Today we’re going to meet another great writer belonging to the second generation of Romantic poets (he died at 26). When he was young he wanted to become a doctor but at 21 he abandoned medicine for poetry. All his life was characterized by his enduring and reciprocated love for Fanny Brawne.
T ask 1) Read A SHORT ACCOUNT of their thwarted love story.
Task 2) watch the trailer of the movie about Keats and Fanny Brawne’s romance: Bright Star (2009) Director: Jane Campion Cast: Ben Whishaw (Keats), Abbie Cornish (Fanny Brawne), Kerry Fox (Mrs Brawne), Paul Schneider (Charles Armitage Brown).
Here’s the beautiful love poem BRIGHT STAR. The next video is the last scene of the movie when Fanny Browne recites the poem Keats had written for her. She had just been given the news of his death in Rome.
As you know Keats moved to Rome hoping that the warmer climate would be beneficial to his illness, tuberculosis. The Keats-Shelley House curator takes a walk through some of the rooms of the museum and explains why this place is so important. One day, when in Rome you might decide to go there and visit it 🙂
Another poem worth reading you have in photocopy is the Ode to a Nightingale read by the actor of the movie Ben Whishaw.
As you can read in your textbook Keats believed in Beauty & the immortality of Art. His poetry claimed no moral or political purpose, thus anticipating the 19th century trend of ART FOR ART’S SAKE you have found in D’Annunzio & we’ll find in Oscar Wilde.
I end this post quoting the poet whose book of poems was found in Shelley’s pocket when he shipwrecked & died in the Gulf of Lerici.
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’, – that is all
We know on earth , and all we need to know.
ASSIGNMENT: either as a comment in Blog or oral in class: How much importance do people attach to beauty nowadays? What role does art play in your life?
If you want to read & present the poem in your textbook Ode on a Grecian Urn here’s a file that can help you.
The idea of beauty and the reaching to it is a main theme of our life. The contemporary society, especially the young people , gives a lot of important at the exterior aspect. The concept of beauty isn’t like the idea of the ‘ideal beautiful’ theorize by Winkelman in the ‘600 that represents the harmony and the balance of the figure; it’s a idea of beauty influenced by the fashion, the exterior model spreads by the mass media (exactly for this reason that are the young people that follows this phenomenon). This idea of beauty in fact changes its parameters depending on the roles of the fashion and this imply that changes with the years and with the place that we live. This phenomenon is caused by the felling of ‘appear’ to the others; not only about the physical aspect but also about the social level. This phenomenon shows the superficiality of our society that tends to judge the people only for their exterior aspect.
I was approach to the art since I was a child through my family that took me at a lot of museums and concerts; but the field that has played a important role in my life is the music. I start to play the trumpet when I was about 7 years old, I have been played it for 10 years and after I give up; but this long experience has given to me a lot of teaching and skills. I began to confront to the ‘world’ of the adult and especially the world of ‘work’ before at average of the other teen. The most important thing that the music teach to me is the ability to be calm concentrated: when I played in public I must put my fellings and anxiety away and I had to focused only at my exhibition. In the end I would say that the art in the form of the music has accompanied myself during my youth and if i could go back I certainly re-done this experience again.
I think that the word Beauty could refer to different things, not only to the physical aspect in general. We know that a lot of people nowadays are attracted by different objects that are apparently beauty. In this way people buy this type of objects and they not consider that these are really useful or they buy it only for their appearance. So we start to spend money only for the pleasure of collecting things that are beauty but also usefulness. Advertising help it showing on TV, posters and on radio only the beautiful side of the objects and not their utility. It is a sort of negative trend nowadays and, with this manner, we are going to not change it.
In my opinion most of the people are only attracted by the physical aspects of women and men. We can consider the fact that a lot of young people post on social network their photo half-naked to receive Likes and good comments on their “beauty”. It is conditioned again by the advertisement and by famous people. But for me the real beauty is not the physical aspect but the interior. One day the external aspect will end because it will grow old, but the interior beauty will remain the same for the rest of the years. In this way I don’t want to not consider the external beauty, because it is however important but, in my case, I fall in love with my girlfriend firstly because I was attracted by her beautiful personality and ideas, that, by me, these are the characteristics that make her different by the others girl (it is also very beautiful 🙂 ).
