Nonetheless, the form and manifestation of the `beauty that saves’ is a strange and alien beauty that challenges and transforms all our assumptions. So it is only when aesthetics is liberated from the tyranny of superficial and facile images of the beautiful that it can begin to understand the beauty of God and its redemptive power amidst the harsh reality of the world. Indeed, the beauty of God which is hidden in Jesus the crucified Messiah, and supremely veiled from sight in the ugliness of the cross, can only be discerned through the gift of the Spirit. It is through the Spirit that we are enabled to see and hear what is manifest in God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is through the Spirit that the beauty of God in the form of Jesus Christ becomes the power that attracts and transforms, bringing us through the painfulness of death and rebirth into conformity with the image of Christ (Galatians 4:19). And it is through the same Spirit that God inspires human creativity to reflect both the ugly pain of the world and the beauty of redemption... From a Christian perspective, the supreme image that contradicts the inhuman and in doing so becomes the icon of redemption is that of the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ. So it is not surprising that artists through the centuries have sought to represent that alien beauty as a counter to the ugliness of injustice. We are not redeemed by art nor by beauty alone, but by the holy beauty which is revealed in Christ and which, through the Spirit evokes wonder and stirs our imagination.
~ ~ John W. de Gruchy; HOLY BEAUTY: A Reformed Perspective on Aesthetics within a World of Unjust Ugliness
