Those in the know are aware that one of the best little blogs on the internet is David Brussat’s Architecture Here and There. At his site, David catalogues the latest successes and challenges of the burgeoning classical architecture movement. While perhaps not yet on the radar screen of most of the public, the classical architecture movement has been steadily making gains in numerous places around the globe, promoting traditional approaches to design, and erecting a variety of truly excellent buildings that take their inspiration from classical architecture. In a recent post, David shared some of the most recent such projects, including this seminary in North Carolina:
And this church in Fairfax, Virginia:
Perhaps the best known figure in the classical architecture movement is Duncan Stroik, whose chapel at St. Thomas Aquinas in California is a breath-taking synthesis of several distinct traditions of design:
Stroik has also been one of the most effective advocates for the classical architecture movement, both in his own writing and the writing he has nurtured in his role with the Institute for Sacred Architecture. He is joined in that work by Christopher Alexander, whose The Nature of Order is probably the most broad ranging consideration of the way the impoverishment of modern metaphysics has inhibited the practice of the arts. His work A Pattern Language has been enormously influential, and is perhaps more responsible than any other study for transmitting traditional design elements to our day and age.
Nikos Salingaros, Alexander’s sometimes collaborator, has applied his own expertise in mathematics to elaborate and build upon his friend’s insights. And many of the principles articulated by these figures have found their corollary expression in the New Urbanism movement, which has advocated for more human-scaled, sustainable modes of urban design. Here Andres Duany has been a towering figure, both as theorist and designer; his plans for Seaside, Florida and Kentlands in Gaithersburg, Maryland provide undeniable proof of the continuing viability of traditional building practices.
In the visual arts, too, a revived craftsmanship, receiving its impetus and insight from tradition, can be discerned in the work of a small but remarkable group of artists. Alexander Stoddart has achieved wonders as a sculptor, creating a number of statues that beg comparison to the finest monuments left to us by past ages.
Juliette Aristides has unlocked once more the secrets of representational painting, a hard-won insight evident not only in her own works but also in her considerable efforts as a teacher.
In fact, the world of representational painting as a whole can boast an impressive institutional maturity, having established a very large network of ateliers, galleries, and publications to serve as a foundation traditional practice.
I am only scratching the surface in regards to these phenomena, but enough, I hope, to intrigue the classical educators among my readership. Because, as should be evident, the same stirrings of the spirt that serve as the impetus to the classical schooling movement are also giving rise to remarkable advances in the arts in our day and age. That same dissatisfaction with the incivility of our times, that same reverence for what has been passed on to us as a cultural heritage, that same conviction in the supreme importance of beauty, that have shaped and motivated the labors of classical educators are everywhere apparent in the works of these extraordinary artists and thinkers.
It only seems natural that these two phenomena – the classical education movement and the classical arts movement – will ally themselves in the near future, emerging as they do from such kindred intellectual impulses and working towards such common cultural goals. I feel confident in predicting that, as classical schools elaborate their own courses of study, they will increasingly absorb much of the methodology of the classical arts movement, utilizing, with ever greater frequency, curricula and instructors emerging out of that world. And I am equally confident that in the years to come, it will be the graduates of classical schools who will prove to be among both the most skillful practitioners of the new arts and the most astute proponents of their advancement. How much might be hoped for from the marriage of these two movements, and how exhilarating it is to see, in their respective successes, the spirit of man rousing itself awake once more!