By Matthew Ehret In the mid-1990s, a series of exposés featured on the London Independent and elsewhere brought a dark secret to light. Many were startled by the revelation that the entire evolution of 20th century modern art was directed in large measure by the CIA! This not only included the direct financing of abstract painters like Jackson Pollock…
Category: Philosophy
The Coming Self-Destruction of Atonalism
By Felix Dupin Music is a language we hear and decipher unknowingly since the earliest period of youth. Although expressing both passion and creativity, music is also made of rules and whether studied intellectually or not, it is perfectly comprehensible to the untrained ear and evolved organically transmitting both creative energy and lawful harmonies, consonances,…
Dante’s Commedia, or How to Escape a Modern Inferno
By David Gosselin This is the accompanying article to a lecture given by the same author, as part of the RTF Lecture Series “The Renaissance Principle Across the Ages“. Many today would consider Dante Alighieri a “Dead White European Male” of dubious relevancy. However, Dante is in fact alive and well, as are so many…
The Discovery of the School of Athens Part 3: The Geometric Proof
By Gerald Therrien Refer here for Part 1 and Part 2 to this series. Now, we must leave the second scene, and move towards the third and last scene in the painting, and look at those persons who are found in the right foreground, at the bottom of the stairs. But, we had seen,…
How Classical Painting Liberates us from the Shackles of the Senses
An exploration of Schiller’s Aesthetics as it pertains to political revolutions past and future By Matthew Ehret This article is based on a lecture given on Feb. 11, 2019 in Montreal Canada. German poet Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) wrote his twenty six Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man in 1794 in order to address this…
Tragedy, Dialogue, and Politics: Applying Tragedy’s Therapy to Russian Relations with the West
By Professor Nicolai N. Petro When we refer to something as a tragedy, we typically mean that something bad has happened over which we have no control. It is precisely our powerlessness to change these circumstances that we deem “tragic.” For the ancient Greeks, however, tragedy is something that human beings create by virtue of…
Poe’s Metaphysics: Rediscovering Eureka
By Matthew Ehret What I here propound is true: — therefore it cannot die: — or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will “rise again to the Life Everlasting. Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.” –Edgar…
Augustine, the Nature of Infinity and Humanity’s Quest Into Space
By Bob Arnold The theologian and philosopher Saint Augustine (354-430 AD) was one of those rare historical personages who successfully grappled with the issues of the nature of infinity: the so-called ontological paradox. What has this to do with humanity’s current quest to colonize space? I hope to convince you that the life and writings…
Negative Capability: The Genius of Keats and Einstein
By David Gosselin “To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” – Leonardo Da Vinci In reply to the deeply held popular belief that madness and creativity share a special kinship, this author argues, “They do not,…
The Discovery of the School of Athens Part 2: Plato’s Solution-Principle
By Gerald Therrien For Part 1 to the series The Discovery of the School of Athens click here. Now, we must leave this first scene, of the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, and shift our attention to those who are standing on the top of the stairs – the Greek philosophers who were alive at the time…