She is also…
In my opinion people give a huge importance to beauty nowadays. Beauty is one of the bases of our society, especially among the young people. It is a trend that shows itself on TV, in advertising, in fashion etc. It plays an important role even in some jobs!!! However, I don’t think that beauty counts only nowadays: It has ever been at the centre of our life. Just think of one of the most mentioned goddess of history: Venus, which is the mother of Greeks and Romans and the mother of nature.
We have just studied romantic poets and his poetry linked to the idea of beauty, but this theme appears in the work of middle-age poets like Dante( virtuous Beatrice),Petrarca (blond and blue eyed Laura) or Boccaccio.
Men, more than women, are attracted by the beauty of the other sex. It’s their own nature. In the end I think that this “phenomenon” is just made more obvious by the lifestyle of today.
And what about art? Does it have a role in my life? Definitely yes. Art is something special and unique because it can convey you an emotion that you were not looking for, a different point of view of the world or a meaning that changes with the person. My favorite kind of art are music and sculpture. When I play the guitar, I love the fact that I’m totally absorbed in what I doing.
“Men, more than women, are attracted by the beauty of the other sex. It’s their own nature”. Are you sure? Any evidence of that? I wouldn’t say so anymore! When you make such a statement you must give examples to SUPPORT YOUR IDEA.
I think that beauty nowadays is not only important, but it’s fundamental.
This is because in our society, if you watch some TV programmes it’s easier to find some showgirls performing a dance than a cultured person or an overachiever scientist speaking.
Also the news talk more about the gossip of the VIPs than about science’s discoveries or social problems for example.
The external beauty nowadays is more evaluated than in the past for me because of media, and it has a lot of repercussions in people’s life. There are a lot of cases of young girls that have tried to become similar to models, but these girls firstly have refused to eat and then they have become anorexic, a disease that damages not only the body but especially the brain.
And the same happens with teens that put make up on to look like actors or models, but I consider it really immature because in this way they want to show a personality that is really different from their true personality.
I have noticed that this obsession of beauty is common also in boys and I think boys are going to overtake girls in a near future. An example is given by football players who bring their beauty case in the changing rooms before the match to fix their hair. This is a recent phenomenon because few years ago football players didn’t have strange hairstyles and didn’t take care to their appearance like nowadays.
The role of art depends on which type of art we consider.
If we consider music I have to say that I really don’t like it so much and I don’t usually listen to music. Also art as paintings doesn’t fascinate me a lot but I like some painters as Van Gogh who impressed me when I went to Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and I liked a lot his paintings because he’s a genius to combine colours and to portrait the environment.
I like also photography, that I consider an art, but mostly of landscapes because I love landscapes and when I look at a photo I feel as I am inside it and as I can see nature in front of me.
I’m glad you like photography that is DEFINITELY an art! You should go to Villa Manin and see the exhibition of Capa. http://www.villamanin-eventi.it/mostra_capa.php
How much importance do people attach to beauty nowadays? What role does art play in your life?
Nowadays young people, especially girls spent a lot of time in front of a mirror thinking about how to dress also for go to school as if is the important thing in their life…I can take the example of my sister who get up about 25/30 minutes earlier than me in the morning because she has to choose her clothes.
Personally I don’t spend so much time in the morning for dressing because I wake up late and so I wear the first thing I found in the wardrobe.
Usually I spent my time choosing clothes if I have to get out in the afternoon or on saturdays evening, not for go to school.
However in my opinion the time that a person spent to prepare himself with make up or clothes is not the worst side of this phenomenon of conformism which young people try to follow.
There are more impressive example of problem that afflict young people who are trying to reach these ideal model of beauty, especially among girls, because are more vulnerable than boy, are more suggestible by a negative comments.
This attempts often push women at the condition of anorexia or bulimia to imitate the models, I think it’s also probably that exist some form of depression because of this.
Saying this i don’t mean that I would prefer a world of messy people, but that we can always find the right balance with the time we dedicate to our beauty without exaggerate.
Regarding the role of poetry in my life I have to say that It haven’t a lot of space, well I listen a lot of music and read a lot of books, but about poetry like the one of Keats or similar I have to say that after a while make me sad or bored because they talk about always about love or about how much life sucks.
