[361]

Lecture XXIX, Feb. 23, 1956

Discussion with students:

Question (Paul A. Lee, Jr.): Valéry, when asked if he could give a definition of beauty, answered easily, “It is that which makes us despair.” Please comment on this in reference to your formulation regarding the revelation character of art.

Answer (Paul Tillich): Now I want to refer to another great poet, Rilke^b, who in the Duino Elegies says: every angel is terrible, and the beautiful is just the beginning of the horrible which we still can stand. – In both of these statements there is a feeling for the unity of the beautiful-creative and the horrible-destructive. To this I could simply refer to the fact of the ambiguity of life in which the creative always implies the destructive, and the destructive is the first in the process which leads to the creative. But this is a general statement which refers to all life. With respect to art, I could refer to what I said about the anticipatory character of art, out of which the idealistic forms of art come which are usually covered by the term beauty. You remember that I tried to avoid this term because of its many ugly connotations. In any case, beauty is an element of the artistic, and this element of the artistic produces – if we look at it and feel the difference of our being to it – the estrangement from what we ought to be and could be, to what we are, produces the feeling of despair. So I have answered, I think, this question as far as I can. Since I don't know the context in which Valéry says this, I cannot answer the question fully, but the phrase of Rilke, where I know the context, in his doctrine of angels, I can tell you for sure that he points to the hidden demonic backward of the angelic form ...