unlimited diversity of natural forms with their inscrutable order and harmony has given way
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to a very limited variety of forms whose interrelations the intellect can identify. We can measure them against a sort of basic proportion, a primary relation to the unit of size. In the same way, we can count discrete quantities by reducing them to the nine relations to the unit by which we count up to ten: relations which all refer back to the primary relation between one and two. Expression of culture as such
4. By means of this limitation of the relations between sizes and forms, not only do the expressive forms bear fruit for the mind, but also a great mutual resemblance arises between the expressive forms themselves. Certain forms are repeated like a refrain in everything we surround ourselves with; certain resemblances occur even between word, gesture and object. The Chinese king had this general form in mind when he spoke of building well and singing well; he might have added to these, dancing well. Then all human beings see nature, so to speak, with the same eyes. Once a civilization has produced such a universal form it is itself shaped by it, because the unique image of nature that it evokes in everyone brings about a great unity between people. One could say that this unique image is the expressive form of the culture itself.
Communication through unity of action and making
5. This comprehensibility of external forms is a precondition of not only the intellectual development of each individual but also the intellectual contact between individuals.
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Our intellect allows us to lead a far more individual life than animals. Their life is certainly more independent than that of plants and trees, but it is not free from the homogeneous order of nature. Their sensory instinct is developed to such a degree that the gulf separating them from the rest of nature is completely bridged over, and even their relations among themselves are wholly determined. They are faultless links in nature’s housekeeping, which allow the whole organization of nature to run smoothly. On account of our mental existence we form as it were a separate universe. We lead very independent lives, with respect both to the rest of nature and to each other. Our material integration with nature, which our intellect permits us to bring about by making artefacts, does not supply us instantly with a means of contact with our fellow human beings. This too we must ourselves provide for. It is true that one can already speak of a certain mental communication through the foundation established by the expressive design of a highly developed civilization. The intellect guides the members of that civilization identically in their actions and making, uniting them in one body like a flock of cranes that flies with the same rhythm in a straight line, maintaining an equal distance between one bird and the next. This primary communication by identity of action and making is like the analogical way of thinking. It is the subsoil that feeds our actual communication by means of the monumental forms of signs, which itself resembles the pattern of rational thought.
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Full growth of our intellectual existence
6. Our intellect not only guides our doing and making in the interests of our material existence; it is above all a means of reflection. It allows concepts derived from images perceived by the senses to fertilize one another. Detached from sensory perception, the thoughts are now free to develop. We need a means of sharing with others this purely mental product of our rational thought. That which occurs in each person’s realm of thought, in which concepts are brought into connection with each other, happens also on a larger scale: the members of a culture exchange ideas. This communication with fellow human beings gives a new dimension to our individual mental life. The derivation of concepts from the sensory perception of forms can be seen as a first dimension. Reasoning with those concepts is a second. The exchange of the fruits of this personal reflection in the relation between master and pupil gives a third dimension to our mental faculty, completing its growth. We need each other’s help to provide fully for our bodily needs, but also for the full unfolding of our spiritual life. Here too external, material forms are necessary.
Matrix of monumental forms
7. Human communication requires that thoughts, originally derived from material forms perceived by the senses, be returned once more to external forms, but now in their developed state. We must entrust our thoughts to visually perceptible things, from which others can in turn read them off. Given our composite nature as both mind and matter, all communication
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between minds would be ruled out if we did not have these material signs as an intermediary. Since it is exclusively through their expressiveness that these external things are opened up to the world of the mind, it goes without saying that the communication of thoughts must hark back to the expressive form of the things that we need for our physical existence. In this, however, the physical function for which they were originally made is entirely given up. Before, the form of a thing needed by the body was also laid open to the intellect in order to make it fully human. Now, a thing needed by the intellect must be derived from the visible world. Naturally this new function can use only those aspects of a form from which that form derives its expressive power. Therefore only the quantitative relations between the forms of the artefact’s material parts are important, and then only to the extent that, as abstract equivalents of the concrete relations between the forms and material parts, they make the material object comprehensible. A few relations suffice to guarantee that the forms, stripped of functional complications, are directed exclusively to that purpose. 8. Once this new kind of form has established the initial contact between people, the form can be further developed by the consensus and institutions such contact makes possible. In this way our mental life becomes completely accessible to everyone. These are the monumental forms of society, the signs by which we communicate with one another.
