Beauty

[Harry]

Beauty is to love, and be loved.

[pjme]

A good example : beauty and horror combine in a moving icon...



Minamata/Japan



a 15th century Polish Pieta

[Daidalos]

The aids virus

Strange as it may seem, I've always found HIV to be beautiful... in a chilling, sinister way. While the virion itself may be striking, I find its means of replication and propagation to be even more fascinating. It is beutiful that something as relatively simple as a virus particle can do so much. One must marvel at the deadly inventiveness of evolution.

[Sergeant Rock]

You really think its mature to answer this question with a photo of a woman?

Yes, I do...when the photo is an image of my wife, my lover, my partner, my muse, my best friend. That she also happens to have striking physical beauty is just icing on the cake. Besides, a picture is worth a thousand words.   It saved time and effort to have a photograph explain what my definition of beauty is. But it wasn't just a picture but a name too. My wife's name. That should have clued you in, Saul.

You fancy yourself an artist, don't you? I would have thought you'd appreciate the photo purely as art even if you don't think women have any relationship to beauty. I consider that photograph one of my best portraits.

Sarge

[pjme]

Beauty is truth, and truth beauty etc. etc.

And one composer who would subscribe to that 100% - a composer who thought the distinction between 'beautiful' and 'ugly' was nonsensical - was Janacek:



Beautiful, yes?

Great find! Is that from the Sinfonietta fanfares?

Peter

[Sergeant Rock]

Sarge, that is a really gorgeous photo.

Thanks, Corey. It was one of those rare shoots that just worked perfectly; the setting, the light, the model. I took several rolls of film and most of the photos came out really well. The location was the Virginia-Kendall nature reserve in the Cuyahoga Valley just north of Akron Ohio. Late October, but a very warm day.

Sarge

[pjme]

Pierre Alechinsky



Japanese paper ( Chiyo Black Kanji on Silver)

[Florestan]

Saul, when you look at those pictures you see just some women but Sarge, Mark and Haffner see their life and their world.

Are you married or have you ever been in love, if I may ask?

[Haffner]

Thanks, Corey. It was one of those rare shoots that just worked perfectly; the setting, the light, the model. I took several rolls of film and most of the photos came out really well. The location was the Virginia-Kendall nature reserve in the Cuyahoga Valley just north of Akron Ohio. Late October, but a very warm day.

Sarge

Oh, I've been there! I lived in Canton from the ages of 4 to 7.

[Sergeant Rock]

Oh, I've been there! I lived in Canton from the ages of 4 to 7.

Hey! We're homies!

[Sergeant Rock]

Saul, when you look at those pictures you see just some women but Sarge, Mark and Haffner see their life and their world.

Exactly. Thank you for understanding.

Sarge

[Ephemerid]

The Zen-based Japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware is one that resonates with me:

Meaning literally "a sensitivity to things," mono no aware is a concept describing the essence of Japanese culture, invented by the Japanese literary and linguistic scholar scholar Motoori Norinaga in the eighteenth century, and remains the central artistic imperative in Japan to this day. The phrase is derived from the word *aware*, which in Heian Japan meant sensitivity or sadness, and the word mono, meaning things, and describes beauty as an awareness of the transience of all things, and a gentle sadness at their passing. It can also be translated as the "ah-ness" of things, of life, and love....

....The fleeting nature of beauty described by mono no aware derives from the three states of existence in Buddhist philosophy: unsatisfactoriness, impersonality, and most importantly in this context, impermanence.

According to mono no aware, a falling or wilting autumn flower is more beautiful than one in full bloom; a fading sound more beautiful than one clearly heard; the moon partially clouded more appealing than full. The sakura or cherry blossom tree is the epitome of this conception of beauty; the flowers of the most famous variety, somei yoshino, nearly pure white tinged with a subtle pale pink, bloom and then fall within a single week. The subject of a thousand poems and a national icon, the cherry blossom tree embodies beauty as a transient experience. ....

.... The Japanese ideal sees beauty instead as an experience of the heart and soul, a feeling for and appreciation of objects or artwork—most commonly nature or the depiction of—in a pristine, untouched state.

An appreciation of beauty as a state which does not last and cannot be grasped is not the same as nihilism, and can better be understood in relation to Zen Buddhism's philosophy of earthly transcendence: a spiritual longing for that which is infinite and eternal—the source of all worldly beauty. As the monk Sotoba wrote in *Zenrin Kushū* (Poetry of the Zenrin Temple), Zen does not regard nothingness as a state of absence, but rather the affirmation of an unseen that exists behind empty space: "Everything exists in emptiness: flowers, the moon in the sky, beautiful scenery." ....

~~~~~~~~~

LINK: http://ezinearticles.com/?Mono-No-Aware:-The-Essence-of-Japan&id=435418

(I don't agree with this article in its entirety, re: the subjective/objective business and I don't entirely agree with this article's over-simplification of western aesthetics, but the basic idea I really identify with). 

[Florestan]

Based largely upon classical Greek ideals, beauty in the West is sought in the ultimate perfection of an external object: a sublime painting, perfect sculpture or intricate musical composition; a beauty that could be said to be only skin deep

This is not an over-simplification but just plain nonsense.

The Japanese aesthetics, on the other hand, is indeed fascinating.

[pjme]

Female beauty : "OUR PERCEPTION IS DISTORTED".....not all beauties are as solid as a (mrs.) Rock....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ikNtE_o5Qc

[маразм1]

Beautiful!

[(poco) Sforzando]

That said, i'd wager that women's beauty is behind the basic inspiration for all art, along side with nature.

That theory works a little better for Tristan und Isolde or the Divine Comedy than for the St. Matthew Passion or Hamlet.

[Ephemerid]

Beautiful!

"A nose is not manufactured: a nose just is, thus, too, my art." ~ Igor Stravinsky 

[Varg]

Mrs. Rock

That's a genuine beauty right there! She doesn't have to force anything.

I can almost imagine how she moves. A graceful lady, yes?

And LOOK at those hands!!

Lucky man, indeed.

[Don]

No, its you that has this view, thinking that women are men's "Play thing" that was created just so men have "fun".
The ancient kings used to think this way, and you are very similar to them in this sense.

It's good to be the King.

[marvinbrown]

Strange as it may seem, I've always found HIV to be beautiful... in a chilling, sinister way. While the virion itself may be striking, I find its means of replication and propagation to be even more fascinating. It is beutiful that something as relatively simple as a virus particle can do so much. One must marvel at the deadly inventiveness of evolution.

    One day I am sure mankind will find a cure to this terrible disease! Nothing attractive about that virus whatsoever as far as I am concerned!  If anything it is the very definition of ugliness!!

  marvin