Sean Schriever
Professor Emerson
ENG 110
10 April 2018
Beauty is an Illusion
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. People hear this phrase everyday in english classes or museums or anywhere else that people may find beauty. There is no set definition of beauty, it is one of the few things in this world where the idea of beauty fluctuates so much because of each person’s unique definition and idea of what beauty truly is. In John Armstrong’s essay “La Bella Vita” he writes about what he believes beauty is. “Beauty is a kindly notion that seeks to bring peace to people that have different views on things”. In Armstrong’s essay he talks about a German dramatist and poet by the name of Friedrich Schiller. Schiller discusses these things that drive beauty, these things are sense and form. there is the ‘sense’ drive which lives in the moment and seeks immediate gratification… the ‘form’ drive: the inner demand for coherence over time, for abstract understanding and rational order” (Armstrong La Bella Vita).These drives work together to help shape or own personal illusion of beauty. For one to truly see beauty they must balance these drives and tend to both of them. He also believes that we cannot just talk about beauty we need to talk about our lives and what we can pull out of it that we find beautiful. To me, beauty is the simple things that we find in our lives that occur everyday that we see but never truly find beautiful until we stop and look at them.
Armstrong describes what beauty is to him in his essay as well. His description of beauty is in stark contrast with what today’s society views beauty as. To Armstrong beauty is something simple that engages us and truly makes us feel something. To society beauty is possessions, it’s a new car, or a new house. “True beauty is whatever speaks powerfully to both sides of our nature at the same time… when we find something beautiful we are called towards a vision of harmonious perfection”(Armstrong La Bella Vita). These sides of nature that reside within all of us are what allows us to feel beauty, they allow us to feel and connect with something that is truly beautiful. The problem with society is that often times we only feel one side or neither side of nature. These sides of nature are strong and when we as a society only feel one side of nature we confuse it with the feeling of true beauty because there is so little in this world that we can find true beauty in, this allows for many people to go without ever feeling that harmonious sensation that Armstrong talks about in his essay. While beauty is different to everyone there is a common part of this world that everyone can find beauty in, and it is the simple, common, things in life that we see everyday but never stop to see the true beauty that resides within these everyday occurrences. Something as simple as a sunrise or sunset, or watching a river flow through a forest, and even stopping to watch the waves crash over rocks. All of these can be seen as true beauty if you stop to appreciate them.
I believe that it is possible for true beauty to change someone’s life. It is common for many people to be in a dark place in their lives, only to be saved by something. That something that saves them is beautiful to that individual person. This thing that changes their lives could be meeting someone new, or adopting a pet, or even something like finding God. Beauty can change an individual persons lives, but it cannot change a large population. It cannot change a large population because everybody has different views on what is beautiful. If the large population all had the same idea of what beauty is then it is possible but will have varying ranges of success. this i because of the small changes in each person’s views that will change what they see and how they perceive it.
Schiller has an unnerving conviction that ambitious social reform will always be frustrated until a much larger number of people have reached a higher level of inner development of the sort enabled by beauty. This idea is a seemingly impossible task. In order for a large number of people to develop the higher level of development they need to spend years immersed with the drives of sense and form to be able to determine what is beautiful. Schiller’s idea will be stressed until it is achieved because while it is a lofty goal if it were to be achieved then the world would be exponentially better off because of the heightened sense of true beauty and culture. In this idea of a higher level of understanding of beauty from social reform, it would lead to a large number of the population having similar ideas of beauty because of the impact that society has on people. Society can impact people in many ways. This is done through social media, advertisements, and even entertainment. “The media is constantly giving us hints about what’s glamorous and important” (The Book of Life). This allows for people with common views to get together and voice their opinions and views. It can also lead to people changing their views.
One of the Let’s Talk About Art projects that really stood out to me was Kadie and Jack’s project on the Thinker. I found this project relatable because I did a similar project to theirs. While we both chose similar pieces of art this still went along with the definition of beauty because there is a slight variation. I found my piece to be more beautiful than the Thinker because I was able to find a deeper meaning in mine compared to the Thinker where i didn’t understand what the artist was trying to say in their piece. I think that this is the perfect example of what Armstrong was trying to say that there is no set definition of beauty and that it is different for everyone. This was shown throughout all of the presentations because very few of the presentations had a similar artwork.
Beauty is an illusion. There is no true definition, no cookie cutter mold as to what is beautiful and what is not. In terms of beauty it needs to be thought of like Schrodinger’s cat. Everything is beautiful and not beautiful at the same time, it just depends on who is looking upon it.
Armstrong, John. “Can Beauty Help Us to Become Better People? – John Armstrong | Aeon Essays.” Aeon, Aeon, 25 Apr. 2018, aeon.co/essays/can-beauty-help-us-to-become-better-people.
The Book of Life. “What Is Art For?” The Book of Life, 21 Apr. 2018, www.thebookoflife.org/what-is-art-for/.
“What Counts as Nature? It All Depends.” What Counts as Nature? It All Depends, University of Washington, 15 Nov. 2017, www.washington.edu/news/2017/11/15/what-counts-as-nature-it-all-depends/.
Recent Comments