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These signs employ in the first place the external forms of material objects. Such material signs or symbols are located in space, and detached from our bodily existence. This has the advantage that they are permanent, and can address a whole community with a certain objectivity. But precisely because they are detached from our individual material existence they are less capable of conveying personal thoughts. Movements of our own body—our gestures and actions—are better suited to that purpose, for they are barely detached from us. However, perceptible forms of this kind are impermanent, being acted out in time as well as space. They lack the universality of material symbols and must be continually repeated in order to be a lasting testimony. We can best express our personal thoughts by means of sounds, which are still more closely identified with us since we ourselves produce them. Consensus and institutions have ensured that this type of sign is the most developed. They constitute human language, the most flexible instrument for mutual understanding. Writing, the great monument
9. Because the word, the basis of language, is produced only in time and not in space, it has a very transitory existence. However, human ingenuity has discovered how to combine the universality and permanent character of material symbols with the flexible expression of the word. It has managed to break down the words of a language into vowels and consonants, and to capture them as material signs in the form of letters. The written word is therefore the ultimate monument,
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the most important monumental form of a society. Its two manifestations are the monumental inscription and the book. 10. Just as we distinguish three great categories among the forms that serve to support our physical existence— namely houses, clothing and utensils—we must distinguish three sorts of signs among the forms that serve to support our mental communication, according to whether they are based on objects, movements or sounds. Here the three types are monuments or insignia, gestures or actions and words or songs. There is even a certain resemblance between the respective categories of the two form-types, for monuments derive their form largely from the architecture of our houses, and gestures owe their power to their accompaniment by clothing; finally, on solemn occasions such as diplomatic conferences, words are sealed by a banquet.
Parallel between forms for mental and physical use
IX THE PRINCIPLE OF LITURGICAL FORM 1. We now have at our disposal the terms necessary for the analogy by which the principle of liturgical form can be established. First we distinguished the three great form-worlds: nature, culture and liturgy. In each form-world we then pointed out three form-types: in nature, inanimate matter, plants and animals; in culture, functional, expressive and monumental forms; and in liturgy the forms of objects, gestures and words. The cultural form-types were then examined separately and in their mutual relationships. We discovered the expressive forms to be functional forms that are specially cultivated for the purpose of intellectual information, and we saw how these expressive forms must in turn be purged of the direct consequences of physical functioning in order to produce the monumental forms of signs that serve as bearers of meaning in human communication.
Terms of the analogy
2. On the basis of these interrelations between the cultural form-types we must now consider the analogous relations between the three form-worlds, and bear in mind that the cultural form-world, which is intended to supplement the natural one on behalf of a complete human existence, ultimately evokes in us an intelligible image of that inscrutable natural world. Liturgical form
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then appears as a refined form of the cultural formworld, which, now stripped of its goal of supplementing nature, serves only to provide the signs that religion needs in order to express and realize itself. Just as the monumental forms of culture, derived from functional and expressive forms, express and evoke thoughts by means of their sign-value, so liturgical forms, derived in their turn from natural and cultural ones, express and realize our worship. The Constitution on the Liturgy expresses this clearly with the words significatur, signified, and efficitur, brought about. It is thus a matter of transposing the relations between the form-types to those between the form-worlds. Elaboration of the analogy
3. Just as every cultural form begins with a form we make ourselves, so in general every form has its source in a natural, created form. Our artefacts are intended to complete our human existence; natural things point to the perfection of the creator, whose glory they proclaim. The completion of our human existence by the things we make begins with the sustenance of the body. Beside this material objective, and occasioned by it, our artefacts aim, by means of a certain elaboration of their form, at the development of our mental faculties. Finally, by means of a special refinement of that form, they play a part in our communication with other human beings. By analogy, the whole visible creation aims in the first place at its own maintenance and completion. Through a beautiful equilibrium of natural forces the
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material elements are maintained in existence, and living creatures, despite their transitoriness, continue to survive by feeding and procreation. But the great visible universe also provides sustenance for the human mind. Our cultural design helps to bring within our grasp the impenetrable whole that is the natural creation. The entire cultural order, with all its external forms, constructed by the human mind, is ultimately called into being in order that we may penetrate the creation and rise step by step to a knowledge of the creator himself. 4. Once we become aware of a spiritual being who exists not on our own level but above us, we are faced with the problem of an entirely new form of communication. This is no longer a communication of mind with mind between created beings, but a spiritual communion of humanity as a whole with a Supreme Being, its uncreated creator. If initially the design of the cultural order was directed to the discovery of that Supreme Being, now it must take on a refined form in order to provide us with the means to communicate with that Being. Similarly, the expressive forms served initially to develop our intellect, and were then, in the distilled form of signs, made into instruments for communication between people. The question of physical utility no longer arose. Likewise, when the whole cultural order, in a distilled form, is made to serve the communication of the entire human race with its creator, the original goal of that order, to supplement nature, is completely set aside.
