07/02/09

Beauty

We have heard the age old adage of “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and felt the impression it has made upon us.  The stages of human beauty range from the smallest baby, to oldest great grandparent, and can be attributed to the simplest of childish finger paintings to ages old sculpting from various cultures.  Beauty transcends architecture and impresses upon us as not having a gender, and can be found in nature’s grandeur of a mountain spectacular or the lacing flowers within meadow. The Bible expresses beauty in many different forms, giving us various lists to pull from and develop an appropriate sense and concept of beauty and how to view it in a healthy manner.  In addition, the condition of men’s hearts may become twisted, which then twists the sense and concept of beauty with an equal attitude of twistedness.  When we are stripped of the trappings of what appears to attract us through our senses; we are left with beauty as being an impact upon us though specific qualities of character and stature, which we regard as valuable.

Does beauty exist?

Beauty does indeed exist in various forms of qualities.  The Greeks saw beauty in the symmetry and proportion of things including the body, which today still holds true as things are congruent within the lines of one’s physic or such as the face.   It was Pythagoras in 500 B.C., who considered the first to write about beauty, with his connection between Math and beauty with his Golden Ratio.  According to Kawabata and Zeki addressing culture, upbringing, and inclination, brings us beauty and ugliness as polar extremes, in which stimuli is judged, attributed a value, then engages our reward system, and is given a “strength of activity (Zeki, 1704).”   The beauty of nature vibrates the soul in rhythm of its magnificence, which reflects in its originality and creativity, according to Lewitin (Lewitin, “Beauty of Nature…”).  Buddha stated “true beauty is the beauty of selfless love (“Bodhi Day”).”  “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched…but are felt in the heart,” said Helen Keller (“Beauty Quotes”).  Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests beauty and strength come as of a moral sense of a moral sense from a wellspring of God and religion (“Beauty Quotes”).  The psalmist tells us beauty is in God’s holiness in which there is strength and beauty comes from his sanctuary (Psalms 29:2, 96:6, 9 MKJV).  Beauty is depicted in various forms, and is suggested it has qualities stemming from character and the value attached to it.

How is beauty defined?

Beauty is defined in many different ways.  Beauty is said to have several different categories consisting of personality, intelligence, grace, elegance, external beauty, health, youthfulness, symmetry, averageness, complexion, which has been many times attributed to women.  Female beauty is associated with the shape of their body, which consists of the chest, waist, hips, how these are proportioned, her weight, the width of her frame, her ability to be fertile, and her sexual attractiveness.  Wikipedia defines beauty as a quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind.  Microsoft’s Encarta 2004 says beauty comes from pleasing and impressive qualities with a fine example or excellent aspect.  Paul to the Philippians (vs. 4:8) expresses to us a set of different categories; one of these qualities is beauty guarding our hearts, and leading us toward peace.  In addition, the apostle Peter writes to us (II Peter 1:5-6) about the bountifulness of beauty of the divine nature, which makes our lives fruitful. We are left with a concept of beauty as our perception of an object giving us pleasure, spawning goodness, developing harmony, and giving to us some sense of meaning.  Although beauty is defined in many different ways; it is a blend of qualities improving our souls in positive ways. 

How is beauty achieved?

Beauty is effective in many different ways.  In Isaiah 3:16-26, Isaiah the writer in 740 B.C., some 200 years before Pythagoras, gives to us a detailed list of the items and areas women seem to use in the process of attracting me to them.  Fashions were designed to bring beauty to our natural outline of the silhouette, however, plastic surgery to improve the silhouette began over 1000 years ago, facelifts came in 1901, breast reductions in the 1920s, and breast augmentations in the 1930s (Weston, “Beauty is Shape”).  There is the lyrics of the song, “I like big butts,” and the Hottentots’ women have excessive butts, while our western culture is achieves emaciation (Weston, “Beauty is Shape”).  In Georgian society, silks, satins, and perfumes was the façade, however there may have been false teeth, false hair, false bosoms, false calves, and falsely big eyes by the use of a deadly poison Belladonna, while the covering may have covered small pox scars, poor hygiene, and lice.  During this time, hair could have been as tall as four feet, which would sometimes catch fire, demanding the ceilings to be raised or our present day vaulted ceilings giving us a feeling of spaciousness.  Foot binding was done for a 1000 years, to allow Chinese women to have an organically grown heel, making them desirable as a love object; on-another-hand, Marilyn Monroe, would intentionally make one heel shorter to give her a sway and sashay as she walked.  The Create women for a thousand years wore corsets and would stand proudly in public bare breasted wearing these corsets as decorative underwear.  Achievement in beauty is attempted by the external ornamentation of the body.

However, not everything has beauty. 

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and we decide what we think; why can’t we make everything appear to be beautiful?  Extremes in external ornamentation in order to develop a sense of beauty has cost $20 billion in cosmetics, $300 million in cosmetic surgery, $33 billion on dietary products (Clenberg, “The Search for Lasting Beauty”), which leaves us with only the insecurity of beauty.  John Follain Napes call the 250 frescoes, mosaics, and statues, involving Roman gods, goddesses, satyrs, nymphs, and pygmies, Pompeii’s own Kama Sutra, which decorated the public town baths. Robert Mapplethorpe in his 1990 art exhibit of homosexually charged images of nude men and S & M at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center revealed “Nudity is most obscene when men are shown naked with other men (Online, “Robert Mapplethorpe).”  Use of such sexually charged frescoes where also used to show the activities done at the Lupanar, the local brothel consisting of male and female prostitutes of Pompeii; in addition, the Villa of Mystery and the Dionysiac Mystery Cult was where children 10-11 years of age became adults through secret initiations. Even the idea of plutonic relationship gives to us the beauty of cross gender relationships providing us with safe relationships without the provision of sexual favors is somehow cheapened, when we study its foundation from Plato and his contemporaries Socrates, Aeschines, Socraticus, Xenophon, Theognis, Anacreon, Plutarch, Aristophanes, Solon, Hippias, Hipparchus, Phillip the II, Alexander of Macedon, the Stoics and even the Spartans with their lofty discussion of whether pederasty was better than women, and practiced a form of pederasty, ranging in age of the initiation of boy 10-11 to young men, from sexual favors to erotic self exposures, which was mimicked by the Romans in various forms in Pompeii.  Beauty can be twisted into any form of consummation, defining it to the twistedness of man’s heart. 

Closure