Matteo Corradini e AAVV.

The Method in Art

Notes about the value of the artistic expression in Bernard Lonergan

Seton Hall University
South Orange, NJ (USA)
pp. 250 The Method in Art

The Lonergan Review is the journal of the Bernard J. Lonergan Institute at Seton Hall University. Its mission is to link explicit self-knowledge – Lonergan’s “self-appropriation” – with the various academic disciplines and professions. By doing this it seeks to foster authentic human cultures of high ideals, open to religion, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and service of the poor.

INTRODUCTION

Last Spring, a nursery school asked me to do a course on expression. I was tired of the “usual projects”, so I decided to make cartoons. I worked with five-year-old children and during eight encounters, we made four animated short films with techniques that, especially at such a young age, are completely unknown. When the school year ended, there was a sort of “screening” with parents and relatives.
During these encounters, we created a short film about monsters. A little girl drew a really scary one: it was yellow, spotty and pimply, it had huge hairy arms covered with tattoos, a ring in each finger, pointed bones and snakes instead of hair (similar to the character of the movie “Monster Inc.”, I guess). «Your monster looks really mean», I told her. But she looked at me, quite surprised and said: «Mean? Not at all. Don’t you see he has blue eyes? ». This paper is dedicated to her.