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Only to the extent that cultural design allows us to comprehend the natural form-world by opening it up to our mind can it serve as a foundation for the signworld of the liturgy, through which we communicate with God. The liturgical form-principle
5. Liturgy, therefore, does not make use of monumental forms—expressive forms that have been turned into signs—as means of human communication. Now, the entire world of cultural forms—functional, expressive and monumental forms—is detached from its function of completing nature and becomes a sign. That is to say, it becomes a means for the collective communication of people with the Supreme Being, whom they first discovered through that same world of cultural forms by observation of the natural world of creation. In the liturgy, a piece of cultivated nature is distilled as a religious sign, just as in the monument a piece of cultivated technique is elevated into a cultural sign. 6. The place we occupy in the whole of creation (above all other creatures, on the same level as our fellow humans, but below the creator himself) leads us to distinguish three sorts of communication. In nature, we communicate with purely material creatures; in culture, with our fellow humans; and in liturgy, with God. We have discovered the forms through which this communication is realized in each of the three contexts, and learnt how to characterize them by comparing them one with another. The liturgical form-principle that has thus come to light is the conclusion of all our
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previous reflections and serves as the touchstone for all the forms used in liturgy. 7. The first thing that strikes us is that all the forms of liturgy serve as signs. In culture only one of the three form-types acts as a sign, but liturgy as a whole is a sign. The description given by Vatican II leaves us in no doubt about this. It speaks of the exercise of a priesthood in which the sanctification of humanity is signified through forms perceptible to the senses, and brought about in a way proper to each of these signs. So if the whole cultural order with its own sounds, movements and objects appears in liturgy as a sign, we shall find in it functional forms as well as expressive and monumental ones. They now function no longer as additions to the natural order; their only purpose is to signify the salvation of humanity and the honouring of God, and to realize both of these by analogy with their original purposes, each in its own way. Thus in liturgy the monumental forms of culture are no longer signs used in communication between human minds. They are transposed into religious symbols— signs of a relation to God—and their new meaning, while resembling the original one by analogy, completely replaces it. The functional and expressive forms for their part appear in liturgy entirely freed from function and expression, in order to be absorbed into the order of signs. The distinctive characteristic of liturgical design is thus that the whole arsenal of cultural forms appears in it in a refined state, as a religious sign.
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8. All liturgical forms are signs, but not all in the same way. One can speak of functional, expressive and monumental signs, according to their original place in the cultural context. The church building is an architectonic space, but without any particular cultural purpose. It is simply a place to be in, to move in and to speak in, a living room in the most general sense of the word. It is the space we by nature require in order to locate ourselves and feel at home in the wider space of nature. Its articulation into major and minor spaces, and the proportions of forms and measures, can thus be wholly attuned to the expression of the building. The form of the furniture needed for liturgical use of the space can be limited to its function, however. On the other hand, the altar placed in the middle of the space must be regarded as a pure monument, a symbol of an invisible reality, a sort of label for the space. Nevertheless, all three— furniture, space and altar—share a single purpose: to serve as a sign. For that purpose they are set apart and consecrated to religious worship. Liturgical vestments, likewise, are the ordinary garments we by nature require, but without any cultural purpose. They serve only their original and most general purpose, to complete the body by clothing its nakedness and accompanying it in its form, posture and movement. The articulation of the vestments into under- and over-garments, their material and the way they are draped and pleated on the body, can therefore be entirely attuned to their expression. Under- and over-garments are represented by alb and chasuble.
