THE VALUE OF ‘THE BEAUTIFUL’
TO LIFE
Orjiebele Malachy
By
‘the Beautiful’ we re-echo the classical aesthetic understanding that takes it
for granted that beauty is the only, or at least the fundamental term in
ordinary language for ascribing aesthetic qualities. Thus ‘the beautiful’ is
herewith used to refer to the aesthetic. The word aesthetic derives from the
Greek word perceive. To perceive excellence adequately requires proper taste,
which Webster defines as “the power of discerning and appreciating fitness,
beauty, congruity, symmetry, or whatever constitutes excellence.”[1]
It therefore amounts that we can as well render the topic of discussion to read
‘the Value of the Aesthetic to Life.’ What then can we refer to as ‘the
beautiful’ in our experiences of the works of art and the works of nature since
these - works of art and works of nature - constitute the domain of aesthetics?
In
response to this question of the beautiful, most of those who have attempted to
define beauty agree that it involves a response of pleasure. We call something
beautiful when it delights us or pleases us in some special way. But what
causes this response on our part? Is it something in the object itself? Is it
merely a subjective reaction on our part? Or is it some combination of these
two?
We
know from common experience that all persons do not find the same objects
beautiful. What pleases some fails to please others. This is sometimes taken to
mean that beauty exists in the eye of the beholder. But it can also mean that
when a person’s taste is cultivated, he or she is able to appreciate the
elements of beauty in objects which fail to please others because they have not
yet learned to appreciate that beauty.
In
considering this issue, Leo Tolstoy has said that all the aesthetic definitions
of beauty lead to two fundamental conceptions. The first he says “is that
beauty is something having an independent existence (existing in itself), that
it is one of the manifestations of the absolutely Perfect, of the Ideal, of the
Spirit, of Will, or of God.”[2]
This definition of his is exemplified in the writings of Plato, Fitche,
Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and others.
The
second definition “is that beauty is a kind of pleasure we receive which does
not have personal advantage for its object or aim.”[3]
This second definition of beauty finds favour chiefly among the English
aesthetic writers like Lord Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, Edmund Burke and so
on, and later on finds a forceful interpretation in Immanuel Kant who takes
disinterestedness to be the First Moment (Moment of Quality) of the Judgement
of Taste, thus defining beauty as “simply a certain kind of disinterested
pleasure received by us.”[4]
The
distinguishing factor in both definitions is captured in the concept of
disinterestedness. The term disinterested means that the pleasure is not
concerned with further interests. Thus the aesthetic contemplator becomes the
disinterested observer. Needless to say, this does not mean that aesthetic
contemplation is uninteresting. If for example one regards a beautiful object
as an object of desire or as a stimulant to desire, his point of view is not
that of aesthetic contemplation; he is an ‘interested’ spectator. In point of
fact he is the servant or instrument of the aesthetic object. But it is
possible for him to regard the beautiful object neither as itself an object of
desire nor as stimulant to desire but solely for its aesthetic significance. He
is then a disinterested but not an uninterested spectator.
The
point here is that disinterestedness informs what aesthetic perception and
pleasure entails. Aesthetic pleasure is any and every experience directly
enjoyed for its own quality. It is thus
to be distinguished from any and everything valued because of its instrumental
effect, or merely because of its promise for the future. Instances of the
beautiful thus include the enjoyment of a sunset or sunrise, a mountain view,
music, painting, sculpture, dancing, or anything enjoyed as beautiful, and
every perceived excellence if appreciated directly for this quality of
excellence.
To
illustrate, let us take for example the aesthetic experience of a sunset, the
perception and enjoyment of its beauty. This pleasure is located directly and
immediately in the experiencing itself. The beauty of the sunset enjoyed is, as
Webster says of beauty in general, “that quality or aggregate of qualities in a
thing which includes immediate and disinterested pleasure.”[5]
In this enjoyment of the sunset is illustrated the action of the beautiful as
distinguished from the merely pleasing and the pragmatic. Certainly the
enjoyment of a sunset is ‘immediate’ and ‘disinterested’ and there is in it no element
of the pragmatic.
Had
music, instead of the sunset, been chosen as the example, almost the same
discussion would have followed. We value music – certainly in general for the
present enjoyment we get from it, not necessarily because it is otherwise useful.
Music however has this difference from the sunset, that it is an art contrived
by humans for the purpose of arousing aesthetic pleasure. Thus is illustrated
in music the purport that “art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing
but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for these
moments’ sake.”[6]
To
this point, Webster’s Synonyms says that “aesthetic satisfaction is the content
that accompanies the enjoyment of beauty for its own sake, and independently of
all other considerations.”[7] Hence the word ‘beautiful’ both in learned
and in ordinary use is applied to that which excites the keenest pleasure, not
only of the senses but also, through the medium of the senses of mind and soul.
