Christopher Verdick

The beautiful is above all a form, and the light does not fall on this form from above and from outside, rather it breaks forth from the form's interior. Species and lumen in beauty are one, if the species truly merits that name (which does not designate any form whatever, but pleasing, radiant form). Visible form not only 'points' to an invisible, unfathomable mystery; form is the apparition of this mystery, and reveal it while, naturally, at the same time protecting and veiling it. Both natural and artistic form has an exterior which appears and an interior depth, both of which, however, are not seperable in the form itself. The content (Gehalt) does not lie behind the form (Gestalt), but within it. Whoever is not capable of seeing and 'reading' the form will, by the same token, fail to perceive the content. Whoever is not illuminated by the form will see no light in the content either.

—Hans Urs Von Balthasar