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The amice worn under the alb must be considered a functional datum: it corresponds to the linen wrapped directly around the body, such as loincloths and neckerchiefs, which are intended as sweat-cloths rather than clothing proper. On the other hand the stole must be seen as a monumental sign, a sign indicating the dignity of the wearer, like a chain of office. But amice, alb, chasuble and stole are in the liturgy all equally signs. They are worn over ordinary everyday clothing and have only their value as signs. They are specially set apart and blessed for that purpose. The same can be said of the altar vessels. The chalice for the wine and the dish for the bread are objects whose articulation and proportions are wholly attuned to the expression of their form. The paten, which is used only to catch the crumbs during the breaking of the bread, is rather more functional in character, and its form does not demand the same degree of refinement. But the cross that stands upon the altar must be regarded as a pure sign, an indication of that which takes place on the altar. In the liturgy, however, all these objects are signs, and to guarantee their value as such they are set apart and consecrated to religious worship by a blessing. 9. Thus functional forms, which occupy the lowest place in the range of cultural forms because they are less cultivated for intellectual information, come in the liturgy to occupy the same level with expressive and monumental forms. One might ask, therefore, whether the liturgical form-world is not characterized in partic-
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ular by the presence of signs of a purely functional origin. The elevation of these humblest of cultural forms to become liturgical signs gives religious worship an allure that can only be encountered in a world that is completely raised above the cultural order. These forms are therefore extremely important for appreciating the pre-eminent value of liturgy. Interplay of liturgy and culture
10. Being removed from all cultural use, liturgical forms are freed from the complications entailed by such use. The purer and simpler these forms are, the better they are suited to their new function. The original implications of function and expression must be just sufficiently present to guarantee the special sign-value of each object or action. In culture, where every monumental form must be based on the aspects from which the form derives its power of expression, it can happen that expression is cultivated at the expense of function. Fictive elements, whose presence in monumental forms is justified, are introduced into expressive forms under the pretext of ornament. Secondary relations, analogous to the original relationship between art and nature, then continue in the expressive form down to the most minute details. This occurs especially in cultures that are highly developed intellectually. The opposite, a predominance of functional forms, will be encountered rather when a culture is more materialistic. A truly civilized culture, on the other hand, will prepare the ground for the pre-eminent function that its forms will acquire in liturgy by having an exact
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balance between its functional and expressive forms. In the latter it will allow no false monumentality, for all three cultural form-types must appear in the liturgy. Conversely, a perfect liturgical design will encourage this balanced refinement of cultural forms.
X VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE THINGS 1. Up to now, by considering the visible forms in their mutual relations, we have been able to place liturgical forms within the whole range of forms presented by the things around us. All these forms are interrelated and make up a single whole. The secret of the unity of the different sorts of form lies in the fact that in each sort there is something that reiterates what appears in the whole, so that the character of the whole is continued and revealed in the various sorts. Consequently by means of analogies we were also able to ascend from the lower to the higher: from the variety of forms and form-types up to the whole of the great form-worlds, with the form-world of liturgy as its summit.
