Well, I finished reading Sayer's "Mind of the Maker". It was a good read but not quite what I was looking for. Her theme in this book is to explain the nature of the Trinity using the analogy of the creation process of an artist or writer. 
It gave me some new insights into understanding the nature of the Godhead as the Trinity, but I'm not sure it gave me any new insights into the topic of aesthetics, art, beauty, etc. from a Christian perspective. I would still recommend it to anyone who struggles with trinitarian doctrine.
One of the things she just brushed on was "What explains bad writing or bad art. " She explained it as the result of the author or artist straying from the intrinsic nature of the Idea or Concept they are attempting to create in their art. I think that has a great insight for when Christians create bad art, but how about pagans??
I often think of pagan art as an expression of God's reality or creation through the filter of the pagan's cultural framework or worldview. Some of it may be real close and even beautiful, and some of it can be real bad and ugly as it more expresses man's sin rather than God's nature. An example would be Classical Greek sculpture versus Classical Mayan or Aztec art.
I think the Greeks understood a lot about the generally revealed creation, whereas the Meso-Americans seem to be clearly in thrall to their demonic and blood-thirsty "gods" that demanded human sacrifice and constant warfare to keep them in check.
I wouldn't call Meso-American art "beautiful" because of its rather horrific themes, and it's designs seem to have their own strange formalism (like Egyptian art) that has nothing to do with reflecting the beauty of creation. 
Pre-classical Greek art had a stiff and wooden quality to it too. The Greeks were clearly looking for truth, unfortunately their search was inward rather than outward. Interestingly enough the Byzantine Greeks went back to formalism (rather than naturalism) in their iconic Eastern Orthodox art.
To be continued.......
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