When beauty disappears as a central motivating good, we become obsessed with truth as a substitute, producing the mindset of "culture wars" rather than cultural renewal. 

For two thousand years, Western thinkers understood that beauty is what moves us toward the good and the true. In The Lost Tradition of Beauty, Matthew J. Smith argues that the loss of this idea is the source of our cultural fragmentation today, as he recovers a vision of beauty as a moral, civic, and spiritual force. 

Smith explores the classical tradition of beauty while calling us to leave behind our habits of simply consuming and using what we desire so that we might see beauty from a higher vantage point. When we do, beauty moves us to act, to grow, and to love. 

In this book, Matthew J. Smith:



- Engages Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Aquinas, the Greek tragedies, and more to recover a classical understanding of beauty;

- Examines how beauty is rational and real, how it orders the soul, how it reveals the part's place within the whole, how it illuminates and clarifies the true, and how it restores culture; and

- Shows readers how recovering this sense of beauty can shape our lives and actions and orient us toward the ultimate beauty of God.

For those who believe in a personal God, beauty is never abstract; it is relational, an encounter with the God who is himself good, true, and beautiful. Smith shows that a truly beautiful life involves humility, selflessness, and even suffering, tracing the restorative journey of the cross. The Lost Tradition of Beauty is ideal for students and professors of Great Books, theology, literature, and culture; classical Christian schools and educators; and readers seeking a richer understanding of beauty in their own lives.



Matthew James Smith (PhD, University of Southern California) is the founding president of Hildegard College in California where he teaches across the liberal arts and sciences. He is the author of Performance and Religion in Early Modern England as well as the coeditor of Face-to-Face in Shakespearean Drama and Literature and Religious Experience. Smith and his wife, Ashley, live in Fullerton, California, with their three children.



Introduction: Rediscovering Beauty

1. Objective and Subjective: Beauty Is Rational and Real

2. Divine Madness: Beauty Orders the Soul

3. The Form of the Good: Beauty Moves Us

4. Unity and Diversity: Beauty Reveals the Part's Place Within the Whole

5. Contemplation: Beauty Illuminates and Clarifies the True

6. Behaviors and Beliefs: Beauty Restores Culture

Appendix: A Premodern Beauty Syllabus

Index

Scripture Index