Overview

The Folly of the Cross is the fourth book in Richard Viladesau's series examining the aesthetics and theology of the cross through Christian history. Previous volumes have brought the story up through the Baroque era. This new book examines the reception of the message of the cross from the European Enlightenment to the turn of the twentieth century.The opening chapters set the stage in the transition from the Baroque to the Classical eras, describing the changing intellectual and cultural paradigms of the time. Viladesau examines the theology of the cross in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the aesthetic mediation of the cross in music and the visual arts. He shows how in the post-Enlightenment era the aesthetic treatment of the cross widely replaced the dogmatic treatment, and how this thought was translated into popular spirituality, piety, and devotion. The Folly of the Cross shows how classical theology responded to the critiques of modern science, history, Biblical scholarship, and philosophy, and how both classical and modern theology served as the occasions for new forms of representation of Christ's passion in the arts and music.

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9780190876005

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This is a very rich historical study of what theologians (but not preachers) and artists (generally painters) made of the passion of Christ in early modernity. Like others, I hope that Viladesau will complete his masterly work with a fifth volume examining the cross in modernity. -- Gerald O'Collins, SJ, Jesuit Theological College, Parkville (Australia), Theological Studies In this fourth volume of his remarkable study of the cross in theology and the arts, Viladesau continues to demonstrate how fruitful it can be to expand theology and cultural interpretation to encompass music, poetry, visual arts, and other aesthetic media (including popular genres). Expertly opening up multiple paradigms for thinking about and imagining the Passion of Christ, he meets 'early modernity' on its own terms, with its many innovations. This is Christology in a new key. --Frank Burch Brown, author of Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts Richard Viladesau exhibits the artistry of a choreographer in integrating the variegated understandings of the cross advanced by early modern theologians, composers, poets, and painters into a coherent ballet. He dramatizes the ways in which theology, devotion, music, and the visual arts reciprocally influenced one another, generating a plethora of rival visions of the passion of Christ, ranging from the death of a revolutionary leader to the apotheosis of the human spirit. --Lee C. Barrett, Henry and Mary Stager Professor of Theology, Lancaster Theological Seminary The Folly of the Cross, the fourth in the historical series that examines theology, philosophy, and the arts through the lens of the cross, begins with the Enlightenment. Viladesau brilliantly correlates the intellectual development from 1750 to 1900 with the musical and visual arts of the time. In a most compelling fashion, he charts the paradigm shift from the understanding of salvation as satisfaction for sin to newer theories of Christ as social revolutionary. --Michael Driscoll, University of Notre Dame

In this fourth volume of his remarkable study of the cross in theology and the arts, Viladesau continues to demonstrate how fruitful it can be to expand theology and cultural interpretation to encompass music, poetry, visual arts, and other aesthetic media (including popular genres). Expertly opening up multiple paradigms for thinking about and imagining the Passion of Christ, he meets 'early modernity' on its own terms, with its many innovations. This is Christology in a new key. --Frank Burch Brown, author of Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts Richard Viladesau exhibits the artistry of a choreographer in integrating the variegated understandings of the cross advanced by early modern theologians, composers, poets, and painters into a coherent ballet. He dramatizes the ways in which theology, devotion, music, and the visual arts reciprocally influenced one another, generating a plethora of rival visions of the passion of Christ, ranging from the death of a revolutionary leader to the apotheosis of the human spirit. --Lee C. Barrett, Henry and Mary Stager Professor of Theology, Lancaster Theological Seminary The Folly of the Cross, the fourth in the historical series that examines theology, philosophy, and the arts through the lens of the cross, begins with the Enlightenment. Viladesau brilliantly correlates the intellectual development from 1750 to 1900 with the musical and visual arts of the time. In a most compelling fashion, he charts the paradigm shift from the understanding of salvation as satisfaction for sin to newer theories of Christ as social revolutionary. --Michael Driscoll, University of Notre Dame

Author Information

Born in New York City, Fr. Richard Viladesau has taught theology for over forty years at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington and at Fordham University, where he now holds the rank of Professor Emeritus. A priest of the diocese of Rockville Centre, Long Island, Fr. Viladesau is also the administrator of Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Saltaire, Fire Island, NY.

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