The whole of visible things
2. A final analogy can still be added, however. For it is possible to integrate the three form-worlds within a deeper perspective, and gain an insight, through their mutual relationships, into the relations between visible things, invisible things and the creator of both: factor caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. The text of St Augustine quoted in the second chapter makes clear to us that human beings have something in common not only with visible but also with invisible things, with the angels: ‘We share being with the stones, life with the plants, feeling with the animals
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and knowing with the angels.’ Thus we have a spirit in common with the angels who are pure spirit, and like them we are able to know God, who transcends every created spirit. Therefore in this last reflection liturgical form is no longer placed against the ground of all other visible forms, but the whole visible form-world conceived as ground for the invisible things—and both together, visibilia and invisibilia, in turn as ground for our knowledge of God. The analogy no longer compares the interrelations of the three form-worlds to those of the cultural formtypes. The relations between the form-worlds now serve as the basis for an analogy with those between visible things, invisible things and the creator of both. The conclusion of the first analogy is thus the basis of the second. Visibility of forms at the expense of their background
3. If in our reflections we have always described objects as delineated against a ground, it is not just in order that each object be made clear in itself, but above all to allow our reflections to be absorbed into a greater whole. What in the first reflection we regarded as the object becomes in the following reflection the background for a new object. Thus we saw the expressive forms of culture delineated against the background of functional forms, and we then used both together as ground for the monumental signs. Moreover we saw this totality of cultural forms as delineated against the ground of natural forms, and then used both formworlds together as ground for the forms of liturgy.
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If an object is delineated against a ground, this is always at the expense of the form of that ground. Our perception of the form of the visible things around us is due to the comparative formlessness of the surrounding space, for the surface that bounds a form cannot belong to two adjacent things at the same time. The same holds true for the lines that bound a two-dimensional figure drawn on a plane: if a figure is delineated against the surface of a form, that surface itself is seen as having no figure. Thus a Greek vase is revealed as a form by its outline delineated against the wall as ground, but the figures painted on the vase are delineated against the ground of the vase. First the form of the wall must give way to that of the vase, then the form of the vase gives way to the figures. In the same way, every expressive form involves an exclusion of function, and every monumental form an exclusion of function and expression: in every sign all practical purpose is given up and it serves only as the bearer of a thought. Likewise the form of cultural artefacts involves an exclusion of the created form of natural things, and liturgical form an exclusion of both. In the liturgy it is not a matter of the completion of nature for the sake of our human existence, but of establishing and expressing our relation to the creator of nature. 4. If we now climb to a higher level and consider the world of the spirit that we share with the angels, we must exclude the whole visible world, for it now appears only as a ground for the invisible. And if we want
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to ascend still higher by considering these two worlds together as ground for our knowledge of God, this must be accompanied by an exclusion of everything that we can see and know. Just as the cultural form becomes a sign by excluding its function and expression, and as a form gets its pre-eminent value as a liturgical sign through being detached from nature and culture, so our knowledge of God takes on its true ‘shape’ only when we detach it from all images and concepts, and consider both of these only as a sort of sign for the knowledge that transcends our capacity to know. Dionysius corroborates this opinion in his short treatise on mystical theology, when he writes at the end of the first chapter: ‘The most divine and highest things we are able to perceive and understand are in a certain sense words, which express that which lies below him who is above all things. They reveal the presence of him who surpasses all knowledge.’ And at the end of the second chapter he writes: ‘We remove everything from God, in order to know, by unveiling it, that unknowing which is veiled by all that we know of things, and to see that all-surpassing darkness which is hidden by the light of things.’ Three movements of the spirit
5. Here a third movement of our spirit complements the two other movements that we encountered in the first two chapters. The first movement proceeds according to the path of reasoning: concepts are connected with each other, and conclusions drawn from them. The second movement turns towards external things
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and from this engagement with things rises by means of analogies directly to the contemplation of the simple truth. The third movement, however, turns away from contact with visible things and also allows reason to rest, in order to withdraw into itself, and see the object of knowledge delineated against the negation of everything that can be seen or known. 6. In our final analogy we take, as our point of comparison for the relations between the visible and invisible things and the creator of both, the relations that exist between the three visible form-worlds. We must then bear in mind that what distinguishes liturgical form is the fact that the whole arsenal of cultural forms appears in it as a sign of religious worship. A piece of the cultural order is freed from its function of supplementing nature and making it comprehensible, in order to fulfil as a whole its signifying function within the new structure of the liturgy. There we meet not only with monumental forms, which serve as signs in culture, but also with functional and expressive forms. They are entirely freed from their cultural goal and absorbed into the order of signs. If we follow this line of thought and see the whole of the three visible form-worlds as ground for the invisible things and for God himself, we must arrive at the conclusion that this supreme triad constitutes a sort of liturgy, a form of worship in which are included not only our liturgical form-world but also both the other form-worlds, nature and culture. The analogy can be expressed as follows: just as in the world of liturgical