For me people nowadays think that beauty is one of the most important qualities that someone can have. In our society we take care a lot about our appearance to look more beauty tending to neglect people that don’t do it. I think that it can be seen by the huge use of cosmetics and beauty products in particular by women but also by men. For me people use them to make a good impression at first sight.
Beauty is subjective and it depends from person to person. The majority of young people especially, dresses following the latest fashion buying all clothes from the same famous brands. Doing this they all look as released from the molds.
Another thing that is growing quickly in the latest years is the cosmetic surgery. I am opposed to it because I think people need to learn to like them for who they are.
Art in my life doesn’t occupy a special role because I’m not very interested in it. I like watching sculptures, paintings and works that men made because I think that you have to have a good imagination, a lot of skill and some special quality to make them but I watched art only rarely when I went to museums.
Pity you believe art is only to be WATCHED 🙁
Beauty is a wide word with a lot of different meaning, but nowadays when someone asks you if someone is beautiful, the first and, most of the time, the unique thing that we think about is the physical appearance: blond or dark-haired, thin or fat, short or tall, with pretty face or a monster; and than we look how she/he’s dressed pretty face or a monster; and than we look how she/he’s dressed smart or like a homeless, and from all this examinations we decide is this person could be acceptable or not. That’s the problem , the first appearance is what really matters, and if you’re a brilliant person but you look shabby, no one will be interested in your skills. The concept that nowadays we have lost is that beauty is not just physical appearance and is not an elite thing:”Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it”. – Confucius. Beauty is in physical appearance, in the personality, in the soul people. Maybe people who are less beautiful outside, inside are awesome people, more beautiful inside than other outside..
Now about art, well art in general (literature, history of art, painting), the one that we study in class is really boring, it’s so far from us, difficult to understand, but music, every kind of music, even the twittering or the sound of the waves smashing oh the shore are masterpiece and they transmit emotions, or a memory. Also photographs are art, black and white pictures, blurry ones, picture taken with out sense; when you see them again they transmit you flood of feeling emotions, which only art can help us to fell again.
How much importance do people attach to beauty nowadays?
Surely too much!!! We are continuously corrupt by beauty during our life. The appearance is ever the first thing that strikes us in a person that we meet for the first time. In less than 10 seconds we have our first impression of that person and we normally decide if he/she is a “failed” or one that could be interesting to know (first impressions describe only physically the character that we have ahead, giving us a sort of prediction of who we’ll going to be familiar with. Obviously if we want to have an idea about the person we have to spent time to knows him/her).
I don’t want to say that judging without know, or looking only to the appearance, is the right way to approaching with other people, should be in fact exactly the opposite the right method to know a person. At first we should talk with him/her understand who he/she is and create a sort of judgment with his ideas not with his beauty. Unfortunately we get often sidetracked by what we see without thinking to what it really is.
Appearance is the first things that other see when look at you, is your “business card”, more beautiful you are more occasions you we’ll have. Then is your fault show that you are not only good looking but you are a man. Is sad to say but I think that is almost right.
What role does art play in your life?
Art have not a big role in my life, I like music but I’m not a real fun, I listen a bit of all the different kind of music. I like paintings and sculptures but I’m not a critic so I can have only personal ideas for sure not necessary corrected. I like more architecture maybe cause big things like church or particular buildings “leave me without air”. So I think that be interested in art is a majestic way to spend our time, also if we have few time to spend.
I see art as a way to transmit emotions, facts, and the artist’s point of view, through paintings, buildings and statues, and it causes astonishment and admiration. Nowadays I think that we give a bit too much importance to our appearance instead of giving it to our true essence. The idea of “beauty” has evolved in the last years, and for me the television has an important role in it: we’re so used to see beautiful women in TV and magazines that our idea of “beauty” has raised, provoking the purchase of cosmetics aiming to achieve that perfect idea of beauty, deleting every imperfection of our body. For me, it’s mainly a matter of self-esteem, which lacks in a lot of people nowadays.
Unfortunately nowadays most people are interested in only beauty. When we see something or someone, the first thing that we note is the aspect, if we like it/him or no. The worst thing in this way of seeing the world is that people start to be different by what they are really. They are false because they would like to be in a way, but they think that the opinion that people have on them is more important, so they sacrifice their own personality and idea of beauty only the be popular and appreciated. They seems to be robots or computers because they “delete” their ideas and their point of view and their “install” the once that their friends want whenever is necessary to be popular.
