In conversations over the past few days, I noticed some statements people made about beauty.
- An interior designer said that beauty can improve the world.
- A teacher said that exposure to beauty could reliably do more good than acts of social action.
- A priest quoted Pope John Paul as saying: "It is...necessary to create lifestyles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine...choices..."
Digging a little into my remembered store of aphorisms from the sufi poet Rumi, I remember one in particular: "Let the beauty you love be what you do." It's a particularly apt aphorism for an artist, who is presumably charged with creating beauty. But I need more proofs.
I see nature as being able to create beauty that is so exquisite in its detail. The beautiful array of colors and variety of pattern on a beach far exceed what an artist could create. I look at what nature has created, and feel the inadequacy of what I can create with paint and brush.
Another problem is the tendency in our culture to turn beauty into a commodity. The artist may enjoy the creation of beauty as a process--but the commodification of that created thing is not lovely. A philanthropist in our town is spending millions of dollars buying art which is loaned out to a local museum. The paintings being purchased have an intrinsic value because of their beauty, and an extrinsic value as investments. I calculated that one of the paintings on recent exhibit, a Monet, was purchased for about $2 million. As I gazed at this painting, was I engaged in worship of beauty or wealth?
Beauty is a subjective thing. History and commerce elevate beautiful people, beautiful destinations, and beautiful art. But when the philosophers speak of pursuing truth, beauty and goodness, what they really must be referring to is the human capacity to appreciate beauty in many contexts. When we can see the beauty in the face of an elderly friend, in the pattern of worn paint on the side of a building, and in a teenager's quirky sense of humor, we feel love, interest and connection. When we make a choice to focus on ugliness: political corruption, pollution, people's shortcomings, we disempower our goodness. An aphorism that I know to be true from my work as an artist is: we are what we pay attention to. It must be that by paying attention to beauty we awaken love and connectedness to others.
This is the first time I have tried to understand why beauty must be important. I still remain unconvinced that the beauty I have the capacity to create can actually serve others.