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signs the two lower form-types of culture are elevated into signs, so for the life of the spirit that we share with God and the angels the two lower form-worlds of visible things, that is, nature and culture, are raised to the status of liturgy. The visible world one great liturgy
7. The continuation of the text of Dionysius we quoted in the second chapter provides a striking confirmation of this: ‘A mind such as ours can rise to the immaterial conception and contemplation proper to the celestial hierarchies only by allowing itself to be guided towards it by way of the material things that lie within its reach. This occurs when it conceives visible beauties as images of the invisible beauty, fragrances perceived by the senses as images of the spiritual transference of knowledge, luminous objects as images of the immaterial source of light, arguments used in religious instruction as images of the plenitude of divine contemplation, orders here below as images of the beautiful order that reigns amongst divine things, partaking in the holy Eucharist as an image of living in communion with Jesus, and the same for all other things that are communicated to us in the form of signs, but to celestial beings in a supernatural manner.’ The examples cited here clearly come not only from the world of the liturgy, but also from the entire treasury of the visible world. For what are the visible beauties that point to the invisible beauty, the fragrances that express the spiritual enlightenment, and the material light sources that depict the source of all light, but nat-
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ural forms that take on a spiritual significance? And are not the arguments that echo the plenitude of the divine contemplation, and the orders here below that reflect the beautiful order reigning among the things of God, derived from human society with its relations between individuals and its conceptual thinking? Finally, partaking in the Eucharist, which indicates our community with Jesus, is clearly an example taken from the formworld of liturgy. 8. By seeing the whole visible world as ground for the invisible world of the spirit, which we share with God and the angels, and by depriving it of every material value, this visible world becomes one great liturgy in which heaven and earth combine to honour the creator of both. In the Apocalypse St John gives us an idea of this in the seven times seven tableaux of which his book is composed. The tableaux are borrowed from the entire visible world: from nature with its heavenly bodies, seas, winds and fire, its trees and animals; from culture with its civilizations, cities and wars; and from liturgy with its altar, choirs and white garments. Just as in our visible liturgy everything is a sign, so for this invisible world everything that is visible is liturgy.
The Apocalypse as corroboration
9. All this shows once more the great value of liturgical form for our material existence. The addition of our liturgical form-world to those of nature and culture completes the ground for our spiritual life: we can then read off from the interrelations of the three form-worlds
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the relations between the visible and invisible things and their creator. The Second Vatican Council has therefore rightly seen that without a reform of liturgical forms the religious life of the Church cannot flower again. By beginning its work by composing the Constitution on the Liturgy the Council has done nothing different from what was done by St Benedict when he began his Rule for monks with a clear ordering of the Opus Dei, the daily liturgy. The complete order of psalms, readings from scripture and prayers, the positions and dispositions, are described in detail, and are still maintained after fifteen centuries. St Benedict closes the last of the twelve chapters on the Opus Dei with these words: ‘Let us consider how it is fitting for us to be in the sight of God and the angels, and so let us sing the psalms in such a way that our mind accords with our voice.’ The upward journey from the material world to that of the angels and of God cannot be summed up more concisely. We find here the natural phenomenon of the sound of our voice, the intellectual faculties that must accord with it, the liturgical framework of the psalmody, and finally the company of angels before the countenance of God. Summary
10. This concludes the theory of liturgical design. First we distinguished the visible forms under three categories: the forms of nature, the artificial forms of culture and the forms proper to liturgy. In the second, third and fourth chapters we then analysed each of these three sorts of forms, distinguish-
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ing three subordinate form-types within each category. In the fifth chapter we combined all these distinct forms into a single tableau. In the sixth, seventh and eighth chapters we then dealt separately with the three form-types of culture— the functional, expressive and monumental forms—in order to be able in the ninth chapter to describe clearly the basic principle of liturgical form. In this tenth chapter, finally, we have confronted the visible forms of the things that surround us in the world, of which the liturgical forms are the most important, with the world of invisible things and of God himself, to which we belong through our spirit. By forming the ground for this invisible world, the whole visible world presents itself as one great liturgy.
