“To one effect, the world that surrounds us is crumbling, even as we run our fingertips across its surfaces. To another, it is constantly being renewed by the work of designers, artisans, and architects who share a vision for restoration through expressions of beauty. Perhaps in some ways by knowing the ugly, we have a new appreciation for beauty. But in knowing the beauty, we long to behold what is not yet fully realized.”

Read the full article HERE.

Please feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments section below the video.

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“I had never heard of The Fall. My partner Joe had been reading good things about it, but since it had barely had a release, we thought, how good could it be? Well, we were stunned and amazed. It is simply one of the most imaginative, cinematic, beautiful and clever films that I’ve seen in quite some time! The story, set in the 1920s, is about a paralyzed and heartbroken Hollywood stuntman who weaves a magical tale of five mythical heroes (a fey and fancy Charles Darwin with a monkey companion among them – see photo above) to a little girl with a broken arm (Catinca Untaru in one of the best, most natural performaces I have ever seen by a child). There are telling and clever little details that illustrate the interactive nature of storytelling. For instance, when the stuntman tells of an “Indian” who has a wigwam and a squaw, the girl, who is from Romania and unfamiliar with Hollywood Cowboys and Indians, imagines a beturbaned Indian from India. The imagery blends fantastic and surreal elements throughout, and is so stunning that I was convinced it had to be CGI, but evidently it is not. This is the kind of whimsical, extravagant metanarrative that’s right up my alley, though I can see how one either buys it completely or hates it completely. But for me, all the threads work beautifully together to weave a tale of wonder and imagination.

What a picture this paints of how the film market works in abominable ways! How it quashes originality while bolstering mediocrity! How many other gems of movies remain unseen because of similar situations?”

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This clip is from a movie that won an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. Well worth watching through the whole thing…

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“Kant defines art as ‘the communication of a state of mind’. Plato holds that a work of art exists in its own right: ‘not images of beauty, but realities’. These two premises are the basis of the division of art today into the schools of Realism and Abstraction. But one need not necessarily choose between them. A work in either idoim can evoke the same state of mind, or it can be visually satisfying without reference to its meaning. ”

She goes on to speak of works that ‘communicate a sense of affirmation, of wonder, of trust’…”This is a spirit alien to much of the art of our insecure time, but one which I am confident will some day return.”

“Much of the art of our own time is an art of symbol which is in danger of becoming etherialized quite out of this world. I suppose the one reason for this id discouragement with ourselves as human beings, due to the current confusion and distress in the world, or a sense of our unimportance in the face of the incredible extension of our natural horizons. It is also a yearning to speak a universal language. Sometimes an abstract work achieves this aim, but we remain human beings just the same, and living subjects still hold warmth and immediacy for us.

Contemporary artists are most frequently concerned with change and movement, just as our philosophers are concerned with relative values. In the world of Francis Thompson: ‘To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; clung to the whistling name of every wind.’ But cannot quiet and serenity be recognized as well as movement? And cannot the validity of relative values be accepted without rejecting those absolute values realized by the great mystics and artists alike in a still moment of overpowering grace? We know that we are creatures, limited by time and space, but we also know that truth, beauty and tenderness are aspects of the absolute.”

Thoughts?

Where is beauty?

For all that we say beauty is “in the eye of the beholder”…for all that we believe it to be somewhat elusive…it is vital to our existence. John O’Donohue, the late Irish poet and philosopher, speaks in language that helps us locate the Beautiful in daily life. Enjoy this excerpt from his book published in 2004, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace.

“When we hear the word ‘beauty’, we inevitably think that beauty belongs in a special elite realm where only the extraordinary dwells. Yet without realizing it, each day each one of us is visited by beauty. When you actually listen to people, it is surprising how often beauty is mentioned. A world without beauty would be unbearable. Indeed the subtle touches of beauty are what enable most people to survive. Yet beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it. Everywhere there is tenderness, care and kindness, there is beauty. Despite out natural difficulties with our parents, each of us had in out memory moments of deep love we shared with them. Perhaps it was a moment in which you became aware of some infinite tenderness in the way your mother gazed upon you, and you knew that her heart would always carry you as tenderly as it carried itself. Or it might have been a phrase of affection that has continued to sound around your life like a bright circle of blessing.

In Greek the word for ‘the beautiful’ is to kalon. It is related to the word kalein which includes the notion of ‘call’. When we experience beauty, we feel called. The Beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and wonder of an eternal embrace. It unites us again with the neglected and forgotten grandeur of life. The call of beauty is not a cold call into the dark or the unknown; in some instinctive way we know that beauty is no stranger. We respond with joy to the call of beauty because in an instant it can awaken under the layers of the heart a forgotten brightness. Plato said: ‘Beauty was ours in all its brightness…Whole were we who celebrated that festival’ (Phaedrus).”

Beauty does not linger, it only visits. Yet beauty’s visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it calls us to feel, think and act beautifully in the world: to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful. A life without delight is only half a life. Lest this be construed as a plea for decadence or a self-indulgence that is blind to the horrors of the world, we should remember that beauty does not restrict its visitations only to those to whom fortune or circumstances favour. Indeed, it is often the whispers and glimpses of beauty which enable people to endure on desperate frontiers. Even, and perhaps especially, in the bleakest times, we can still discover and awaken beauty; these are precisely the times when we need it most. Nowhere else can we find the joy that beauty brings. Joy is not simply the fruit of circumstance; we can choose to be joyous independent of what is happening around us. The joyful heart sees and reads the world with a sense of freedom and graciousness. Despite all the difficult turns on the road, it never loses sight of the world as a gift. St Augustine said: ‘The soul is weighted in the balance by what delights her. Delight or enjoyment sets the soul in her ordered place. Where the delight is, there is the treasure.’ Perhaps this is why there is such delight in beauty. In the midst of fragmentation and distress beauty draws the soul into an experience where an elegant order prevails. This brings a lovely tranquility and satisfies the desire of the soul. When the Beautiful continues on its way, the soul has been strengthened by a delight that will further assist her in transfiguring struggle.”

If you would like to learn more about John O’Donohue and his works, please visit www.johnodonohue.com.

What is beauty?

Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture. As a cultural creation, beauty has been extremely commercialized. An “ideal beauty” is an entity which is admired, or possesses features widely attributed to beauty in a particular culture.

The experience of “beauty” often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. Because this is a subjective experience, it is often said that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In its most profound sense, beauty may engender a salient experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one’s own existence. A subject of beauty is anything that resonates with personal meaning.

The classical Greek adjective beautiful was καλλός. The Koine Greek word for beautiful was “ὡραῖος”, an adjective etymologically coming from the word “ὥρα” meaning hour. In Koine Greek, beauty was thus associated with “being of one’s hour”. A ripe fruit (of its time) was considered beautiful, whereas a young woman trying to appear older or an older woman trying to appear younger would not be considered beautiful. ὡραῖος in Attic Greek had many meanings, including youthful and ripe old age.