Belleza y experiencia cristiana de Diosel espíritu de sencillez y la dinámica de lo provisional en la Comunidad de Taizé

Resumen

Beauty has an essential role in the vocation of the Taizé Community. Beauty in the architecture, the liturgical prayer, and artistic work is a mediation of community’s religious experience and not an end in itself; it is not about aestheticism, but about expressing and facilitating the experience of God. Beauty in the Taizé Community as found in Brother Roger’s writing as well as in its architectonic, liturgical and artistic manifestations, is characterised by the spirit of simplicity and the dynamic of the provisional. The thesis is built upon the research of historic documentation from the Taizé Community Archive; in addition to providing numerous unpublished documents, the thesis provides an original perspective on this community through its multidisciplinarity and a global overview that brings together the experience of God and beauty through their different architectonic, liturgical and artistic manifestations. The thesis approaches the Christian experience of God from Juan Martin Velasco’s phenomenology of religion and Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgy, and proposes an interpretation of the religious experience in the Taizé Community in the light of both authors. The concept of beauty is then formulated from the writings of Brother Roger, founder of the Taizé Community, which connect beauty with creation and with two intuitions that inspire the communal living: the dynamic of the provisional and the spirit of simplicity. His sense of beauty is fundamental to understand the role that beauty plays in every aesthetic manifestation of the Community. Likewise, the evolution of architecture, music and liturgy in the Taizé Community is analysed from its origin in 1940 to the present day, keeping in mind its needs as a monastic community as well as those needs derived from the welcome and active participation of youth. Additionally, the thesis explains the artistic creation of some members of the Community as well as the relationship between the ephemeral art and the liturgy that takes place during the European Meetings.