I love this column, Mr. Brooks. Thank you for writing it.
38
David, give me a break. Before long you will be telling us that one Washington's Values' is beauty. As you put it in your closing, I doubt there is no relationship for any 'good' you find in Washington and beauty. Soon O will propose a few billion for his 'beauty' project. It would be better spent then the few billion O wants for driver less cars. Think about it, the federal government telling us what 'beauty' is. No wonder the electorate is angry.
8
Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn: "Beauty is truth; truth beauty, - that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
24
Thank you, David, for sharing your moment of beauty. I could hear the lark ascending.
34
I dare say, some modern art is... Degenerate?
Mr. Brooks, now that you have focused your critical gaze on the world of art, I will look forward to an article which condemns modern practice with any specific details whatsoever. And perhaps a preview what the NEA will be funding during the Cruz administration, now that Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light™ has left us.
Mr. Brooks, now that you have focused your critical gaze on the world of art, I will look forward to an article which condemns modern practice with any specific details whatsoever. And perhaps a preview what the NEA will be funding during the Cruz administration, now that Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light™ has left us.
19
There are modern things that can have grace as well. I'll give you one example of an urban, modern art form that appeals to a sense of aesthetics: Parkour.
13
1
All you say is true, but what you don't seem to see is where you stand in this. You have an apartment that overlooks a dance studio. Most of the bottom 50% have apartments with a view of a brick wall, or a crack house, or a bodega with homeless folks standing around smoking — or if they're outside a city, a view of the back side of a strip mall or an auto shop. Would that everyone had room in their life to pursue beauty. The folks that your party neglect are pretty busy just trying to chase down a buck to pay the next month's rent. Your essay, while true, smacks of someone who is finishing up a great meal with a sip of port and musing about the importance of food pantries.
61
Tell us again why you are a conservative Republican, Mr. Brooks.
20
I am always surprised when Republicans talk about Art…..it would be amusing if it was not so tragic. They are the ones responsible for having slashed art & music from OUR schools and treat all the arts as trivial and unnecessary pastimes for the un-patriotic. I encourage everyone to experience art but to be lectured by a member of the GOP about Art is offensive to me….what a waste of valuable editorial space. Maybe give the space to an artist to use instead of Mr Brooks who has not studied/lived a life in the Arts.
48
Thank you David. Thank you.
14
David Brooks! Channeling your inner voyeur. Plate glass is indeed transformational.
5
"May you walk in beauty." Traditional Navajo Blessing.
39
One of Brooks' best columns, ever! Thanks!
22
Worthy thoughts, to be sure. However, art need not display surface attractiveness in order to be meaningful or even "transformational," to "arouse thought and spirit." Consider Robert Gober's take on plumbing fixtures: simultaneously a reference to Duchamp and to the AIDs crisis, not to mention "arrestingly beautiful"—to some. Or, thinking of Brooks's invocation of dance, Yvonne Rainer's questioning of what "beauty" in movement might be—especially when it has gendered aspects—is more nourishing and beautiful to some than Swan Lake. Siri Hustvedt's "The Blazing World" and Claire Messud's "The Woman Upstairs" are both searing and uncompromising—including in regard to matters of gender—rather than "pretty," and all the stronger for it. One might argue, then, that surface seduction risks serving as a palliative, rather than arousing genuine "thought and spirit." At least some of the time. I doubt I am the only one reading the romantic description of ballet dancers who wonders what roles might be granted or denied to the (uninvited, it seems) spectator and the art makers, and what matters of "thought and spirit" are overlooked in this scenario.
5
“John O'Donohue, a modern proponent of this humanistic viewpoint, writes in his book 'Beauty: The Invisible Embrace': 'Some of our most wonderful memories are beautiful places where we felt immediately at home.'"
Edmund [addressing his father]: You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea. Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself -- actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. ...
~ Eugene O'Neill, "Long Day's Journey into Night"
Edmund [addressing his father]: You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea. Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself -- actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. ...
~ Eugene O'Neill, "Long Day's Journey into Night"
17
Lovely column this morning. I was expecting you to write about the debate last night - this was much more uplifting. Thanks
12
Please! Make your topics smaller and provide some concrete examples for your points. Your columns are worse than cotton candy. They dissolve in the mind as ones reads them and we are left with a silver tongued nothingness.
18
David's midlife crisis continues.
