Beauty
Some interesting thoughts on the objectivity of beauty.
Excerpt follows:
Beauty is objective because God has defined it in and through His creation and thus man searches for beauty and true art expresses beauty within the framework of this standard. Of course there are varied preferences but these occur within fixed boundaries. As Os Guiness points out, human creativity is derivative and reflective, working within the bounds of what God has formed. In other words, while there may be preferences with regard to what is beautiful, nonetheless the broader context in which we categorize beauty comes from those standards already established within creation. None can look at a sunset in the same way we look at road kill. The former is universally accepted as representing beauty while the latter is universally accepted as ugly and repulsive. We do not have to be taught this is true as our nature knows it to be true. There may be degrees to which one admires the beauty of the sunset but it is beautiful nonetheless. Likewise, no rational person could suggest that road kill is aesthetically beautiful, although some modern artists have tried.
Link: The Loss of Beauty
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Annette, Wednesday, 7-18-07 6:32 AM
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re: Beauty
Sorry Annette, but I have to say, this is classic -- defining beauty & placing it a nice neat box. Yes, I suppose it is possible to define it, but at that point it starts to lose some of its beauty (in my mind). I did think the story about the violinist was pretty interesting. I think its very easy to be so distracted that we miss the most amazing things. Which is too bad. And he raises some good points -- about how beauty & art & music should point us to God, not away from Him.
One of the most amazing aspects (to me) about God as Creator is that He made us to be creators as well (since we are made in His image). How cool is that?
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Zach, Wednesday, 7-18-07 10:11 AM
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re: Beauty
Nicely put Zach (God as creator) I hadn't thought of it that way before...
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Stephanie, Wednesday, 7-18-07 10:57 AM
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re: Beauty
Zach, you have a point: my personality type (is that the NT part, Lisa?) loves boxes, categorizations, and non-fuzzy definitions. But I still agree that a concept such as "beauty" cannot be folded, spindled, or mutilated into a purely objective definition by which any given object / artwork / event can be shown to be either "beautiful" or "ugly." Still, I *do* know that there is something objectively different between this 
and this 
I thought the article was interesting at least in that it gives a framework to say "hey, a urinal isn't beautiful, even if someone stuck it in a museum and told you it was an important piece of art!"
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Annette, Friday, 7-20-07 11:04 AM
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