Good Lord Byot, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted brush of your praise.
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
Not uttered by base sale of chapmen's tongues.

(Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act 2, Scene 1.)

We are surrounded both by beautiful natural objects and creatures and also by some of the most beautiful human objects and actions of our own creativeness. A magnolia bud just about to open - a dancer on-stage - a butterfly feeding - Durham cathedral built by the fierce Norman conquerors of our island - and perhaps a phrase of music like the few notes on this page. We so often take all these things, and many more, for granted as part of our life and environment. But suddenly, in a moment - in a 'twinkling of an eye' - we 'see' and know the beauty of the dancer's movement, the butterfly foraging. But like many things that we 'see' the explanations of what has happened can be multiform!

The philosopher, David Hume, in 1757, famously said that, "Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." (Essay 23: "Of The Standard of Taste") By which he seems to have meant, not that beauty doesn't exist, but that, for him, the 'mechanism' by which we see beauty, was the mind. Nevertheless, as we have already said, 'beauty' is not something that necessarily stands out always in the daily run of things. The beholder has, somehow, to be 'in tune', in the right frame of mind, perhaps, for the mind to focus on what, in itself, could be said to have the lines of some genius etched within it. Some years ago I was on a train from London to Scotland which, as always, slowed down when passing through Durham station. There were a number of American tourists in the carriage who, obviously, were not on a cathedral tour as one person exclaimed on seeing this extraordinary building standing proud on top of the rock, 'Gee, is that the Town Hall?' (My American friends will forgive me this little anecdote!)

Hume would also have agreed that emotion plays a part in our sense of beauty. Today, as scientists seek to unravel all the pathways in the brain that interact with our bodies, it is beginning to be clear that the whole person is involved in making decisions and putting them into practice. So there is perhaps something to be said for the view that we - our 'complete' self - may have just such a desire - a 'thirst' - for the beauty that has just this moment been seen by me. And to the contrary, many distracting things in 21st century life can be said to be the inhibitors of beauty seen and acknowledged, blocking the receptors in brain and bodies.

But then, we need to ask, "What is it in the movement of the dancer which so greatly affects not only our emotions but our whole sense of 'perfection'?" In nature - the butterfly, for example - there has been a long process of selection through the origin of species. But for us humans to create great beauty is, for want of a better term, a matter of inspiration. Except the idea of inspiration seems, in general parlance, to mean something unworldly, and that we are simply instruments of some greater power - perhaps God? It is the same with our common understanding of 'genius' as, in a manner, detached from the ordinary form of human action and creation. But, as with our growing understanding of the intricacy and interpenetration of mind and body, the greater truth in the origins of 'beauty' lie in the abandonment of a person (even what we call a genius) to the drudgery, shall we say, of carving out stones, choreographing people and composing music.

Is there more to be said? Yes, if Hume would not mind a 21st century Christian linking the creation of beauty to the leadings of Christian faith and worship! The great cathedrals of Europe were built within the ambience of what was known then as Christendom. The cruelty of the Norman invaders in England could not annul the faith of their French architects and builders. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach led the way for several centuries of great music in both the catholic and protestant traditions. If that tradition came to an end at the beginning of the 20th century, architects and composers still look back to these foundational genii. The music of today has its roots even in J.S. Bach's extraordinary genius.

Obviously, not everything that was done in the name and in the spirit of Christian faith can be said to be beautiful. 'Beauty' by its nature, seems to belong to the isolated moment rather than to the whole. The first few bars of music on this page have that ring of authenticity, - (listen to them here) - the pattern of notes so spaced and gathered to sound a restless and 'aching' beauty beyond feeling. Something, not everything, in the great mass of Durham cathedral, shines out as 'beauty'. A great deal of classical music, even of Bach, cannot necessarily be said to have the lineaments of beauty that can touch our very being. Dance has its moments too! George Balanchine, the great Russian choreographer, composed over 400 ballets in America. But it is in a specific movement choreographed by such a genius, that claim us as the beholders of a spiritual beauty beyond the ordinary.

But we have to ask whether beauty is something that just 'happens' or whether there can be in the mind of the creator, whether divine or human, an authentic desire to make out of ordinary material something beautiful. Maybe there is no answer to this question. What begins as an ordinary action turns out to be beautiful. This happened to Jesus, according to Mark's account.

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they reproached her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me ..."(Mark 14: 3-6)

Maybe there is some sort of connection between spiritual awareness of the divine and beauty? For the beauty that can surprise us is not necessarily only the beauty that genius can make for us. It lies in our own nature to hope for the beauty that surpasses the down to earth aspects of life and the locked-in emotionalism of a nature that cries out for the 'real' - for the divine.

Copyright © Aelred Arnesen