Restoring Beauty: Our Art Foundation
ARS AMORATA is a philosophy of beauty. It is not a religion. It is a belief system, a way of life, similar to the way one might call Stoicism a belief system or a way of life. It is a layer that exists (or not) below all religion and all social structures. And it belongs to all of you.
Philosophers throughout the ages have argued whether beauty is objective or subjective, but in my view, beauty is neither. It is neither inherent as a property of the object (the objective view) nor is it in the eye of the beholder (the subjective view). Beauty is a third thing altogether.
Beauty is prime. It stands alone. It is a thing apart, in Kant’s words: a Thing-In-Itself (Ding an sich). Beauty emanates from what Aristotle called the Unmoved Mover, what Plotinus called The One, what scientists call the Big Bang, and what John in the New Testament called the Word or Logos.
Ars Amorata is an attempt to lift Beauty to its rightful place as the primary guiding principle in our hearts and in the world.
Momento
Momento was founded by award winning Canadian musicians, Jonathan Chan and Jan Bislin in 2013 while completing their studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
They have performed all over Europe, North America and China and most recently completed a tour with Art On Ice where they collaborated with Olympic champion figure skaters and shared the stage with Cirque Eloise, Stefanie Heinzmann, and James Blunt.
Self described as genre fluid producers, they construct their sets with the sole intent of creating a multifaceted journey filled with emotional twists and turns. Going from competing against each other in numerous competitions to joining forces, Jonathan and Jan have formed to create a unique sound dedicated to pushing the boundaries of the violin while bringing music to the masses.
Both Jan and Jonathan are illustrious members of our very own Amorati brotherhood of men.
HEIDI TAILLEFER
Heidi Taillefer’s work is an original creative fusion of classical figurative painting, surrealism, contemporary realism, and mythology combined with popular figurative traditions ranging from Victorian romanticism to science fiction. It is consonant with some of the 20th century surrealists such as Max Ernst, Paul Delvaux, and Girogio DeChirico, and generally addresses eternal issues on the human condition.
Her paintings often depict subjects comprised of seemingly incongruous objects characterized as symbolic, which form a complex composite of elements and add a contemporary spin to often classical icons. Taillefer’s work highlights our growing hybridization with technology, in which she depicts “machine-like” constructions.
Her approach is to infuse primordial aspects of the human condition into these hybridized humans and animals, and seeks to remind the viewer of the inescapable nature of our being despite our increasing merger with technology.
Heidi has long been a great friend and advocate of our Ars Amorata philosophy.
heiditaillefer.com
Sir Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was widely translated.
In the 20th century, he argued that art, architecture and music had turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert.
He insisted that beauty is a real and universal value, one anchored in our rational nature, and that the sense of beauty has an indispensable part to play in shaping the human world.
In his words: “I think we are losing beauty and with it there is the danger of losing the meaning of life.”
Before his untimely death, plans were in the works to for a philosophical joint venture between Sir Roger and Zan Perrion of Ars Amorata.