expressed in exaltation
A common understanding or definition of beauty seems difficult to achieve, if even possible. I, typically, have tended toward the transendentals and defined beauty through reference to the true. This could be formulated as: beauty depends not so much on what we might call "pretty" as on what is true, or "conformity to reality." However, I still hesitate with this theory because sometimes what is true is also harsh or apparently ugly. So is the recognition of beauty something which is learned? Is it an intellectual acknowledgement that this thing is true and thus must also be beautiful? This is not our experience. Our experience of beauty is of something unavoidable, we do not choose it, but are overwhelmed by it. It is an immediate and sometimes physical experience, present upon interaction with the thing. Mark Rothko, a Russian abstract artist, devised an impressive synthesis of these two lines of thought. He calls the experience of beauty "a reaction to rightness . . . whose recognition produces an exaltation." Can there be a better description for that fantastic moment in which beauty is faced?
posted by Beatrice Maeve at 12:27 PM
7 Comments:
Truth is conformity to reality--but what reality? Sin is real; does that mean sin is beautiful? Or do we mean Reality as in God and the ultimate Order when all things are in their proper place in relation to Him? (That could include hell, however.) If you read the Summa and have a moment of realization, a glipse of the truth, that is a glimpse of order, and it is extremely beautiful. An intricate vine, or rich colors can be beautiful. The word "clarity" is coming to mind as well.
I think there can be an order even in abstract art that makes it beautiful. A balance.
[Incomplete, random thoughts. Keep blogging.]
This is to "theresamf:"
Sin may be real, but it isn't reality. To follow your own line of thought, (that is, in reference to your nod to St. Thomas Aquinas) evil--and therefore sin--is the lack of a proper or "due" Goodness, and therefore isn't a positive reality. Sickness is a lack of health, unkindness is a lack of Charity, etc. Thus we can say that reality is beautiful without including evil.
I really like the quote and general comments. However, a part of me still wants to preserve some sort of objectivity in the judgment of humanly crafted art as a beautiful thing. But then again, perhaps beauty is just another of those illusive mysteries of the universe that we can sometimes touch but never fully grasp and dissect, for to do so would ruin the charm. :) -- This post reminds me of so many late night talks with you and Bethy.
TMF: Did you read the whole thing? I try to keep them very short. :) But I think the order you speak of is what Rothko means by "rightness."
With regard to sin. Perhaps it should be stipulated in the beginning that the wholeness and totality of reality must be what is under consideration. So sin is real. But so is redemption. And sin should not be addressed without reference to redemption. Despair should not be addressed without reference to hope. I think that beauty can absolutely be experienced in these cases, but all of reality must be refered to or it will fail.
However, I think that this concept is incomplete and feel that Rothko's contribution is much better. What do you think of his idea?
I did read the whole thing, although I did not think about it in whole. Rothko's statement does seem to reconcile our intellectual understanding of beauty as truth with the way we experience beauty.
Skyminder has a good point about evil as negation, although as Beatrice Maeve says, it is part of reality and needs to be included. Maybe we have to take account of evil because it is not simply negation but privation, something absent that should be present? And "all of reality must be referred to" because the ultimate beauty shows in the "eucatastrophe":
"It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." (From Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" http://larsen-family.us/~1066/onfairystories.html)
Kelly Jo speaks as if the original post questions the objectivity of beauty. I don't have a long history of discussing beauty, but it seems to me that the connection with TRUTH guarantees an certain objectivity, while the experience of beaty allows for a subjective element. Something that is warped, twisted, false, is not going to be beautiful, even if some perversion in a person allows him to experience it as such. Something true (and thus beautiful) may be experienced by different people in different degrees, which leaves room for varying preferences, but keeps beauty from springing simply from the eye of the beholder.
Finally, Andrew from the Shrine of the Holy Whapping has a reflection on the authority of beauty, which you may be interested in (http://holywhapping.blogspot.com/2005_06_19_holywhapping_archive.html#111916109862336004).
So is the recognition of beauty something which is learned? Is it an intellectual acknowledgement that this thing is true and thus must also be beautiful? This is not our experience. Our experience of beauty is of something unavoidable, we do not choose it, but are overwhelmed by it.
I think, speaking from experience, that recognition of beauty must be learned or imbibed somehow in order for the experience of "exaltation" to take place. How can one have a "reaction to rightness" until one knows what rightness is? Some people feel a sort of, I won't say exaltation, but perhaps an exhilaration at things which are not beautiful. I am assuming here that we are not defining beauty as that which produces a certain feeling, but as you said at the beginning, in reference to the true. I can't think that reality, or the truth, can be anything but beautiful--after all, God made it so. What is ugly is the distortion of reality, the perversion of the truth. When one is accustomed to take pleasure from perversion, some sort of re-education must take place in order for one to appreciate reality and hence beauty. I have seen this happen in myself as well as in others.
No doubt I am speaking too loosely here, but I am supposed to be at work so no time to think about it that carefully. :)
I can never stray too far from euchatastrophe it seems. Thanks TMF! And Sissi! Delighted you've found me. Hope all is well.
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