18
How true; all of the truth of science and math, by explaining things to make them comprehensible, pale in comparison when we transcend ourselves in poetry; without it, our human spirit would wither and die. Beauty is truth, truth can be as well.
9
Well, well, well I never dreamed I'd be commenting on a David Brooks article--thank you, sir. It feels so good to read what you've so beautifully penned here, inspiring me to go back into the studio and continuing the work I had abandoned due to the fact that I, dance artist and professor of the form, had allowed the world to become "... too much with us."
My entire raison d'être, spanning 5 decades of performing, choreographing and teaching young minds and bodies about the beauty of beauty, came to a halt when my own Sisyphus- like stone became just too heavy to force up the hill any more -- "post humanist" multitudes of folks just didn't want to spend the time, effort or depth of personal involvement required in the art/dance process of mining toward refining that the creative form demands, settling instead, for the quicker fix of 'sort of like art' activity, rather than the art that nudges us to our 'higher selves.'
It comforts me to know that through a casual encounter with human movements' power of suggestion you were inspired to deepen to your human 'center' and scatter, like spindrift, the ramifications of your inspiration. Your words have re-ignighted my too long dormant urge 'to speak;' to communicate, through the use of unfailingly beautiful human movement, the much of my perceptions of beauty -- abounding, exuberant, generous beauty. Oh, that our "politicians" of the day could be so effected.
Many thanks!
My entire raison d'être, spanning 5 decades of performing, choreographing and teaching young minds and bodies about the beauty of beauty, came to a halt when my own Sisyphus- like stone became just too heavy to force up the hill any more -- "post humanist" multitudes of folks just didn't want to spend the time, effort or depth of personal involvement required in the art/dance process of mining toward refining that the creative form demands, settling instead, for the quicker fix of 'sort of like art' activity, rather than the art that nudges us to our 'higher selves.'
It comforts me to know that through a casual encounter with human movements' power of suggestion you were inspired to deepen to your human 'center' and scatter, like spindrift, the ramifications of your inspiration. Your words have re-ignighted my too long dormant urge 'to speak;' to communicate, through the use of unfailingly beautiful human movement, the much of my perceptions of beauty -- abounding, exuberant, generous beauty. Oh, that our "politicians" of the day could be so effected.
Many thanks!
32
This column was arrestingly beautiful. Many thanks.
19
I live in a small town. We have a wonderful Art Director. John has been able to keep our little gallery open for a decade with the very funds David is suggesting we should achieve "obliquely".
Our country is slow in realizing the importance of art as a tool to teach us the importance of beauty,spirituality, how it affects us emotionally. We keep defunding the arts and exploiting our young minds to appreciate sports as the art of our time. How sad.
Sorry David, but it is not going to happen by wishing the artists would inspire the population to contribute to the arts. It is the same old tired Republican response to all things. If we just allow the private sector to take over they will do right by the country and it's population. Sadly it just isn't so!
Our country is slow in realizing the importance of art as a tool to teach us the importance of beauty,spirituality, how it affects us emotionally. We keep defunding the arts and exploiting our young minds to appreciate sports as the art of our time. How sad.
Sorry David, but it is not going to happen by wishing the artists would inspire the population to contribute to the arts. It is the same old tired Republican response to all things. If we just allow the private sector to take over they will do right by the country and it's population. Sadly it just isn't so!
24
Are we all reading the same opinion piece? Thanks David for the invitation to take a deep breath and re-visit all the beauty around us. It's not just in the museums; it's in nature and yes, kids and ballerina's, and storms and music and hustling streets. And it is transformative.
After my father died, during the lowest point in my life, I held on to hope by believing, in due course, I would see beauty and joy in this world. I waited, and watched, and one lovely spring morning saw all that and more in a string of diapers stretched out on a clothesline.
Beauty is a gift. After reading some of the comments, I'm thinking maybe one has to be a little enlightened to receive it.
After my father died, during the lowest point in my life, I held on to hope by believing, in due course, I would see beauty and joy in this world. I waited, and watched, and one lovely spring morning saw all that and more in a string of diapers stretched out on a clothesline.
Beauty is a gift. After reading some of the comments, I'm thinking maybe one has to be a little enlightened to receive it.