Fortunately not all people have this idea, but the number of them is lowering. However I think that these people live in a better way instead false people, because they do what they want and they don’t live keeping attention to preserving the image that they have created of themselves. Moreover they would certainly find something good in everything, so probably they will be more happy.
If when I speak of art, I speak of music, art has an important role in my life, in fact I listen it a lot during the day, and it helps me not to forget some moments of my life, in fact if I’m listening a song while something particular is happening, I will remember that thing every time I will listen that song again. Moreover music helps me to relax when I’m tired, and some songs help me to change my mood remembering me some facts, or because they sounds in particular ways.
I somehow agree with you and believe that the shallow people, conformist and opportunist you mention, are not as serene as those who are consistent, sincere and follow their ideas & ideals, often paying high prices.
Please it’s LISTEN TO 😉
I think that certainly nowadays people give to external/ physic beauty much more importance than centuries ago. We are bombarded in the magazine or TV by these images of people that are considered wonderful and we would like to be like them. A frail person that have low self-confident would say: why not be like them? They are considered by other, everybody respect them, they are famous, and they have a simpler life because they are beauty! But rationally I think that these are all lies. Because I could achieve consideration and respect of the other also, and even better, through my behavior, pleasantness, kindness and all that adjectives that are referred to my interior beauty. External beauty is simply the first thing that we see in a person before to start talking and relate to him/her. But actually we don’t know this person; we simply know his/her image. It’s hard not criticize someone that from our point of view is esthetically strange, because wears cynical or too much colored clothes, or have fluo hair and others. But I think: if they like themselves who am I to judge them? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. So beauty is subjective, but more of that we have to make sure that this eyes which are watching the beauty are our own eyes watching ourselves. So, I don’t mean to be narcissist, but simply feel good about ourselves, because don’t be in this way could bring us to self-destruction. How could other like you if even you don’t like yourself? Well I think that everyone has a part of his body that don’t like so much and maybe thinks our better it would be if that part would be different. But as so many poets and artist of the past have said, beauty don’t last forever, is temporally, what really remains even when we will be older are our knowledge and our behavior. So that, the interior beauty, is what really makes us who we are. We could change our external beauty, or try to hide imperfection using make up, different hair-cut, brand clothes to be “cool”. In this way people would relate to you easier but the truth is that if you have a horrible behavior or attitude, this people would with the same simplicity go away from you because they have seen that your internal beauty is not so “beauty”.
About art… I don’t consider myself an “artist”, I am more rational and I consider that one of my defects, I feel near art only when I’m really inspired in it and mostly near dance . Anyway when I’m inspired I like art, because poetry, sculptures, pictures, paintings, dance and music and all the other things that are considered art, have the power to make you feel understood by them or to help you to convey feelings that in reality you can’t express. I think art is as a channel of feelings that represents the interior beauty and connects it to reality and to others.
dance is definitely one of the purest forms of art. I like your last statement 🙂
I really like the art , everyone knows it and never understand why, they find it a boring thing . I like art because is beautiful and Wilde is right to say “art for art ‘s sake ” because it expresses aesthetics’ already in colors , on how they are placed on the canvas and not just for the subject that it represents . Not everything that is beautiful must also be reasonable. But we must go even a little ‘ over this … in my opinion to see the body of a woman painting on a canvas is not just the beauty that one can observe in women, but it is also a memory, a whim of something mischievous that the artist wanted to share with others. Beauty is a necessary thing for an artist , the aesthetic is his duty . In time, however, not everything has remained to be an idealized beauty like that of neo-classicism but the concept of beauty has become in many other ways and meanings. It is not only what is pleasing to the eye as a body or a majestic landscape , but it can also be something invented that does not exist and that it can evoke in people a sense of beauty , which can be within, and that can transpire in a detail not necessarily have to be all and idealized. Monet does not represent the reality as it is and yet its water lilies are the most beautiful in the world. The more commercial Van Gogh is that everyone knows who represented landscapes that are not at all close to reality and yet is the best known because his real art was the color and for him it was the beauty. Picasso did not draw a woman as it was but it brought out the character from its representation which for him was the most beautiful and magnificent. The same is found in Keats: his beloved was not exactly a Hollywood actress like Liz Taylor, but he described her finding the highest and most magnificent words that a person would not even have been able to say because she was beautiful for him, although not a Victoria secret angel, because his art was in his character and he has decided to represent that. The same happens in the life of every day, a boy, a girl, fall in love with someone just because they are not perfect but because for them the beauty is in imperfection and character, however, and this makes him say “she/he is beautiful” and this I think expresses everything. Because art is always, at the end, love, love for something that is not necessarily good for everyone but it is for us , the more we find something beautiful more we want it . Recently we always give more importance to what is beautiful outside because it exists in consumerism thing, now we’ve taken too much care of this and we always try to show more of what we are worth not only through the actions but through the beauty that is ostentatious and sought in every single person to feel safe and worth. This leads the search for the perfect beauty and not that of the flaws that make it special and unique a person.
