October 21, 2005

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  "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"...............................................................homily (or proverb)
  "Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye"...................................................W.Shakespeare
  'All the carnall beauty of my wife, Is but skin deep'..........................................Overbury
  "Thus, beauty is of the divine, and comes thence only".................................Plotinus (On the Intellectual Beauty)
  "In (the) history of philosophical thought the phenomenon of beauty has always proved to be one of the greater paradoxes"..............................................................................Ernst Cassirer (Art, from The Enneads)
  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all  : Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.".....................................................................................................................John Keats (Ode to a Gecian Urn)
  "Whenever men begin to see Beauty in Truth, then true Art will arise"......Mohandas Ghandi (Truth and Beauty)
  "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."..................................................................................................................Ricky Fitts, in Sam Mendes' "American Beauty"

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  Throughout the history of critical and philosophical thought,countless essays have been written concerning the paradox of actually defining what is "beautiful", and by nature, what constitutes "art". I have always maintained that "art exists", and the artist merely frees the art from it's confines in the marble, on the paper or page, or movie or computer screen. Ernst Cassirer, writing in the Chapter "Art" from his "Essay on Man" in 1944 maintains in his conclusion to a lengthy historical and philosophical discouse that the notion of beauty remains quite paradoxical.

  
  

  Art in the 21st Century has far surpassed the idea that it merely expresses beauty, but to "capture the essence of beauty" has long been the goal of the artist. John Keats distilled this idea in "Ode to a Grecian Urn" where the classic work of art proclaims that "Beauty is Truth." Many millions of words have been written by philosophers, pundits, and romantics trying to get a firm grasp of what would seem to be a simple concept. Cassirer disagrees with Keats, writing "If all beauty is truth, then all truth is necessarily not beauty."

  
  

  Plotinus wrote that mankind always turns to the "outer" in his search for beauty, but that true beauty resides in the "inner". This was in 260. Beauty can represent a myriad of ideals to a myriad of souls, and as Overbury stated in 1613, in a homily that has survived generations, "beauty is only skin deep." Can beauty and ugly reside in the same hemisphere of appreciation. Is one the onus of the other, or are they blood brothers?

  
  

  The old saw "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder" seems to prove that each individual can ascertain and admire completely different forms of beauty, but the artist has to appeal to a mass audience, and all who admire a work of art should be able to bask in it's "beauty", or "representation of truth."

  
  

  Beauty can be compartmentalized into natural, geologic, or humanly. Few would discount the notion that the sight of the Grand Canyon in Arizona is "beautiful." A raging hurricane can be beautiful. Some might contend that the destructive force behind the act of nature precludes any notion of beauty. But the mass of swirling clouds is amazingly striking to an onlooker. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen was an elderly black woman sitting on a bench in front of one of the gallery buildings at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. She was wearing a shawl that resembled a dashiki or other tribal garment. The many lines coursing across her face spoke of generations of history and life. Her eyes opened into the complete history of mankind. Each strand of her hair was a conduit through art and perception, beauty and truth sublime. I have always regretted that I did not have a camera, or did not attempt to sketch her shining visage. Some might see this "old woman" as "ugly". Are "ugly" and "beauty" in fact synonyms? Is this why some art is vastly appreciated by throngs of people who deride those who think they are crazy because of what they admire?

  
  

  For every answer there is a succeeding question. This is what I have concluded in my search for the literal answer to the question of beauty. The standard of "Rubenesque" beauty pertaining to the female human form has morphed into a standard of beauty epitomized by the model Twiggy in the mid 60s. All the runway models in the early 21st century seem to be anorexic. Personally, I find bony knees and arms a complete anaesthetic to beauty, but this certainly has not stalled the fashion industry, which thrives on the public's embrace of this concept du jour.

  
  

  As Ghandi proclaims, when man sees beauty in truth, wherever it may be, then art is created. Art is the representation of beauty, and sometimes beauty is ugly. Two critics can view the same work of art, and disagree upon whether or not they see beauty represented. Beauty is schizophrenic in this regard. Each notion of beauty can be discounted. And also an assessment of decay and dilapidation could for another set of eyes be the most beautiful scene in experience. If a creative type views this dilapidation as art, and recreates it, then for some it will remain beautiful, and to some it will remain ugly.

  
  

  The soul of beauty is perception. The actual representaton of beauty is to show the truth. Thus beauty is truth.

  
  

  And then one could argue what is truth? And that's surely the subject of another blog article.

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  This essay was prompted by a topic question on the blogring "The Socrates Cafe", run by philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.   Readers might enjoy my musings on "The Philosophy of Art" in the "Yes, But is it Art? Gallery" on my website AllThingsMike. MFN 10/20
  

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  EDIT: 10/21: 4:48am: From comments: "So from your post, I understand that anyone or anything can be beautiful, if it portrays truth? Is this what you're saying?".....Simone de Beauvoir.

  
  

  My prognosis would be that perhaps this is so, but with a caveat. I can remember when a lad, I spied two snails in coitus in my mother's garden. They were "connected" by some strange white cord, and they were oozing some sort of bubbly substance. I was a child, very protected and nurtured by my parents, and not privy to the ways or the means of the corporeal world. I thought the site was the most horrible thing I'd ever seen, but as a natural event, this is surely a wonderful creation of God's paradise. "Anything" from your comment, cannot "portray" truth, in order to "become" beautiful. "Beauty", like "art", "exists". The defining of the term, or the slivers of perception that provide a conclusion that one "thing" or "event" is beautiful, while another is not, is purely "in the eye of the beholder." I included the quote from the film "American Beauty" because I always thought that Ricky's observation was very profound. He is describing a video he has shot of an empty plastic bag (a piece of "trash" , ergo, "ugly") floating in the breeze. His character can detect the "beauty" in this moment, and he is explaining that the beauty around him sometimes seems to cause his heart to cave in. When I sit, motionless, observing the sun setting into the sea, at the end of a "beautiful" day, a moment I always call "God's Movie", I am overwhelmed by the concept of "natural beauty". Man exists in beauty as well, a natural, unblemished beauty. Nobody can doubt that the sight of a newly born infant is "beautiful." But what comes next, during life, where man attempts to "sculpture" his own form into more "beauteous" a creation, then he is by design "mutilating" nature, and perhaps his restructuring of his own form in art, or as a "model" for art is in fact beauteous, or perhaps it is in fact ill advised and sort of ugly. Yin. Yang. Plus. Minus. Good. Bad. Black. White. It is the labeling that can get "ugly." The beauty always exists. I believe that the conclusion, is, that each answer, as I have stated, merely opens more questions. This is why the question has lain unanswered in point of fact for this long a time. "Beauty" doesn't "portray" "truth." It "is" truth, as Keats proclaimed. "Art" attempts to "portray" "beauty". Whether or not it succeeds is up to the individual's perceptions of the subject. This question is really a moibus strip of thought.  MFN (ppf)

  
  

   

  • 8:08 am
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