How to nurture your sense of beauty

Friends,

In the Orient, art education is almost nonexistent. Even though governments still encourage people to learn and participate in the five virtues -- ethics, education, physical education, sociology, art -- in reality, only primary and secondary school students have painting and music lessons. Consequently, very few people -- including those in the education departments -- truly understand art and the real meaning of beauty. With the limited space here, let us discuss briefly what beauty is.

Simply put, when we visit a huge museum, a leading music hall, an old church or temple, or stand in front of a big cherry blossom tree, the famous Three Gorges in mainland China or the Yellow Mountain, we all have a feeling of beauty and tranquility in our hearts. Those admirable, peaceful, profound and delicate feelings can hardly be described by words. This kind of good feeling is beauty.

In ancient times, Greek philosopher Socrates said: "Beautiful things should be useful." He also explained: "If a beautiful looking house is not suitable for people to inhabit, then it cannot be considered as a beautiful architecture." I think the same theory goes for furniture and clothing. I agree with Socrates's philosophy to a certain extent, but this saying does not apply to natural scenery, plants and flowers.

Later, Socrates's student, Plato, stated: "Beauty gives us pleasure". This does not mean only beauty can please us because one can also get pleasure from eating good food or having sex, although this kind of pleasure belongs to the enjoyments of the body. The feeling of beauty excels actual human needs -- a kind of sentimental and spiritual appreciation. Of course, Plato's statement is somewhat controversial. In reality, he was a person who looked down on the body but respected soul -- nowadays, we call this platonic love. Plato's student, Aristotle, supplemented his teacher's doctrine by stating "Art should be realistic".

Most people believe if a painting looks real then it must be good. All the above mentioned philosophers' definitions of beauty was overturned a long time ago (at least in the Western art world). But in the Orient, we are still unable to discard this burden of imitating nature. People are not willing to face fact. In 1839, a Frenchman called Degiere invented a machine to capture nature -- the camera. If art is only nature copied, then all photographers would be great artists.

In my first letter, I explained that art's true aim is to create and to invent. Every art object is produced through an artist's personality, thus each art product must have one's identifying style. Take for example the works of Qi Bai-Shi and Picasso -- at a glance one can identify their personal styles. These were the true inventors and creators. Those who can only imitate nature or follow other masters' works religiously are only competing with photographers. At most, they are commercial artists.

Talk to you next time.

-- Kwo Da-Wei