ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Knowledge and the Sacred Chapter Eight: Traditional Art as Fountain of Knowledge and Grace Law and art are the children of the Intellect. Plato, LAWS Beauty absolutely is the cause of all things being in harmony (consonantia) and of illumination (claritas); because, moreover, in the likeness of light it sends forth to everything the beautifying distributives of its over fontal raying; and for that it summons all things to itself.

Dionysius the Areopagite, DE DIVINIS NOMINIBUS Tradition speaks to man not only through human words but also through other forms of art. Its message is written not only upon pages of books and within the grand phenomena of nature but also upon the face of those works of traditional and especially sacred art which, like the words of sacred scripture and the forms of nature, are ultimately a revelation from that Reality which is the source of both tradition and the cosmos.

Traditional art is inseparable from sacred knowledge because it is based upon a science of the cosmic which is of a sacred and inward character and in turn is the vehicle for the transmission of a knowledge which is of a sacred nature. Traditional art is at once based upon and is a channel for both knowledge and grace or that scientia sacra which is both knowledge and of a sacred character.

Sacred art which lies at the heart of traditional art has a sacramental function and is, like religion itself, at once truth and presence, and this quality is transmitted even to those aspects of traditional art which are not strictly speaking sacred art, that is, are not directly concerned with the liturgical, ritual, cultic, and esoteric elements of the tradition in question but which nevertheless are created according to traditional norms and principles.1 To understand how traditional art is related to knowledge of the sacred and sacred knowledge, it is necessary first of all to clarify what is meant by traditional art.

Since we have already identified religion with that which binds man to God and which lies at the heart of tradition, it might be thought that traditional art is simply religious art. This is not at all the case, however, especially since in the West from the Renaissance onward, traditional art has ceased to exist while religious art continues.