#190 - Beauty

Tell us what you think about beauty. Is it really in the eye of the beholder? Is it all around us, or only there if you look for it? What does beauty look like? What does is sound like? Feel like? Tell us what beauty means to you
“For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.”
Ivan Panin quotes


Doing a Google image search for the word beauty left me flat: ten pages, 210 images of which 201 of them were cookie cutter images of women’s faces. You know the same faces you see in fashion magazines such as Allure, Vogue, Fashion and Cosmopolitan. They all look pretty much the same with only slight variations. It’s as if the gurus of fashion have decided on what beauty is and there you have it; take it or leave it.
Well for all that, I’ll leave it, thank you very much. Those women are attractive enough I suppose but they don’t stand out from one another and so their image of beauty has become mundane for me.
Two hundred and one out of two hundred and ten images leave nine images that weren’t of the female face. There was one male face, if not ugly, then extremely homely and used as a poster to illustrate the cliché: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: maybe not! The remaining images: three landscapes, four objects of nature, i.e. dog, bird, flower etc... And one was of a print of a written Chinese character.
In a nut shell; according to Google Image, beauty is relegated to the female face.
If you are one to define beauty by a fuller image of the female form you might want to do an image search of the word pulchritude. There in you will find a greater variety of form and will certainly see something to peak your appreciation of the female form and perhaps you’ll relegate it to the place in your mind reserved for things of beauty.
The female form and countenance have a place in my mind that’s reserved for beauty but it must share that space with a wide variety of things which I find beautiful.
To me, beauty is a stimulus; a sensory stimulus that gives rise, inside of me, of pleasurable feelings : calm, awe, peace and tranquility. Things that bring comfort and pleasure to my mind, beautiful things include a vast array if sensory stimuli. Music, nearly all forms of music are, to me beautiful. Some are discordant and unpleasing to me, but I don’t listen to them. There is beauty in the love call of the loon, the caws of the crow and the scolding of the Blue jay. The warbling of the Baltimore oriole nesting amid the apple trees in the spring causes me to cease all and listen. I find beauty in landscapes, seascapes, sun rises and sunsets, in rain storms and snow falling, there is beauty in food; preparation and presentation. I enjoy flowers and ferns and gardens and weeds, forest and lakes, spiders and their webs, paintings and sculptures and well made wooden furniture and patina worn floors. Spring breezes caressing my skin are a beautiful sensation as is the splash of river water coming over the hull of a kayak. The moon and the stars mesmerize and fill me with awe they are so beautiful. The profusion of fall, resplendent in all her fancy dresses is a show stopper every year. The smell of dry leaves burning brings the beauty of my childhood flooding back. Split rail fences, stone fences, and picket fences are things of beauty. Grandpa Walton telling us his perceptions of Christmas is a beautiful oration. Erma Bombeck’s favorite child column is an essay of beauty that has spanned four generations and will endure even longer.
Let’s not forget babies and puppies, kittens and trees, mittens and bees, horses and goats and bottles of wine. My oh my, things of beauty are multitude. Oh, have I even mentioned the female form or face?
Faces, yes faces; I like old craggy faces creased and lined with age and wisdom, tragedy and pain. Old faces are the best. Following close behind are old books and castles and churches and antique tables and heirlooms of every sort and old coats that still fit and, and, and well darn it, there is just so much that is beautiful. It seems a shame to believe that only the young female face defines beauty.
Oh yes let’s not ignore women. Without heart, a women’s beauty is only skin deep. If she has heart, then her beauty is soul deep and will last forever.