FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS, Brian Keeble's writings have made a most
rare and valuable contribution to elucidating the applications of the
philosophia perennis to our understanding of art and work--to the
activities, in short, that sustain everyday life and economy. Daily
Bread: Art and Work in the Reign of Quantity is a selection of pieces
from Keeble's prose publications, intended to bring this important
oeuvre to new readers and to consolidate it in a single volume for those
already familiar with Keeble's work.
Inclusive of several previously uncollected essays by the author, the
volume is divided into two parts: the first introduces Keeble's
principal ideas about art and work, tradition, and the crisis of the
modern world; the second discusses these ideas in relation to the work
of specific modern artists and poets. These essays reach far deeper and
have a much wider scope than most contemporary cultural critique. They
offer to the engaged reader ways to confront the contemporary malaise
that are viable precisely because the author's approach is based on
universal and timeless metaphysical principles.
"Brian Keeble has devoted many years to the study of the traditional
arts and is the author of a number of valuable works on the subject. We
must be grateful to him for providing a powerful reminder of that art
which reflects both beauty and truth and which is of the utmost
importance for a life worthy of being called truly human."--SEYYED
HOSSEIN NASR, author of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern
Man
"Keeble's [work] calls for eliminating the barriers between art,
crafts, and work by infusing all activity with a sense of the
sacred."--JOSCELYN GODWIN, author of Mystery Religions in the Ancient
World
"These essays should be of value to those who are responsible for the
present state of the arts, not only in our schools, but of the wider
arts of working and living to some purpose consistent with our deepest
nature."--KEITH CRITCHLOW, Professor Emeritus, The Prince's School of
Traditional Arts
BRIAN KEEBLE was editor, designer, and publisher of Golgonooza Press in
Ipswich, England, from 1974 to 2004; as well as one of the founders and
editors of the journal Temenos (London, 1980-91). He is the author of
Art: For Whom and for What? (1998), Conversing with Paradise (2003), God
and Work (2009), and other essay collections; the editor of Every Man an
Artist: Readings in the Traditional Philosophy of Art (2005) and other
volumes; and the author of several collections of poetry, most recently
From a Handful of Dust (2011) and Far from the Dawn (2014). Keeble is a
Fellow of the Temenos Academy in London, and has served on its Council
and Academic Board.
