Sep 23, 2022·edited Sep 25, 2022Liked by FFatalism
Br. F-
Beautifully written and much to think about. I am certainly guilty of using the line in a vaguely aspirational way. It is good and useful to think on it more deeply.
I also take this question in a Platonic sense a la The Symposium. Which is not the metaphysic of choice these days, to say the least. That there is a practice of beauty that goes beyond--way beyond--mere aestheticism. The latter uses beauty, as you suggest, as a kind of stimulant or even as a palliative. What does it mean to be raised up to *Beauty Itself*? Does that even make sense to us anymore? Probably not for most people. Though we may still get intimations of it when something beautiful does make us less self-centered and shallow, even if only for a fleeting moment.
It's been a while since I read The Idiot, but I think this question in the novel is made more complicated still. Prince Myshkin contemplates a decidedly unbeautiful painting, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by Hans Holbein. He does so at the residence of Rogozhin, an atheist.
Myshkin says the one could lose one's faith looking at such a painting. Rogozhin responds that he has, in fact, lost his faith. It is safe to say that no Orthodox Icon painter would depict Christ in this manner. An icon painter would always paint Christ as beautiful. Christians believe Christ is God and therefore Beauty Itself. What does it mean to contemplate Christ as bearing what looks like nothing more than a brute, animal and therefore senseless death? What does it mean to confront that for any of us, Christian, atheist or otherwise? It is indeed a religious question, but not only that.
A quote from another atheist character, Ippolit, who says in reference to the painting:
"Nature appears to the viewer of this painting in the shape of some enormous, implacable, and dumb beast, or, to put it more correctly, much more correctly, strange though it is—in the shape of some huge machine of the most modern construction, which has senselessly seized, crushed, and swallowed up, blankly and unfeelingly, a great and priceless being—such a being as by himself was worth the whole of nature and all its laws, the whole earth, which was perhaps created solely for the appearance of this being alone! The painting seems precisely to express this notion of a dark, insolent, and senselessly eternal power, to which everything is subjected, and it is conveyed to you involuntarily."
So this brings up a deeper question about the meaning of our lives. It isn't merely about aesthetics, in the limited sense of the word. It asks what is beauty in a purely materialistic universe? Is it nothing more than a trick of the brain that can alleviate for us--for reasons we can never begin to explain let alone understand--the pain of the brute meaninglessness and absurdity of human existence? Or even why the universe exists at all rather than nothing? Does the deeper sense of beauty that we all experience and appears to connect us to the transcendent become a lie and a cruel joke?
It is worth considering. Though I don't see a simple way to answer any of those questions. There may not be an "answer" if we mean that in a kind of syllogistic, propositional sense. It is the question and answer of our whole life. This is what makes Dostoevsky so powerful to read.
Anyway, thank you for your beautiful and deep reflection. A lot to meditate upon. I hope you are well. -Jack
P.S. I wonder what Kierkegaard would have thought of all of this?
I read this lovely piece twice, so thanks for that.
Perhaps you are a little hard on the moorland observer, whose humility when truly *seeing* (including his place in the scene) I recognise from my own best moments of ‘shrinking’. If that makes sense.
Perhaps I can follow the thread. The path down the valley suggests the way. Recognition of the beautiful can be like a visitation, sometime episodic and not easy to repeat. Recognition though can insert the beautiful into time. Recognise another form as beautiful, and it can sit up and take notice of you, which is a strange experience with implications for responsibility. (Anecdotal evidence.) Human minds nevertheless can insert different conversations, an internal mirror into reality. I like your illustration of Narcissus. We find ourselves often enough in the Hall of Mirrors, the mirror of words. The experience of being recognised by the beautiful nevertheless has a persistence and if we have the facility I would follow Simone Weil.
I don’t know if beauty will save the world but it definitely makes it more livable. It seems in late capitalism the objective is to turn everybody into quantifiable units. Beauty has the potential to cut through transforming the the world into a more qualitative experience. 
Br. F-
Beautifully written and much to think about. I am certainly guilty of using the line in a vaguely aspirational way. It is good and useful to think on it more deeply.
