The courage of our times seem to no longer value beauty.
Prince Charles was talking to the Royal institution of British Architects at the occasion of their 150th birthday about the proposed extension of the National Gallery.
“What is proposed is like a hideous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and stylish friend.” (Prince of Wales)
He had seen much British building as sterile and plain ugly.
Is this still true? And do we want to re-discover beauty around us?
Defining beauty
When we see amazing beautiful its beauty is subjectively felt. Yet, the concept of beauty and cruelty is elusive and hard to put into words and define. maybe this is because of person differences in our approval of it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What one person finds beautiful, another merely sentimental. One, beautiful, another repulsive.
Beauty has been said to be something to do with appreciate agreement, balance, rhythm. It captures our attention, pleasing and raise the mind.
It is not the matter depicted by art that define whether something is beautiful or ugly. Instead it is how the article is dealt with that makes it possibly stirring.
Spiritual philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg suggests that what arouses our feeling that a human face is beautiful is not the face itself, but the love shining from it. It is the holy within the natural that stirs our affection, not the natural on its own.
“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflecting in her soul. It is the helpful that she lovingly gives; the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the transient years.” (Audrey Hepburn)
Beauty can also occur even in pain.
“Even in some of the most painful moment I’ve witness as a doctor, I find a sense of beauty… That our brains are wired to list another person’s pain, to want to be moved by it and do amazing about it, is profoundly inspiring.” (Physician-poet Rafael Campo)
Creative art
Roger Scrutiny, philosopher, points out that flanked by 1750 and 1930 the aim of art or music was beauty. People saw beauty as valuable as truth and decency. Then in the 20th century it congested being vital. Then many artists aimed to worry, shock and to break moral taboos. The first of these was Marcel Duchamp e.g. his fixing of a urinal. It was not beauty, but novelty and irony and other intellectual ideas that they focused on. This is what won the prizes no stuff the moral cost.
The art world now believes that those who look for beauty in art are just out of touch with modern realities. Since the world is worrying, art should be worrying too. Yet I would propose that what is shocking first time round is lifeless and hollow when repeated.
“If the world is so ugly, what’s the point of making it even uglier with ugly music?… I have tried to make it sound as beautiful as I can. or else what’s the point… So if you want to hear how ugly the modern world is,… you can just switch on the TV and listen to the news. But I think that most people go to concerts because they want to hear beautiful music. Music full of melody that you can hum or sing. Music that speaks to the heart. Music that wants to make you want to grin or cry or dance. (Alma Detacher, 12 year old concert violinist/pianist)
If there is still any artist creating beautiful objects of art, I think, like any good news in the journalists, they are not getting the headlines.
Awakening to the spiritual
In adding to much of our contemporary art and built setting, can we also detect a harsh unattractiveness – not to mention self-interest and offensiveness – now coming into the words and manners shown in our mass media? As while beauty has no longer any real place in our lives.
So when we find ourselves in the soup of lack of enthusiasm, do we give ourselves time to be open to beauty?
“What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to place and stare…
No time to turn at Beauty’s look,
And watch her foot, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her jaws can
Enrich to smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to place and stare. (William Henry Davies)
Effect on us of artistic change
I’m wondering if by behind beauty we are also losing something else. Amazing I would portray as a deeper acuity of what is good and innocent in life.
Scrutiny suggests that living without this deeper acuity is like living in a holy desert. Good looks He argue that the artists of the past were aware that life was full of chaos and pain. But they had a remedy for this and the remedy was beauty. He reckon that the beautiful work of art bring consolation in sorrow and assertion in joy. It shows human life to be useful.
Beauty – A reminder of inspiring reality
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But is beauty only a slanted thing? Is there also an object reality to it?
Perhaps we need to re-visit the wisdom of the ancients. According to Plato, beauty, like fairness, and goodness, is an forever accessible entity. He said it eternally exists, despite of varying social conceptions and situation. This Good looks would mean that beauty has exist even when there was no one around to notice it.
It takes millions of years for light to travel the vast coldness to reach our telescopes. Good looks So we now see the beauty of the stars as they were before person beings exist.
I would say beauty is something that at its heart, has the reality of virtue – the innocence of total Love Itself.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all
Yet know on earth, and all ye need to recognize.” (John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn)
As a clinical psychologist, Good looks Stephen Russell-Lacy has specialized in cognitive-behavioral analysis, working for many years with adults suffering pain and trouble.
He edits Spiritual question free ozone that explores links between religious attitude and the comments and question of holy seekers. Good looks You can share your views and find out more about creation sense of life.
His eBook Heart, Head and Hands draws links amid the psycho-spiritual wisdom of Good looks the eighteenth century pious philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg and current ideas in cure and psychology.