“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” we are told by fellow citizens who may, when they offer that familiar cliché, be justifying a preference for mud wrestling over Monet. Or they may be academics engaged in the familiar, boring project of deconstructing and subjecting every last bit of beauty to the philosophical equivalent […]
From before most of us can remember we are soaked and steeped in the distinction between the town and the country. And as far back as Aesop we have been told that the ways of the city are not the ways of the country, and that, in fact, there is something about the country that […]
Some days, the cares of this world press hard upon us and our children. Frailties become undeniable as our minds crave rest, our bodies need healing, or loved ones need our immediate care. Isolation, loneliness, financial or work pressures, and world unrest can tumble us into suffocating torrents that threaten to take our breath away. […]
On the surface, the titular recommendation seems absurd. How can a gift shop provide an optimal avenue for encountering the beauty and meaning of art? Once the pedagogy of its design and the nature of its offerings are considered, the advice to start a trip to a museum with the gift shop will make more […]
Emerson was moved to pronounce this about beauty: “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting—a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God, for it is a cup of blessing.” Ancient Christian writers describe beauty as the splendor […]
I inherited a set of red-and-white china that belonged to my great-grandmother, each piece showing lovely, detailed prints of the “Castles of England.” I inherited the plates, coffee cups, saucers, soup bowls, and pasta bowls, but I have come to learn that the set includes even more pieces, including tea cups (different from the coffee […]
Should pleasure define our sense of beauty or should beauty define our sense of pleasure? This is the essential cultural question of The Divine Comedy, and that of our lives as well. Every person follows one or the other of its directives. The world treats beauty as the outgrowth of personal preference. Its definitions of […]
It might seem a little odd to begin a meditation on beauty and literature with a discussion of music. Yet such a discussion is necessary for an understanding of beauty in general and the way that it is made manifest in the literary, visual, and musical arts. The Latin word musica has its roots in […]
I had occasion recently to go on a Sunday afternoon drive. Sunday afternoon drives used to be a fixture of American culture. I remember them from my childhood in southern California, when my parents would load my sister and me in the car and just take off. Driving today is a purely utilitarian activity: You […]
