- #1
Mickey
- 163
- 0
This is a very deep question for me and I have trouble confronting it, so I apologize if I make it sound difficult or confusing.
I don't see beauty as something static and I never really have. Beautiful people, places, and things are always in some kind of motion, whether explicit or implicit. By implicit motion, I mean that static media, like paintings, will suggest something beautiful if they provoke me into imagining some motion or force as part of the aesthetic experience (e.g. someone snuggling up into a chair next to a fire with snow falling outside has plenty of motions in it).
I don't find still photographs or portraits of people very attractive, even if the person is a supermodel, unless there is some kind of movement, however subtle. Perhaps they are about to smile, or they are in the middle of moving their muscles to smile, or they are thinking of something and just moved their eyes and changed their facial expression, etc. Think Mona Lisa without the ambiguity.
I'm impressed by martial arts choreography, dance, and even the way some people run or walk. There was this one girl on the track team who ran hurdles like a gazelle. I just couldn't keep my eyes... well, nevermind.
Anyway, there's something about a beautiful person to me that communicates action. Beauty is a verb. Like morality, it seems to me like something a person does. Are good actions beautiful? Are beautiful actions good? I have trouble telling the difference. After all, what is the indicator of a moral person? It's the age old question.
Could morality be dynamic beauty? As opposed to static?
I only feel capable of perceiving the former kind of beauty. Since I am forced to create some dynamism in my imagination, the best static media can do for me is suggest something beautiful and not actually be it. On one hand, I feel like my ability to answer the question above objectively has been compromised. I am left with the possibility of situations where I would see the morality of a person in my imagination, such as when looking at a photograph of someone helping an injured person, instead of through a logical or conceptual argument. But on the other hand, perhaps I am not compromised, and I am viewing things correctly?
If someone's face is beautiful, it appears to me that they have "done something" to make it beautiful. Instead of appearing to me like it's beautiful by nature, it appears beautiful by choice. There's something about the way they create facial expressions, the way muscles contract around their eyes, and the incredibly subtle movements of their mouth when they speak (or don't speak), the quick physical process of looking at something, all seems deeply revealing to me. It seems revealing of some emotions or behavior that are moral.
Do I find nature beautiful? Sure, at times. However, when it comes to humans, I can't seem to distinguish between morality and beauty. This would be extremely bad, I'd think, if I had the same standards of beauty as popular culture, but I don't. Beauty seems inextricably linked to essentially human action through gracefulness.
The Christian tradition also calls "grace" the gift that God gives us when we choose to follow Him, or something or other. I wonder if this idea of morality as beautiful action has been popular before.
What do you think?
I don't see beauty as something static and I never really have. Beautiful people, places, and things are always in some kind of motion, whether explicit or implicit. By implicit motion, I mean that static media, like paintings, will suggest something beautiful if they provoke me into imagining some motion or force as part of the aesthetic experience (e.g. someone snuggling up into a chair next to a fire with snow falling outside has plenty of motions in it).
I don't find still photographs or portraits of people very attractive, even if the person is a supermodel, unless there is some kind of movement, however subtle. Perhaps they are about to smile, or they are in the middle of moving their muscles to smile, or they are thinking of something and just moved their eyes and changed their facial expression, etc. Think Mona Lisa without the ambiguity.
I'm impressed by martial arts choreography, dance, and even the way some people run or walk. There was this one girl on the track team who ran hurdles like a gazelle. I just couldn't keep my eyes... well, nevermind.
Anyway, there's something about a beautiful person to me that communicates action. Beauty is a verb. Like morality, it seems to me like something a person does. Are good actions beautiful? Are beautiful actions good? I have trouble telling the difference. After all, what is the indicator of a moral person? It's the age old question.
Could morality be dynamic beauty? As opposed to static?
I only feel capable of perceiving the former kind of beauty. Since I am forced to create some dynamism in my imagination, the best static media can do for me is suggest something beautiful and not actually be it. On one hand, I feel like my ability to answer the question above objectively has been compromised. I am left with the possibility of situations where I would see the morality of a person in my imagination, such as when looking at a photograph of someone helping an injured person, instead of through a logical or conceptual argument. But on the other hand, perhaps I am not compromised, and I am viewing things correctly?
If someone's face is beautiful, it appears to me that they have "done something" to make it beautiful. Instead of appearing to me like it's beautiful by nature, it appears beautiful by choice. There's something about the way they create facial expressions, the way muscles contract around their eyes, and the incredibly subtle movements of their mouth when they speak (or don't speak), the quick physical process of looking at something, all seems deeply revealing to me. It seems revealing of some emotions or behavior that are moral.
Do I find nature beautiful? Sure, at times. However, when it comes to humans, I can't seem to distinguish between morality and beauty. This would be extremely bad, I'd think, if I had the same standards of beauty as popular culture, but I don't. Beauty seems inextricably linked to essentially human action through gracefulness.
The Christian tradition also calls "grace" the gift that God gives us when we choose to follow Him, or something or other. I wonder if this idea of morality as beautiful action has been popular before.
What do you think?
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