A Thing of Beauty...
 

John Keats once wrote,

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

I was thinking about this quote the other day while looking at a picture of the Painting of Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean Jerome. For the first time I really understood what Keats was trying to say about beauty. (ever get those moments when cliches finally hit you?)

It made me wonder, why do we consider things beautiful? I'm not asking for the simple "beauty is subjective" answer. What within us inspires us to think that something outside of ourselves is beautiful? (sounds self-glorifying doesn't it?)

Milan Kundera said that beautiful things are like friendship, and that friendship is just a mirror we ask others to hold up so that we may better see ourselves in it. (paraphrasing) Do you believe that this is true? Is beauty a concept we apply for our own purposes (and what purposes?) or is beauty actually something outside of ourselves, independent of our own thought?

Like they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I do believe that beauty is preceived to be beauty when we gain a sense of positive aura from it.

I know that they say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and many other forms of "beauty is subjective" responses. What I am wondering is, what part of ourselves do we use or signify to assess: what beauty is, what qualities makes something beautiful, or why is something not beautiful.

You said that something is beautiful when you gain a positve aura from it. Can something be beautiful if we receive a negative aura? Would it then be only partially beautiful, or be an unbeautiful thing with beautiful parts?

I like the line from Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn"

"Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth"
.................................................

Here's an illuminating discussion of this subject by Jurgen Lawrenz:

This line from Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn echoes a fundamental philosophical principle, stemming ultimately from Plato's to kalon, to which the philosopher ascribed "independent existence" and thus made a matter of concern to the human soul. I see it as the provision of an objective referent for the concept. It occupies one extreme position in the concept space relating to Beauty, reaffirmed in one guise or another by other philosophers of the front rank - viz. Aquinas and Cusanus, attributing of Beauty to manifestation of God's creativity (beauty as a reflection of divine truth); Kant and "disinterested contemplation" (beauty as a value criterion, communicating truth if we divest ourselves of fallible judgement induced by overt pleasure); Schopenhauer's notion of Beauty "absorbing" the Will and giving a glimpse of redemption; Chinese philosophers connecting Beauty to the rhythm of Life which is in "sympathetic vibration" with the Tao.

The opposite end of the spectrum is occupied by those thinkers who see in Beauty a psychological phenomenon, obedient to the "subjective referent": Hume attempting to put "good taste" on an objective footing; Voltaire analysing Beauty in terms of pleasure and delectation; Freud seeing in Beauty a mechanism for the "sublimation" of repressed (erotic) drives; adherents of contemporary Biopoetics looking on Beauty as an adaptionist strategy of organisms. None of these associate Beauty with Truth.

Others lean this or that way from a sort of middle ground. Thus Jung and Hegel both stress the mythical/symbolical content of Beauty, but while Hegel seems content with a "sugar candy theory" (Beauty as a mediator of [harsh?] Truth), Jung goes the opposite way, stressing that Truth mediates Beauty and touches deeper roots. Adorno puts a case (picking up on van Gogh's bon mot that "the world seems like an unfinished sketch") that Beauty conveys the rational essence of (constructive) experience, turning the table on evolutionists who labelled it a "luxury appetite" and forget that our troubles stem from mostly from language (mis)use.

This presentation puts all these ideas into a context for debate which, connecting the first and last, I call The Match between Plato and Vincent: impersonal, eternal, immutable perfection on one side blending gradually in the opposite claim that Beauty and Truth depend on human perception which is at once the making intelligible of nature's phenomena (rational beauty) and the making intelligible by mimetic/mythical/symbolic practice (creative beauty).

Wow -- great stuff ARTelevision!

I believe beauty is intensely personal. Usually I find something beautiful if it gives me a sense of peace or calm.

Beauty is circumstantial and relative.
Instantaneous beauty cannot be experienced again.

For me, beauty has to relate to me personally in some way. My wife dragged me to an exhibition at the National Gallery (london) a few months ago where they had practically all of some great and famous painter...Florian? See - I dont even remember his name. I was awestruck, sure, but it didnt appeal to my taste so to me it wasnt beautiful.

I have a record cover of the (vinyl) album "Yes", drawn by Roger Dean, and to me thats far more amazing.

Hey, so I'm a philistine :)

A Thing of Beauty... destroy it forever! </blue meanie>

Ahem. I tend to find beauty in things and people that others will pass right by, while at the same time completely missing whatever beauty is perceived by the person next to me. Why is that?

I like the mirror example, but I feel there is more to it than that. Its almost as if there something inside of us that we are not quite aware of, but seeing that thing in the real world that we would find beautiful brings that something to light, and as we become aware of it, we have a sort of recognition. A recognition of lines, colors, features, and their combinations.

I do not need an emotional connection to experience and appreciate beauty, but having one would magnify the beauty and make it even more vivid and spectacular.

Great post Nefir.

I especially liked the part about recognition. Sounds a lot like Plato's explaination of beauty. I liked how you even noted how things can be beautiful outside the realm of emotion connection, but how emotional connection makes the beauty (more dense?)

I have always thought that beauty is not subjective, but objective and existing independent of my thoughts. Beauty is a quality we perceive, not a label we lend to something else. A beautiful painting does not need me (or my words, thoughts, or critiques) to be beautiful.

You mentioned that there is a part of all of us that we can use to recognize beauty; that we become aware of the beauty in something. This suggests that the beauty was there even if we did not perceive it, or have not yet perceived it. I am wondering, what part of us is it that helps us to relate/recognize the beauty in the world around us.

I tend to think that Beauty is an emotional response. I may think somethingis beautiful but the person standing next to me may have no reaction.

I think we are trained to recognize what society call "beauty" but that may not always be what touches us and causes us to think its beautiful.

more and more beauty is a fleeting thing. as i read this i ask myself not "what is beauty" but "what is lasting beauty" becuase i personally recognize the first more often then the latter.

Beauty is a perception but media, society, and our own minds has skewed this idea so much that anymore it is impossible to define without the inclusion of our own opinions.

heres what ive experienced. beauty is something we come to appreciate it and not forget how it is. it can grow and wither but it retains an atribute that is still beautiful. okay, im rambling.