I also take this question in a Platonic sense a la The Symposium. Which is not the metaphysic of choice these days, to say the least. That there is a practice of beauty that goes beyond--way beyond--mere aestheticism. The latter uses beauty, as you suggest, as a kind of stimulant or even as a palliative. What does it mean to be raised up to *Beauty Itself*? Does that even make sense to us anymore? Probably not for most people. Though we may still get intimations of it when something beautiful does make us less self-centered and shallow, even if only for a fleeting moment.
It's been a while since I read The Idiot, but I think this question in the novel is made more complicated still. Prince Myshkin contemplates a decidedly unbeautiful painting, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by Hans Holbein. He does so at the residence of Rogozhin, an atheist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_of_the_Dead_Christ_in_the_Tomb
Myshkin says the one could lose one's faith looking at such a painting. Rogozhin responds that he has, in fact, lost his faith. It is safe to say that no Orthodox Icon painter would depict Christ in this manner. An icon painter would always paint Christ as beautiful. Christians believe Christ is God and therefore Beauty Itself. What does it mean to contemplate Christ as bearing what looks like nothing more than a brute, animal and therefore senseless death? What does it mean to confront that for any of us, Christian, atheist or otherwise? It is indeed a religious question, but not only that.
A quote from another atheist character, Ippolit, who says in reference to the painting:
"Nature appears to the viewer of this painting in the shape of some enormous, implacable, and dumb beast, or, to put it more correctly, much more correctly, strange though it is—in the shape of some huge machine of the most modern construction, which has senselessly seized, crushed, and swallowed up, blankly and unfeelingly, a great and priceless being—such a being as by himself was worth the whole of nature and all its laws, the whole earth, which was perhaps created solely for the appearance of this being alone! The painting seems precisely to express this notion of a dark, insolent, and senselessly eternal power, to which everything is subjected, and it is conveyed to you involuntarily."
So this brings up a deeper question about the meaning of our lives. It isn't merely about aesthetics, in the limited sense of the word. It asks what is beauty in a purely materialistic universe? Is it nothing more than a trick of the brain that can alleviate for us--for reasons we can never begin to explain let alone understand--the pain of the brute meaninglessness and absurdity of human existence? Or even why the universe exists at all rather than nothing? Does the deeper sense of beauty that we all experience and appears to connect us to the transcendent become a lie and a cruel joke?
It is worth considering. Though I don't see a simple way to answer any of those questions. There may not be an "answer" if we mean that in a kind of syllogistic, propositional sense. It is the question and answer of our whole life. This is what makes Dostoevsky so powerful to read.
Anyway, thank you for your beautiful and deep reflection. A lot to meditate upon. I hope you are well. -Jack
P.S. I wonder what Kierkegaard would have thought of all of this?
I read this lovely piece twice, so thanks for that.
Perhaps you are a little hard on the moorland observer, whose humility when truly *seeing* (including his place in the scene) I recognise from my own best moments of ‘shrinking’. If that makes sense.
I think this is your finest piece so far.
Perhaps I can follow the thread. The path down the valley suggests the way. Recognition of the beautiful can be like a visitation, sometime episodic and not easy to repeat. Recognition though can insert the beautiful into time. Recognise another form as beautiful, and it can sit up and take notice of you, which is a strange experience with implications for responsibility. (Anecdotal evidence.) Human minds nevertheless can insert different conversations, an internal mirror into reality. I like your illustration of Narcissus. We find ourselves often enough in the Hall of Mirrors, the mirror of words. The experience of being recognised by the beautiful nevertheless has a persistence and if we have the facility I would follow Simone Weil.
I don’t know if beauty will save the world but it definitely makes it more livable. It seems in late capitalism the objective is to turn everybody into quantifiable units. Beauty has the potential to cut through transforming the the world into a more qualitative experience. 
'The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the
heartbreaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.'
Robinson Jeffers, 'Credo'
https://poetrying.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/credo-robinson-jeffers/
Love comes to here in time
and numbers all the things
of Beauty in the house.
A single room is shown to be
- A unity, within and everywhere.
No point of view is stood apart.
No word is made to say,
This space is empty,
or, this place is full.
Only Light Itself Is Come
- a merest touch of Brightness
Neither mind nor body can deny.
It is the Heart's explanation of Reality.
It Is Reality, plain spoken to the Heart
and by the Heart alone.
It Is The Beautiful, Itself.
Truth is Beauty - Beauty Is Truth Keats
God is of course The Beautiful Itself - There is Only The Beautiful!