beauty Love for Being The Root of the Passion for Beauty Presented here, a conversation with Marco Bona Castellotti, professor in the History of Art at Catholic University in Milan. Discussions with Fr Giussani on beauty, beginning from the sixties, in the context of a friendship. Passion for the power of Being, the principle of a capacity for research and appreciation of form, “in a world that denies everything, or at most allows an empty form to survive.” Beauty, the splendor of the truth, as a powerful factor in the Movement edited by Paolo Perego and Alberto Savorana Art and literature have always characterized Fr Giussani. They were an integral part of his life, first in his family, then at the seminary and later at Berchet High School, and then down to us today–to the point that they heralded crucial turning points in his life and in that of CL. (Leopardi’s song To his Woman, Donizetti’s aria Spirto gentil, Chopin’s Raindrop sonata, and Russian folk songs). Can you tell us something of your experience with him in this field? The very close relationship I have enjoyed with Fr Giussani from 1966 onward, included a very lively discussion of an aesthetical-cultural nature, which I would not however say was aimed at, much less subject to, an education to beauty; it was rather part of a friendly relationship that was based also on this kind of cultural questions, and in which I was not one to spare judgments, nor was Fr Giussani. With this particular characteristic, that, in nurturing the friendship with me, he would try to follow my tastes, too, not impose his own. What I can say with certainty and remember quite clearly is that Fr Giussani’s breadth of knowledge, especially in the field of literature, though less in that of figurative art, was far greater than one can imagine. For example, Fr Giussani knew almost all the works of Thomas Mann very well, and I remember that the book he liked most was the last one, The Elect, which, he told me, Charles Moeller also considered a turning point in his thought, because it abandoned the bastions of Nietzsche’s aestheticism and of late-nineteenth-century titanism, in order to reach a more positive and, in its own way, a more religious vision of life. During the years 1966-1978, Fr Giussani occasionally spoke of Chopin, and much of Leopardi. I would say that, of all we spoke of in those early days, what is still fully alive is Leopardi. I think it would be useful to make known how his tastes diversified, the signs of a very wide-ranging sensitivity. Fr Giussani’s readings are much more numerous than those collected in the book Le mie letture [A selection from Fr Giussani’s favorite authors published in Italy]. Certainly, in order to keep interest alive in some of those works, a kind of exegesis would have been needed, and this would have demanded commitment, time, and a kind of “ideological” justification that Fr Giussani probably regarded as secondary compared with other problems. How did Fr Giussani’s sensitivity for beauty help you most in your work? As he himself admits, Fr Giussani has never had much liking for figurative arts. He has a great passion for music and for literature, but less for fine art. So, as I took an interest in art, I didn’t follow his tastes. What instead helped me very much in my growth and in the maturing of my sensitivity, especially after a few years, was his love for Being, which includes love for beauty, too. At the Meeting, during a dinner with the seminarians of the Fraternity of St Charles Borromeo, Pigi Bernareggi told this story: In 1962, Fr Giussani called Bernareggi, Eugenia Scabini and someone else. He had an ancient gramophone on which he played some Russian songs for them, and at the end he cried out, “Listen to the power of Being!” This concept, so much alive in him even today, was there right at the start and has accompanied him through life. For me, his teaching is a love for Being, and this includes love for beauty, but I would say that, in him, love for the truth is far more intense because, for Fr Giussani, beauty is a concept derived from St Thomas: beauty does not exist apart from truth. What he taught me is love for the truth, and in this I can rediscover a love for beauty. From the beginnings, the Movement’s life and its educative “genius” have been characterized by a wealth of proposals and suggestions: reading, as well as things to see and to listen to. At times, we see all this as something that can be interesting for those with a particular “flair,” or as something to be done out of duty (you must read the recommended books, go to the Meeting and visit the exhibitions, buy the CD from the Spirto Gentil collection, and so on). How do you see this? A taste channeled into a code dictated by duty worries me a bit, but I’m not scandalized by it; there is absolutely nothing