Think of Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night which removes us from city lights and retreats us back to nature. Think of Rembrandt's Self-Portrait which confronts us the question of mortality. Think of Sandro Boticelli's The Birth of Venus which impresses us with the ideal of a perfect woman. Think of Rodin's The Kiss which reminds us how to employ the art of kissing.
Do they invoke any beauty? Why does beauty matter to us? Philosophers and laymen discuss beauty alike. But very often our discussion begins in wonder and ends in wonder. We often hold conflicting views on beauty which a common consensus is rendered impossible. Plato assures us that beauty is an objective ideal while the majority convinces us beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Opinions of beauty differ greatly from those of science. We all agree on the laws of gravitation. Whoever holds a different view is considered insane. But truth is difficult to attain in the realm of beauty. Our views of beauty vary as time and geographical locations vary. Imagine a beautiful lady walks by and two people debate on her beauty. So insistent and inappropriate are the thoughts that her beauty generates, one of them finds himself difficult having a patient manner with her while the other thinks her undesirable. Though their tastes conflict, they would not go as for as fighting for her beauty. However, it happened in ancient Europe and America. It is not uncommon, especially for the aristocrats, to challenge someone a duel because one's taste is offended by another. Little wonder the population of ancient Europe remained low.
If beauty is subject to subjectivity, why do we insist on arguing about beauty with others? Why do we think someone having bad taste when his is not the same as your own? That is because beauty is not a quality in the object itself, but rather belongs to our sentiment. When we stand in front of an objet d'art, it gives us a sentiment of delight or a sentiment of uneasiness. Whatever is delightful, we consider it beautiful. Whatever gives us uneasiness, we consider it ugly. Whether we feel delight or easiness greatly depends on how we are raised. David Hume puts it nicely,
'We may observe, however, that this uniformity among human kind hinders not, but that there is a considerable diversity in the sentiments of beauty and worth, and that education, custom, prejudice, caprice, and humour, frequently vary our taste of this kind. You will never convince a man, who is not accustomed to Italian music, and has not an ear to follow its intricacies, that a Scotch tune is not preferable.'
Little wonder why we often arrive at different opinions regarding beauty. This sentiment we feels towards an object depends upon a particular fabric of mind. We often argue about beauty because we think the agreeable quality lies in the object, but not in the sentiment.
Though beauty is not something we often agree on, there is a solution to remedy the vulgarity of our taste to arrive at a more 'just' and 'accurate' judgement of beauty. I have in mind the delicacy of passion and taste. Hume again offers a brilliant example.
'This is a quality hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen were once called to give their opinion of a hogshead, which was supposed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage. One of them tastes it, considers it; and, after mature reflection, pronounces the wine to be good, were it not for a small taste of leather which he perceived in it. The other, after using the same precautions, gives also his verdict in favour of the wine; but with reverse of a taste of iron, which he could easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much they were both ridiculed for their judgement. But who laughed in the end? On emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom of an old key with a leathern thong tied to it.'
What Hume suggests in this story is that how seldom we notice details. There is often something missing when we search for a standard of taste, a quality called sensitivity. If paying less attention to details means paying less attention to beauty, it also means we are deprived of the opportunities to discover beauty. When we gaze at a Van Gogh's painting, we should not attend to it with an uneducated eye. We must carefully study the colours which he employs and understand how he observes colours in nature with an artistic eye. What we should do, Hume believes, is to encourage this sensitivity. We should attend ourselves to every minute detail of an object in order to enlarge our capacity to appreciate beauty.
The study of arts and humanities can soften and humanise our emotions to be finer and more sophisticated. The study of beauty should not be excluded. It excites our emotions as soft and tender ones. They liberate us from the bondage of the here and now. It draws our attention to tranquillity. It promotes our pleasure in reflection. Our sentiments, after the refinement of beauty, are the best suited to romantic love and friendship. In a world where people are charged with intense emotions to decide on every matter, the world will not be sane before we master the art of appreciating beauty.
W
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I just read 'Does Photography Do Any Harm' in my reader and came to comment on it to find it's no longer here. It's a shame; I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame that this snap shot culture you mention seems to be slowly drowning out photography, I myself really enjoy a good photo. But if I stroll across a blog with more pictures than words I lose sight of what the point was. It's almost as though pictures spam the message rather than add to it.
Everything in moderation I suppose.
And as I am commenting on a different post to the one I read, I feel I should say something about this one too!
On beauty: It seems as though in general, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It seems as though it is something purely subjective. But I'm not convinced that holds entirely true, for what is classed as beauty by the masses changes through time. A simple example would be fashion, things they thought were beautiful back in the 80's most people wouldn't dream of wearing today. So maybe the subjectivity of beauty is also a little bit social. Things we are told are beautiful, things we are repeatedly exposed to. The idea that if we are exposed to something repeatedly we get used to it maybe, and that leads to a different sort of appreciation of it compared to the beauty we see in something for the first time.
I agree that to really appreciate a thing we need to really see it; see the details. We have a higher appreciation for something when we understand it, for examples if one studies a work of art it means more to them than if they just stop to look at it for a moment.