Interleaved...
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Sawfish wrote, ""beauty" in its very core
> definition, is the purposely vague term" --
>
> A good definition is like a corral: it keeps
> inside all of the things that belong therein and
> keeps outside all of the things that don't belong.
> Thus, a definition of "beauty" or "the beautiful"
> might, conceivably, be a good one but seem a bit
> vague because it needs to be worded so as not to
> exclude any instance of the beautiful.
>
> Here now I'm going to resort to Platonism. Plato
> would say there is the supersensible Form or Idea
> of The Beautiful,
Archetypes here?
> and there are manifestations
> thereof on the plane of the sensible, none of
> which will possess all attributes of the
> Beautiful.
> For example, to take human beauty:
> limpid clear blue eyes are beautiful, and warm
> dark eyes (what the Elizabethans I think called
> "black eyes") are beautiful. A given human being
> will not possess both. That human being may
> possess beautiful eyes, but those eyes, beautiful
> and delightful in themselves, as it were point
> beyond themselves to the Idea of the Beautiful.
>
> So perhaps when you write of beautiful things as
> evoking awe, you could be suggesting that manifest
> beauty -- Sally's beautiful eyes -- participates
> the Form of the Beautiful, without being The
> Beautiful.
This is becoming too abstruse to be meaningful, in my opinion.
> Beautiful things we see, hear, or
> otherwise apprehend please, or ought to please, in
> themselves, but also they are disclosures of
> something greater. This would relate to your idea
> of the beautiful and spirituality.
Maybe.
The first time I came up the road to Crater Lake and caught sight of the whole thing, all at once, I felt a powerful sense of awe. This is not congruent with beauty, but overlaps at a point with the truly beautiful, I suspect.
Medusa's head is sometimes described in this way, and it is an unconventional inclusion to what is commonly considered beautiful. But if you think of it, perhaps it is.
Just to show where I'm headed, to show what kind of a foul male pig I am, the very first thing I think of when hearing "beauty" is a screen actress. But surely beauty is much more than that...
Is this rendering beautiful and does it also inspire awe?
[
en.wikipedia.org]
To me, both are true. Maybe it's not always necessary to have an element of awe, but that's what I'm trying to figure out now. Whether the inclusion of an element of awe is the difference between "extremely aesthetically pleasing" and "beauty"...
How about this?
[
fineartamerica.com]
Where does this fit? I'm assuming we'd both agree that all three are beautiful, and I see awe as being a large component of two of them, and perhaps Nefertiti inspired a sort of awe, too, not sure.
Your thoughts?
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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