My thoughts on beauty developed a lot in the course of this journal. In writing three back to back entries on the subject, I think I came to a few conclusions. It is better that I entirely summarize and not quote myself much at all.

I am considering now that there are three types of beauty:

1. Perfective Beauty
2. Aesthetic Beauty
3. Assigned Beauty

I think ( Read more... )

It seems to me that there may be a difference between the statements, "She has beauty," and, "She is beautiful." If a man or woman is naturally beautiful, this says nothing about the person him- or herself, only about the outer body. Yet previously, in my thinking, I came to somewhat of a conclusion that beauty is good and pure and desirable. A ( Read more... )

Now if beauty is what causes, "all at once, pain and longing and adoring," something isn't quite right, for I do not have any desire or longing for every work of art that I might find beautiful. But perhaps this is no conflict at all. Perhaps it is what is beautiful in the painting -- some abstract ideal -- that I long for, not the painting itself ( Read more... )

This is a topic for which I do have not figured out much, but something which I have considered often ( Read more... )