You’ve mentioned all my favorite artists 🙂
In my opinion beauty is an important contemporary theme. Nowadays there are a lot of people that based their life of beauty and appearance. This style of life was also during the Victorian age in England. In this period beauty was fundamental. Honestly in my life beauty has a important role. When at the morning i get up one of my thought is: Wich clothes can i wear today? I usually pay attention to my appearance but i think that it’s more important how a person is. I love spend my free time with my friends not because they are good looking but because they are fantastic people.
In my life art has a normale role: i listen a tol of music by my mobile phone but i usually don’t go to museum or some art galleries. One thing that i usually do since i was child is read some quotation of important people (Shakespeare, Wilde, Schopenhauer, ecc )
See u 🙂
Schopenhauer said that art is the way that we had to escape from our normal life. Music is the medicine of our soul.
*have
What is a NORMAL role? What is normal for you may be abnormal, excessive, over the top or insufficient to me 😉 You should develop a bit more your thoughts. Why not use some of your beloved quotations?
In my opinion nowadays beauty has a very important role in our society and for this reason everyone try to appear as beautiful as possible to attract attention and to have some advantages.
For this reason both men and women spend lot of time using beauty products.
All this is the consequence of a society who prefer, in lot of cases, good-looking persons to the clever ones. This involve that everyone can aspire to an important role in the society, even who’s not too much clever, and for this reason the message that young people receive is “the more beautiful you are, the more important you’ll be”. That’s completely wrong.
In my opinion one person might became rich, famous and powerful only if he is clever or he has done something very important for the society, absolutely not because his beauty.
The same must happen in politics so only capable person will be the leader or member of the parliament of a state. The statistical data that we notice more is that in the last year people who had a plastic surgical intervention is increased by the 20% and this means that even in difficult period people want to appear beautiful to the other with the hope that someone notice them.
Personally I think that art is essential in the life because it gives the opportunity to have a break from the quotidian life. I also think that music is one of the greatest kind of art because it conveys lot of feelings in a text and in a sound, for this reason I love listen music and I try to do this whenever I can.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a concept expressed by certain English writers and poets. This idea was first expressed in ancient Greek. Shakespeare proposed the same sentiment in his comedy Love’s Labours Lost in the line: ” […]Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye […]”.
I totally agree with these two quotations because i think that everyone has their own idea of what is beautiful and each one of us gives more or less importance to this quality in a person or in an object (paintings, sculptures, jewels and so on..).
I personally perceive two kinds of beauty in a man or in a woman: the first is the physical aspect and the second is the beauty of his or her personality and character. I appreciate the first type very much because it is more immediately obvious and because it takes longer to understand someone’s character and inner beauty.
Referring to a work of art I believe that something is beautiful if it makes you feel some emotion.
In modern day society a lot of importance is given to physical beauty and the presence or the lack of this characteristic can make the difference to a person’s fortune in life. For example, one month ago I saw a video made by “Le Iene” in which two girls (one beautiful and one not so beautiful) asked someone if they could use their mobile phone to make a call. The result of this test was that the nice one had a lot of chances compared to the other.
Art like poetry doesn’t have an important role in my life.
WHY? never asked yourself?
Do you agree with the fact that a girl is chosen just because she looks more attractive?
