Cover illustration: Photograph of Le Couvent de la Tourette (ca. 1955), taken by Lucien Hervé. An exterior shot of Le Corbusier’s La Tourette taken from the roof, showing an abstract sculpture and a portion of the sky. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2002.R.41) © J. Paul Getty Trust. Permission provided by © F.L.C. / ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2024.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: O’Connor Perks, Samuel, author.
Title: Off-modern Catholic aesthetics : rethinking the role of religion in twentieth-century art and architecture / by Samuel O’Connor Perks.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2025] ~ Series: Studies in religion and the arts, 1877-3192 ; volume 22 ~ Includes bibliographical references and index. ~ Summary: “Why did Catholic actors embrace modernist aesthetics? And conversely, why did modernist architects and artists embrace pre-modern ideas to look to the future? Off-Modern Catholicism explores the surprising ways in which Catholic intellectuals, faced with exile during World War II, reconfigured their thought to promote modernist buildings and paintings in France and America. By drawing on the life and work of Marie-Alain Couturier, Marcel Breuer, Dominique de Menil, and Jean Labatut, you will be invited to explore a “detour into the unexplored potentials of the modern project” via an encounter between two cultural forces often considered antithetical to each other”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024059596 (print) ~ LCCN 2024059597 (ebook) ~ ISBN 9789004699953 (paperback) ~ ISBN 9789004710528 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Aesthetics--Religious aspects--Catholic Church. ~ Christianity and art--Catholic Church. ~ Architecture and religion. ~ Modernism (Aesthetics)
Classification: LCC BX1795.A78 O26 2025 (print) ~ LCC BX1795.A78 (ebook) ~ DDC 246/.2--dc23/eng/20250206
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024059596
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024059597
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
The author has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters.
ISSN 1877-3192
ISBN 978-90-04-69995-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-71052-8 (e-book)
DOI 10.1163/9789004710528
Copyright 2025 by Samuel O’Connor Perks. Published by Koninklijke Brill BV, Plantijnstraat 2, 2321 JC Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill BV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress.
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