Socrates Cafe of Teaneck, NJ May Meeting

Synopsis of a recent meeting
Topic: What is beauty?

The group explored the concept of art and beauty.

What is it that underlies all forms of art, from visual arts to music to dance to writing? Some felt it had to due with the human spirit. Good art expresses in a compelling way something about our humanity in a language that is not in our everyday vocabulary.

Beauty can be a property of both human creation and nature. It has an appeal that is "disinterested," that is, it is different from desire, yet it gives us pleasure beholding it, even if we don't need to possess it.

Many examples of art can be judged great by some and not others. Is this just a matter of taste or in the eye of the beholder or is there something objectively true about great art? Do connoiseurs possess sensibilities that most of us do not have? Can this be taught and refined? Ultimately, we like and are moved by what we like, regardless of what the experts judge and feel.

Children draw before they talk, make sounds, shape objects and construct things and so this desire to express onesself in a non-discursive language seems to be universal.

Once children become judged, they start to develop inhibitions about expressing themselves as creatively.

Time is needed to appreciate art, but in our busy lives, we often overlook and/or become anesthetized to the beauty around us: a leaf falling in a pool of rainwater being struck by a ray of sunlight.

If beauty is so ubiquitous, is there a dividing line between art and life in general? Is good art only in museums and concert halls or are artists trying to help us become creators of the art in life, the art of living life aethetically enriched?

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Questions?
Email me at: rhb1@aol.com
Richard