Beautiful in the Synonyms “also suggest an approach to, or a realization of,
perfection, often specifically the imagined perfection associated with ones
conception of an ideal.”[8]
That is why beautiful is not applicable to only to things that are directly
perceived by the senses (as a beautiful woman; a beautiful scene…) but to things
that are actually mental constructions; as a beautiful poem, a beautiful
thought, a beautiful character and so on. John Dewey couches it in this way
that “any practical activity will, provided it is integrated and moves by its
own urge to fulfillment, have aesthetic quality.”[9]
It
seems clear now that a much wider range of true aesthetic enjoyment is open to
people generally than many hitherto thought. If so, do we not owe it to
ourselves to explore such possibilities and find out what now thwarts the full
realization of these potential pleasures? What possibilities are there for
enriching life through extending the area of aesthetic enjoyment? And what is
the value of ‘the beautiful’ to life?
In
general the answer will lie along two lines: one, the cultivation of interest
and sensitivity (taste) for various forms of aesthetic enjoyment; the other,
the development of such creative construction or creative arrangement as being
true aesthetic enjoyment from surveying the sequence of successful stages of
each endeavour as it develops. The person with such interest works devotedly to
attain his ideals, and enjoys aesthetically the several approximations thereto
in the successive stages in the enterprise.
Now,
cultivating a taste for the beautiful will greatly increase one’s capacity for
joy and efficiency. Orisen Swett Marden[10]
says that it is not enough to cultivate mere physical and intellectual
strength. If the aesthetic side of one’s being, an appreciation of all that is
beautiful in nature and art, is not fostered, life will be like a country
without flowers or birds, sweet scents or sounds, colour or music. It may be
strong, but it will lack the graces that would adorn its strength and make it
attractive. A thing of beauty is a joy for every human being, and the one who
cannot enjoy a marvelous painting a melodious song or a beautiful sunset is not
fully human. The most civilized man is the one whose aesthetic faculties are
best developed. The highest expression of civilization is the aspiration and
love for the beautiful.
A
love for the beautiful has a refreshing, softening, enriching influence upon
character, which nothing else can supply. What an infinite satisfaction comes
from beginning early in life to cultivate our finer qualities, to develop higher
sentiments, purer tastes, delicate feelings, and the love of the beautiful in
all its varied forms of expression![11]
The story is told of a school teacher in Chicago who put up a ‘beauty corner’
for her pupils in the school. Among the little collection of fine photographs
and paintings was a picture of the Sistine Madonna (i.e. an artistic
representation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican
City).
The
children took great delight in the aesthetic trifles. The beautiful objects
with which they daily associated began to influence their conduct. They became
gentler, more refined, more thoughtful, mere considerate. A young Italian boy,
who could not be tamed before, soon changed and became gentle and refined. The
astonished teacher one day asked him what made him so good. The boy pointed at
the picture of the Madonna and said, ‘how can a fellow do bad things when she
is looking at him?’
Many
people could be saved from wrong doing and crime by the cultivation of the
aesthetic faculties in their childhood. A love for the truly beautiful would
save children from mischief, roughness of behavior and unpleasant nature.
Unhappily, we do not sufficiently cultivate, either in ourselves or in our
children, the sense of beauty. Yet no other pleasure is so pure, so costless
and so accessible as beauty.
On
the other hand, we can also understand the value of the beautiful through the
pursuit of purposeful activity. Whoever gives encouragement to the pursuit of
chosen, worthy purposes, to building internal concern that these be pursued
carefully, painstakingly, with increasing standards of excellence – the person
is extending aesthetic enjoyment. The point here is that this possibilities of aesthetic enjoyment is not restricted to the
beauties of nature and fine arts, but extends to any and every worthwhile
interest pursued so whole-heartedly that
the person builds ideals for each stage of such activity and enjoys
satisfaction from realizing these ideals.
One
final consideration is the moral outlook. The moral outlook has in it a true
aesthetic element. We saw above from Webster that taste is the power of
discerning and appreciating fitness, beauty, order, congruity, proportion,
symmetry, or whatever constitutes excellence. Morality is certainly an
excellence. The moral person is one who has developed such a taste for, and
appreciation of, moral fitness, order, congruity, and excellence that behavior
and attitudes embodying these qualities give to him immediate aesthetic
enjoyment.
So,
our appreciation of beauty puts us in touch with the Author of all beauty. At
no other time therefore do our spirits come into such close touch with the
divine as when we are lost in the contemplation of the sublimity, the grandeur
and the perfection of the universe; what Fr Donald B Cozzens calls
‘Transcendence.’[12]
Beauty is a quality of divinity, and to live much with the beautiful is to live
close to the divine.
END NOTES
[1] Webster’s Dictionary
of Synonyms (Springfield, Mass Mernam, 1942)
[2] Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? as in Dickie G and Sclafoni
R J (Eds), Aesthetics: A Critical
Anthology.(New York: St Martin’s Press ,1977) P.59
[3] Ibid.
[5]Webster’s Dictionary
of Synonyms (Springfield, Mass Mernam 1942)
[7] Webster’s Dictionary
of Synonyms (Springfield, Mass Mernam 1942). P 76
[8] Ibid. P 110
[10] Reference
to Orisen Swett Marden here is found in Kaitholil G, Make Beauty Your Target (Mumbai,Bandra: St Paul Press, 2011). P 10
[12] Cf.
Cozzens D B, the Changing Face of the
Priesthood (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2000).P 29
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