The role of art in spirituality Sacred art is derived from celestial inspiration Objective or subjective arts The interiorizing experience of art The link between beauty and esoterism Esoteric art How arts can lead to spiritual assimilation Is modern art necessarily bad? Art and the spiritual nature of the artist

slide 5 of 9 This is taken from a transcript of a 1995 interview with the eminent Perennialist thinker and writer Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998). Question: Could one say that there is a natural link between beauty in the broadest sense and esoterism? Frithjof Schuon: Yes, there is a link between beauty and esoterism, because “Beauty is the splendor of the True.” Traditional art is esoteric, not exoteric. Exoterism is interested in morals, not in beauty; it even happens that exoterism can be opposed to beauty because of a moralistic prejudice.