Someone asked a very interesting question today .
I said that someone is more beautiful that all the snowflakes that were in front of my eyes. Those snowflakes were shinning like little diamonds because of the light on the street and it was snowing slowly.
Because of this implicit comparison between a person's beauty and the beauty in something that wasn't human, someone asked : How can you compare beauty between two different types of things?
Someone is right . How can you compare apples with pears?
But at the end of the day some people like apples more than pears. So it is possible.
My answer at the time was (and is still) that I can judge by what I feel, the pleasure I get from looking at them. I look at the snowflakes and I say they're beautiful . I look at someone and I think someone is beautiful. Both times I want to sit and stare, but only for one my "beauty meter" goes through the roof, and that is just a feeling. I judge with what I feel. Isn't that contradictory?
It's sad that we can't appreciate beauty alone. Critics also study the rules the artist followed, the technique he used, the colors, the artistic period. Their heart is clouded by technicalities. A simple viewer is influenced by price, by the artist's name, by size. You say duh!, everything is predefined. Our minds are not blank, our sight goes through our brain which is already full with opinions, beliefs etc etc so we cannot appreciate the beauty in something without awakening other thoughts in our minds. I wonder if Mona Lisa was even more beautiful if we didn't know what painting was, or Michelangelo or museums or even the word "beauty". What would we feel? How would a cave person appreciate the most beautiful dress, or those snowflakes for that matter if he was from the Amazon?I wonder how far in our evolution did we start to like things only because of beauty (not because of advantages of any kind). Of course we probably didn't have the concept "beauty" yet but that doesn't mean we didn't know it/see it/hear it/feel it/smell it.
Maybe you think this is a pointless questions, but since elementary school when in Romanian we talked about the theories that this world is only an imperfect reflection of the world of ideas I have looked for meaning in everything. The physical universe, Plato describes as a pale imitation of its true form, the metaphysical world where Ideas are eternal, immovable and also separate from the one that thinks them or the object upon which they ponder. Maybe with Ideas I can start to see the absolute truth and implicitly, true beauty.
Unfortunately Plato also says that LOVE(or Eros) is continuous dissatisfaction of the soul...I hate that I am human.
Because of this implicit comparison between a person's beauty and the beauty in something that wasn't human, someone asked : How can you compare beauty between two different types of things?
Someone is right . How can you compare apples with pears?
But at the end of the day some people like apples more than pears. So it is possible.
My answer at the time was (and is still) that I can judge by what I feel, the pleasure I get from looking at them. I look at the snowflakes and I say they're beautiful . I look at someone and I think someone is beautiful. Both times I want to sit and stare, but only for one my "beauty meter" goes through the roof, and that is just a feeling. I judge with what I feel. Isn't that contradictory?
It's sad that we can't appreciate beauty alone. Critics also study the rules the artist followed, the technique he used, the colors, the artistic period. Their heart is clouded by technicalities. A simple viewer is influenced by price, by the artist's name, by size. You say duh!, everything is predefined. Our minds are not blank, our sight goes through our brain which is already full with opinions, beliefs etc etc so we cannot appreciate the beauty in something without awakening other thoughts in our minds. I wonder if Mona Lisa was even more beautiful if we didn't know what painting was, or Michelangelo or museums or even the word "beauty". What would we feel? How would a cave person appreciate the most beautiful dress, or those snowflakes for that matter if he was from the Amazon?I wonder how far in our evolution did we start to like things only because of beauty (not because of advantages of any kind). Of course we probably didn't have the concept "beauty" yet but that doesn't mean we didn't know it/see it/hear it/feel it/smell it.
Maybe you think this is a pointless questions, but since elementary school when in Romanian we talked about the theories that this world is only an imperfect reflection of the world of ideas I have looked for meaning in everything. The physical universe, Plato describes as a pale imitation of its true form, the metaphysical world where Ideas are eternal, immovable and also separate from the one that thinks them or the object upon which they ponder. Maybe with Ideas I can start to see the absolute truth and implicitly, true beauty.
Unfortunately Plato also says that LOVE(or Eros) is continuous dissatisfaction of the soul...I hate that I am human.
To be in tone with Greece...I miss it. I miss the heat, the buildings, the sea, the wind, the temples everywhere I looked, the roads through the mountains, oh how I miss Delphi and Athens, miss walking on the shore of Thessaloniki...
0 flu flu:
Post a Comment