Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Chui  That seems to address something different. Since beauty is part and parcel an emotional response, any accompanying emotional response may change one's reaction to it. "He was such a beautiful guy... but now that he's dumped me..." |
Hmmmm...this got me thinking. "Beauty" has many layers, doesn't it? It's true that our emotions and individual perceptions can influence (or even taint) what we see as beautiful. A mundane childhood lunch box may appear extremely beautiful to someone who has a positive association with it. It may remind them of their mom packing their lunch and leaving a nice note in the box everyday for them to read. Looking at the lunch box in this case would invoke good feelings in the heart of the beholder.
On the other hand, the person who wasn't as lucky, and always opened an empty box at lunch time, may see it as an ugly reminder of a time in his or her life in which he/she experienced lack.
Someone with no emotional connection to that particular lunch box would see it as neither beautiful nor ugly, but as a neutral object existing in the world external to him or her self.
The artist, however (an entirely different creature from all the rest
) may see the ugliness of the lunch box as intertwined with the ugly emotions of the perceiver, and create a beautiful piece of art exposing this very truth
The "ugly" now appears beautiful because it is "ugly."
I'm not entirely sure whether or not absolute Beauty exists, but if it does, and people fail to recognize it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just may mean we aren't always capable of recognizing it, especially when our perceptions are clouded by earthly matters.