ordinary beauty
Beauty doesn't always haven't to be glamorous--a fact I remembered as I read Jonathan Rée's article "Oh, tell me the truth about beauty." He profiles artist, Roger Scruton and his different take on beauty.
I especially like the last excerpt.
Excerpts:
Beauty may have its roots in simple sensuous enjoyment, but even at its humblest it appeals to something larger: a capacity to step back and pay attention, and a willingness to consider, compare and arrive at a judgment.
Beauty is not only a source of pleasure but also an ethical summons, requiring us to “renounce our narcissism and look with reverence on the world,” and offering intimations of the sacred even to those who have no truck with religious belief.
There is more to art than beauty. In his Autobiography, he described how, as a child growing up among artists, he learned “to think of a picture not as a finished product exposed for the admiration of virtuosi, but as the visible record, lying about the house, of an attempt to solve a definite problem in painting.” He realised that works of art, however beautiful they are, will fail if they are phoney, imperceptive, stupid or obtuse; and that works that disappoint the adepts of beauty may still articulate issues about the world and the way it presents itself to our senses. If a work does not achieve beauty, it may still bear witness to truth. [emphasis mine]
Painting by: Tina Fernandez seen at Art in the Dark, 2009