I think that nowadays “beauty” is one of the most important things for people. As you said I won’t write things that my friend have already written before me. But I think that people makeup or dress in some ways (that maybe they don’t really like) not only to appear more handsome that what they think they are for the other people, but also for them when they are looking theirself at the mirror. They take motivations and courage, so they seem more strong than what they really are and have a kind of personality to behave in a certain way. People also on social network post a lot of photos of them (usually redoing these a lot of times, so they could choose the best) portraying them in a different way than how they are in reality.
About art, I hate going to museums of art, but if art is music I really love it. Always when I listen a song I match it with a special moment that the song remember me and I listen music whenever I can, matching my state of mood to a certain kind of it.
Did you know there’s a new word to define the phenomenon/habit/trend you mentioned?
It’s called SELFIE the taking of a picture of yourself and posting it on Facebook because you have extremely low self-esteem and you need people to comment to tell you how hot or pretty you look. In reality you just look desperate for attention.
What’s art? That’s rather difficult to say, especially today, since the usual classic canons of art have gone lost or nearly so. Now, painters, sculptors, writers… have different challenges to face than two centuries ago: there is no actual representation of reality anymore, a painter must paint something different, unusual to be successful, since we live in a society that seeks differences (and since from the outside we look very similar one to another, painters look for emotions and abstract paintings), so they try with strange images, that sometimes we don’t understand and that would have been considered awful in the near history of mankind. The same happens with writers: fantasy books were not even considered books a century ago, now they are the most sold. Examples like these fill our life, plenty of times I’ve heard somebody saying that you can’t consider art or pay for some sketches on a canvas; I had a similar thought about works by Jackson Pollock, but then I saw “Number 31” at MOMA (http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/inside_out/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/JP_blog2.jpg) and I changed my mind. I thought it would have been depressing to see it, but then I felt overwhelmed by the painting, it was not just splashes of colour, but it was art.
The fact is that nowadays to be an artist you need to have an idea, it doesn’t matter if you can paint, or write…, or you can’t; Pollock was great because he had the courage to do something different, because in the age of Leonardo or Caravaggio, he would have been mocked by everybody, but he was brave enough to change art, “because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do”. That’s the essence of art, and it is so now as it has always been, because art has to make us dream and flee from reality, and since our vision of the world changes every day, also art has to be dynamic. So no wonder if art has changed and it is not like in the Renaissance.
Said that, I don’t mean that everything is art, but some items can be considered so; obviously they take less concrete commitment to be made, but since art is not only concreteness, but also abstractness, we can’t judge just this.
I often had the exact same feeling in front of some pieces of art I had just imagined or seen in books.
Filippo your comment is brilliant & to the point. You grasped the essence & evolution of ART; art as INNOVATION, as deviation from conventional codes, no matter how.
I’m very impressed with your depth of thought! I must tell you that in this balance between your analytic/logical/scientific approach and your humanistic knowledge I see the success of our Liceo Scientifico PNI educational system. Thanks for giving me constant positive feedback 🙂
I think that nowadays beauty is one of the most important things that people try to reach. Firstly I have to say that there are two beauties: internal beauty (spiritual) and external beauty (physical).
Most people give too much importance at external beauty. It’s like an obsession, they live with the desire to become more beautiful. I’m not crazy about beauty, it isn’t my first purpose when I wake up in the morning. I think it’s right taking good care of oneself but with the right middle path.
I very disagree with plastic surgery unless it’s necessary for the health of the patience. In my opinion I can’t understand why people use it. Maybe they want to looks like a model because just the way they are, they didn’t like themselves and that’s the wrong message that society brings to us:
“beauty is the most importance thing, and without it, we are worth less”.
It’s important having a good self-esteem to understand our qualities because everyone has unlimited qualities and everyone can give something to this world.
About the role of art in my life, well it depends what is art. If art is music, making a great shoot in a football match or seeing a rainbow in the sky, I say yes, art has a great role in my life while if art is poetry, it doesn’t have a great space in my life.
WHY? Is it because you don’t like it or you are not used to?
I chose a scientific school, I chose PNI, I like more scientific subjects and sincerely I studied poetry because I have to do it. Saying this, I didn’t hate poetry but I prefer other subjects and in my free time I do other things that aren’t absolutely connected with the poetry’s world. 🙂
In my opinion the majority of people (especially the young section) bestow quite a lot importance to beauty.