wrong in this, provided you manage to grasp the value of the things suggested. It would already be an important step forward. However, I would like to stress once again that what I find fundamental in Fr Giussani’s teaching is his insistence on the fact that people should go deeper and deeper into love for Being, as it is for him: a synthesis of the natural and the supernatural; of physics and metaphysics. As long as you haven’t the courage to affirm it freely–we hear it spoken of a little, but between the lines, for fear of the word supernatural–you cannot grasp the essence of Christianity. It’s not a question of treating beauty superficially, but of living love for Being more and more intensely, since Being is the fusion of the immanent and the transcendent, of the physical and the metaphysical. The supernatural as yeast that throws light on the natural. “There is nothing more anti-Christian than a Christian gesture performed badly.” How do you react to this affirmation by Fr Giussani? There is nothing more anti-Christian than a Christian gesture made ugly, not beautiful. Yes, it’s quite true. A Christian gesture performed in a slovenly way is ugly. You just have to look at the liturgy, now declassed to ritual practice. In this sense, I retain that the Mass celebrated at the opening of the Meeting this year was a thing of great beauty–despite some imperfections–in its order and harmony, in the passion shown by all, in the moving detail of the link-up with the Holy Father. So, what is it that makes a Christian gesture beautiful? Two indispensable components: passion and harmony. Harmony in form, though, cannot exist by itself, because it would be something cold and anesthetizing. Ever since I have known Fr Giussani, he has transmitted his passion for harmony, whether he was aware of it or not. He has always had great concern for form, both in details and in synthesis. We could turn the phrase around this way: there is nothing more un-Christian than neglect for form, programmed by the moralistic search for a “value” that cannot be expressed in form. Christianity has always had a particular concern for forms, because they are necessary. But they are necessary as vehicles of beauty, since beauty without form doesn’t exist. It is only today that we hear affirmed that aesthetics is possible without form, but it’s an aesthetics that denies beauty as a concept. Preserve the passion for the harmony of the form–what effect can this kind of affirmation produce in us? A personal education and rigor, meaning an education, then, and mutual respect, in the spirit of charity of correction, in a world that denies everything, or at most lets an empty form survive. I wish for all of you to go deeper and deeper into love for Being, which means to have a passion for things, but also to search for the beauty inherent in things, which has to be discovered, because it is more and more denied. This continual attention to beauty in Fr Giussani is significant from the start … There is nothing more beautiful than the truth and nothing is truer than what is beautiful, provided all this is inherent in that concept of Being which is the generative union of natural and supernatural. To educate means to make this more and more understood, even through the simplest thing, prayer, because the value of prayer is born and is revealed precisely in this tight connection. Education to beauty is born here, from the acknowledgment of the power of Being. This contains all the passion… “Passionate. Passionate. Passionate. Passionate.” Fr Giussani repeated it four times in his final greeting at the Meeting. He means passion in the form, in the harmony of the form, not irrational, deformed passion. Fr Giussani is striking for the way he is able to arouse a correspondence to his proposals. This again is the effect of love for Being. This is the first application. This truly exceptional capacity of Fr Giussani is what enabled him, amongst other things, to build the Movement. The fundamental characteristic of the building of the Movement lies in this capacity for valuing, for transmitting and for valuing. When I said it was he who was following my tastes, that was it. He was trying to enter into me, thanks to his capacity to “share” with the person before him. It is love for Being that makes you love the other and value him, precisely in as much as he is part of Being. This capacity to enter into the mystery of Being is a gift to man. Man can attain it, on the condition that he is aware that he depends on an Other, with a capital O. Otherwise, it’s beyond him. In fact, the great limitation of modern culture is that it does not acknowledge that one gets to know and understand more in dependence on an Other. This is a capital error, sheer madness. It seems so simple to realize this, and yet it is not understood.