Beauty

[greg]

[mp3=200,20,0,center]http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/8/14/1346899/sym10%20clips.mp3[/mp3]

[lukeottevanger]

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). 

This is good stuff. It's pretty close to the aesthetic of wabi sabi, which is in a sense the artistic wing of Zen. In his book on the subject, Andrew Juniper has this to say:

the term wabi-sabi suggests such qualities as impermanence, humility, asymmetry, and imperfection. These underlying principles are diametrically opposed to those of their Western counterparts, whose values are rooted in the Hellenic worldview that values permanence, grandeur, symmetry, and perfection. ... Wabi-sabi is an intuitive appreciation of a transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things.

I find this aesthetic approach fascinating, and it's informed my own composition to quite an extent. At the very least ti reminds us that there is more than one aesthetic of what is beautiful.

Re my Janacek image - yes, these incredibly scruffy pages are the sketches for the fanfares which ended up in the Sinfonietta and thrill most who hear them. Are they beautiful or ugly? Stupid question. They are scruffy and by some standards physically unattractive....yet they are expressive of great urgency, of inspiration in the creation of something momentous. They are the physical manifestation of something very beautiful (to most of us). As Janacek said, 'what do I care for the borrowed attributes 'beautiful' or 'ugly'? '

[karlhenning]

I know that in Japanese, it sound very different. But in English, mono no aware is a great little phrase, too.

Josh, check PM!

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

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!!

My question about the aids virus is the following: People tend to compare this with the medieval pestilence. The problem: People around me simply don't want to suffer from HIV. According to the pestilence comparison, people aound me should already be dead. Not a single one that I know of in the years since HIV came up. And don't tell me they all keep it secret.
Is this a first class disease? I mean, no one cares if people die from typical things like cancer or heart attacks. But AIDS, in western countries, is the mother of diseases. Why? Is it because it's threatening the proposed "party and fuck around" western lifestyle standard (which only a few live)? Or Africa hypocrisy?
Why is it the mother of diseases? Why don't other more likely diseases win the importance crown?

[Ephemerid]

I know that in Japanese, it sound very different. But in English, mono no aware is a great little phrase, too.

Josh, check PM!

Stereo very aware? 

[karlhenning]

Mrs. Rock

Lovely indeed; and in this photo, sort of like a Jn Wm Waterhouse subject, Sarge.

[Haffner]

Lovely indeed; and in this photo, sort of like a Jn Wm Waterhouse subject, Sarge.

Brunettes ROCK!

[karlhenning]

That said, i'd wager that women's beauty is behind the basic inspiration for all art

That's an absurd absolute.

[karlhenning]

. . . And also, don't ask such an open-ended question in your OP if you're not prepared to consider all the responses. You didn't ask, 'What's the definition of beauty?' You asked only, 'What is beauty?'

And, images of feminine pulchritude are one valid response to such a broad query.

[karlhenning]

I asked to describe with words what beauty means...

You did not.

You asked, What is beauty?

[karlhenning]

You're soooooooooooooooooo transparent. Everything comes back to Jewishness with you, doesn't it? It's pathetic.

Good heavens! And as if beauty means exactly the same thing to all Jews . . . .

[karlhenning]

It is indeed beautiful, but I think it doesnt explain what beauty is.

Perhaps part of your error, is in imagining that beauty can be (or need be) "explained."

Perhaps the truth is related to the observation in the Tao Te Ching;  a The Beauty which can be explained is not true Beauty thing.

[karlhenning]

"What is wubba wubba?"

The Wubba Wubba which can be explained is not the true Wubba Wubba 

[karlhenning]

For better or for worse, I ain't going nowhere.    

Oh, well, I do call that better 

[greg]

i just stopped the monologue

[karlhenning]

The only thing I recall from the Tao Te Ching happens to concern beauty: "Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness."  It's an interesting idea to consider. 

I don't quite endorse that. I can find a Maine seacoast beautiful, even without having personally experienced Trenton, New Jersey  

i just stopped the monologue

Thanks!

[Sergeant Rock]

Lovely indeed; and in this photo, sort of like a Jn Wm Waterhouse subject, Sarge.

Nicely observed, Karl. Yes, this could be my Ophelia.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

The aids virus

Beautiful in form, not in function or effect.

[karlhenning]

Nicely observed, Karl. Yes, this could be my Ophelia.

Phone for you, Sarge; chap named Laertes 

[Florestan]

Beautiful in form, not in function or effect.

A perfect illustration of the fact that formal beauty in itself is worth nothing.