However they do this “thinking” to the “exterior” part, the glare.
Indeed nowadays it’s perhaps more considerable stand out than go to show the inside part of himself, where, I believe, it’s hidden the real beauty, that which contains the truth “ego”.
In fact if someone, for example, is outmode or dresses in an “alternative” way, he/she would be probably picked on by peers, and for this he/she resorts to care about the glare: thus most of people follow the crowd disguising their true “core” (therefore the beauty).
Another example is, (even if I’m not a girl! 😉 ), the away use of external beauty by girls (whole face make-up and I don’t know where it’s applied to!).
So we can see of a person the exterior part (each one with different eyes) and to know effectively his/her, we have to talk with and not to judge by watching.
What role does art play in my life?
It’s difficult to say, because I think “art” is generic, and can be interpreted in different ways, seeing that art, today, can be, for instance, “photography”, and if it is, has a little of importance for me.
Anyway if for art I mean paintings, sculptures, etc., has a certain role too, as these gave me a statement of the past, and I nearly always appreciate the works of artists, because in each work there is a lot of meaning and art create something into us, a nice pleasure.
The desire to CONFORM to the pack that you have mentioned IS VERY SAD BUT UNFORTUNALTELY TRUE! Things can always change for the better though.
I really love art, to me it’s one of the few authentically sincere things one person can create. But I’m not like the aesthetes, or the neoclassicistics. To me art is not something to be prattling about, is something to do, to live. To all those people who write tons of papers about art “Do some art instead of blabbering so much”.
About beauty…
I’ve always been interested in social psychology, since before high school when I brought to my Exams a thesis about persuasion, intended as ‘an active method of influence that attempts to guide people toward the adoption of an attitude, idea, or behaviour by rational or emotive means (Wikipedia)’, related to wars and why they happen to exist. While I was looking around the Internet for informations, I read about a related topic in the field of social psychology: the halo effect. It’s basically a theory about how our opinions on people are affected by appearances. When we see a person for the first time, a girl for example, we know nothing or very little about her personality, and all we have to judge her is her look, because it’s what we see first. So, even before having talked to her, we unconsciously attribute her some traits basing on our perception of her. If she’s attractive, we may attribute her positive characteristics; if she looks dowdy, ordinary or even ugly, we’ll probably associate to her negative characteristics.
Scientists say that that’s a biologic habit. We pay attention to other’s attractiveness when we’re looking for a sexual partner and when we want to detect possible rivals, beautiful persons our partner might be attracted from.
Another interesting thing is that we also attribute positive characteristics to someone we see in the company of a beautiful woman (in the case of a men) or a handsome man (in the case of women).
Besides, once we get to know him or her more, it happens just the reverse. We get influenced by the personality, and if we think that he’s a pleasant person we are also unconsciously led to think that he/she’s a little bit (or a lot) more beautiful than he/she actually is.
We could conclude that in the world we live in beauty has a big influence, but that it’s not good and not wealthy paying too much attention to it. Judging people by their ‘cover’ is unavoidable, we are genetically led to do it. But we should try not to be such a hurry when judging people, and learn to appreciate real beauty, which to me has very little to do with the body, or the haircut, or make-up, or the overall appearance. I’m not saying that natural beauty doesn’t have any influence on us, because it do has. But I know girls who definitely aren’t the most pretty girls in the world, and they are just beautiful to me, because their smile makes me want to smile, and their eyes make me happy every time I look at them. I think it’s very important for us and for our social life to see this beauty in the people we meet in your life. Not just the physical beauty. The beauty that matters, the one that you remember.
We give too much weight to people’s judgements, to what they could think of our appearance. We shouldn’t. People would judge anyway, however we act or look. So why we bother ourselves so much? Screw it. The most important thing is to discover and appreciate real beauty in the most important person of your life: yourself.
I found this amazing video that it’s just perfect to explain what I mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk
I totally agree with you Gaia and found your comment very consistent. I had already watched that video (on FB!) and love it. It’s true that women tend to have very low self-esteem and very few are satisfied with the way they look 🙁
As you say “Beauty” goes FAR BEYOND imperfections, asymmetries & flaws … actually those are the features some artists & photographers look for & desperately seek! And Keats’ letters and his endless love for Fanny support that idea.