By Lia Scuderi
What was the last truly beautiful thing you saw, or touched, or heard? Have you seen the artwork around our campus? Have you experienced a Shakespearean play performed by your fellow classmates that struck you? Have you heard music as you rushed through the hall? These expressions of beauty are the fruit of the liberal arts education and we see these fruits all around us.
Discussions in Seat of Wisdom help you to understand a new facet of the human person, and discussions in Theology help you to see a new facet of God. Math and science explore the intricacies of the created world, but in the art rooms, in our theater, in our band classrooms, this is where beauty takes form. At St. Mary’s, these experiences are the life’s blood of our education. They are the tangible expressions of the beauty our other classes merely discuss. We get to experience beauty made by human hands.
The art on our walls, music in our halls, and shows on our stage are words in action. The liberal arts education says that we need not always learn for the sake of what is useful, but that some things are worthy of being learned in themselves. The St. Mary’s education does not merely aid us academically, but helps us to become more fully human and more fully alive. When we create beautiful things we back up our words with tangible evidence. We show that we teach that not only is beauty worthy of being studied in itself, but we give our students a chance to show that they have also decided that beauty is worthy of time and attention.
The importance of learning amidst beauty is often overlooked, but if we think about it, we know that we would not be eager to learn about beautiful things while sitting in a junkyard or a logoless building. Reading Shakespeare is informative, but when we see Shakespeare brought to life on stage, we are able to return to our classes with a deeper understanding. When we see artwork on the walls of our school, the beauty of our faith is made visible to us. How much more do we prove that we believe what we teach when the walls of our campus preach beauty just as much as its teachers do.
When we participate in the fine arts, we become a reflection of God in our world. God, as Creator of the universe, placed beauty in His creation. Similarly we, using the materials with which God has provided us, create beautiful things as well. We reflect the image our Creator has placed in us by creating beautiful things as He did. In participating in fine arts, we participate in the fullness of humanity, we strive towards being more like God.
We see that the fine arts are the necessary end of the liberal arts education and that they are an aid as well as a point of interest and expression in our education. We also see that we strive towards our ultimate end of being in union with God when we participate in the fine arts.
