Why religious art is as relevant as ever

In the heart of Shoreditch, a handful of arts students have strayed from their typical east London mould. Those who study at the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts are taught, through research and the practice of traditional arts and crafts, to ‘experience the beauty of the order of nature – a spiritual, sacred beauty, connecting the whole of creation.’

The School’s ethos is centred around the philosophical vision of its president, the King. Charles is known to have some woolly ideas about aesthetics and spirituality and alternative medicine, articulated in his 2010 book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World. He exalts sacred geometry – the spiritual associations of shapes and proportions – as the fruit of a classical tradition of wisdom which reflects the natural world and is therefore unchanging. Paraphrasing Plato, geometry ‘is true for all peoples at all times.’

The creator of traditional art derives inspiration from ‘the highest sources’ and creates artworks ‘which we can all recognise as part of our world heritage,’ the School claims in its ethos – in other words, all cultures share an inherent sense of capital-B Beauty.