The Way of Beauty: A Catholic Iconographer Reflects on Art, Education and Cultural Renewal

A Dialogue with David Clayton and Margarita Mooney Suarez.

What is the place of art in creating educational curricula and communities? Although many discussions of liberal arts education focus on great books and/or the humanities, beauty was central to the classical liberal arts tradition. While an artist-in-resident at St. Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, Professor David Clayton not only painted numerous icons for its chapel and campus, he also developed an introductory course called The Way of Beauty that shows how to integrate beauty into all aspects of learning. Now as Provost of Pontifex University, Professor Clayton teaches classes on art history, the mathematics of art, and sacred art. In this webinar, Professor Clayton will reflect on his own journey from studying natural sciences at Oxford to his conversion to Catholicism which fueled his desire to become an iconographer. Regardless of one’s own educational background, this webinar will help viewers see why art is so crucial to classical liberal arts education that aims to foster creativity and scientific innovation. We will also reflect on practical ways to incorporate beauty into educational curricula and faith communities. By pairing classical understandings of art like Vitruvius, Boethius, Bonaventure and Palladio—all of whom saw a connection between mathematics and art—with modern voices like Pope Benedict the XVI and Stratford Caldecott, we will explore what makes art a classical liberal art and also crucial to human happiness, cultural renewal, and social order.

This event is co-sponsored by The McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

Click here to visit Professor Clayton’s blog.