Thanks to Willis Johnson for his comments -
Aquinas certainly defined beauty and your "recta ratio factabilia" seems
related to that definition - but beauty and art are not interchangeable
concepts, and I had not realised that Aquinas addressed the actual
definition of art. I'd be glad of the reference, if you can lay your hands
on it.
I know Eco's book. It's very attractive but fails to cite every source that
interests me. It's tantalising! In any case, he doesn't touch on my early
medieval definition of art. This one is preserved in a 15th century
manuscript of an 11th century Irish text. But it clearly pertained long
before the 11th century because you can trace writers and artists providing
the exact information this definition demands - from as early as the 7th
century in Ireland (Cummian's letter on the Easter controversy), and 5th
century in Italy (Cassiodorus in ref to his texts AND his illustrations).
The definition says (quoting from memory, so the words won't be _exact_)
"Four things are required for a work of art, to whit, a Time, a Place, an
Author (i.e. primarily the patron, but the maker is sometimes also
recorded), and a Cause." Then the commentator goes on to explain why, but
this bit seems to be somewhat garbled.
When you trace it in action, you can see the unwritten assumption that all
these factors should be as prestigious as possible - i.e. you want your
patron to be the king, or as high a rank as you can get, and you want the
Time and Cause to relate to the most important events possible. As an art
historian, I love it, because it lets me fight back against the
anti-canonists. I always thought that they were effectively defining my
specialism out of existence, and now I can prove it: art that does not
conform to this definition would not have been recognised as art in the
middle ages. Good, so I can stop trying to study clothes pins, women's art,
and provincial art and get back to the art of the courts!
Pippin Michelli, Ph.D
Art Department, St Olaf College
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/michelli/index4.html
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