54
I admit I had to look up numinous. I naively thought that Brooks meant beauty is luminous, which it often is. If beauty is tied to religion, as numinous suggests, than it is no wonder that it is out of favor in the US these days. The dominant far right political vision of God has no more to do with beauty than it does with compassion, focusing instead on control and entitlement. As we lean further toward a Puritanical resurgence the God given right to plunder, exploit and conquer the environment and all earth's inhabitants, man and beast, triggers continuing degradation of the original source of beauty on the earth, that being nature. Dance, visual art, music - all manipulated expansions on naturally occurring phenomena. If indeed the US is entering a post humanistic era it is not by accident but by design of a particular political party which sees no need for beauty, or at least shared beauty, just domination and exclusivity. To these people humanists with their undeniable link to secularism are high on the list of people to be dominated or, for all intents and purposes, removed from relevant society.
20
So, Art is, or should be, about Beauty. Our "humanist" history of art, moving beyond didactic and moralistic representations of religious tropes, was focused on the sublime, the contemplation of little humans in a natural environment that was large and indifferent. Awe, and a little terror, that invite us to step beyond our restricted world views. That is the Truth that Keats, dying a horrible death of TB, is referring to. Brooks seems to be on the side of kitsch, art that reassures us there is no death, no decay. As a counterpoint, review Hobbes' "Leviathan," chapter 12 ("Nasty, brutish and short").
8
I just love these Brooksie philosophical articles! But just try to compare all of this "beauty philosophy" to the tone of last evening's GOP debate.
25
My grandchildren are growing up being taken taken to concerts, museums, butterfly farms, arboretums, national parks and so many other places where beauty abounds. Their parents try hard to instill in them an appreciation of beauty in all its forms and they do not yet realize how lucky they are. Although children can be resourceful in finding beauty and wonder in the most mundane objects and experiences, it is heart rending to think that for so many children growing up in dire poverty, or in conflict zones the most beautiful things are food, shelter, and safety. The other kinds of beauty have to wait.
32
One man's meat is another man's poison - Brooks has an old-fashioned idea of Beauty, i.e. "Pretty."
16
The Greek word you want is kallos--uplifting, transformative beauty--sometimes to be found in familiar places, sometimes unexpected. Events and experiences that transport us beyond ourselves. We know that art can give this, love and spirit as well. What art today makes clear is that even the most ordinary things can transport us, open us to the unknown. It shows us that the contemporary world may many problems, but it does not lack.
28
Any designer working to create "something grittier and more confrontational" will work for it to be aestically "arresting." Even the ugly can be beautiful in this sense.
Remember the paradox: How can ruthless killers also have great aesthetic sensibilities - (How could Nazis appreciated the beauty of Beethoven?)
But in the main, your article is appreciated by all who, as had Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, seek to remind all of the importance of beauty in our cityscapes.
Remember the paradox: How can ruthless killers also have great aesthetic sensibilities - (How could Nazis appreciated the beauty of Beethoven?)
But in the main, your article is appreciated by all who, as had Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, seek to remind all of the importance of beauty in our cityscapes.
5
I suggest that science, faith and eternal values of a just, humane order can coexist through the power of aesthetics, art and beauty.
8
Congratulations Mr. Brooks,
Your lengthy ( and occasionally tedious) journey through the world of great ideas has at last hit the mark. This essay is beautiful. Now go back to punditry. It's not so bad even if it's not sublime.
Your lengthy ( and occasionally tedious) journey through the world of great ideas has at last hit the mark. This essay is beautiful. Now go back to punditry. It's not so bad even if it's not sublime.
4
How could you have omitted John Keats' "Endymion" ("a thing of beauty is a joy forever") or "Ode on a Grecian Urn" ("'Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty' --that's all ye need to know on Earth and all there is to know") from your quotable Romantics? While they idealized Beauty, they also understood how it uplifts the human existence in the face of industrialization and death.
5
In this present age, it is so excruciatingly hard to survive as an artist. Perhaps it always has been. Thank you for giving me some reason to keep on trying.
10
Sir, the triumph of capitalism has left the world beauty-poor, because, as you know, not everything can be effectively monetized. And I don't see this changing, perhaps ever. This leaves a spiritual void in the human psyche, of course, that will have to be somehow filled: obliquely, perhaps, as you suggest, or more directly as I would prefer. Either way, your point is true and magisterial. Thank you.
12
I got out of bed this morning, checked in with my wife who is in the kitchen making vegetable soup and scones (bet that is for lunch), went out the front door to get the newspaper, stood in driveway and greeted the Loblolly tree on our front lawn we rescued from the builder, watched the birds overhead flying across the road to gather in the field, came in making sure to leave the door open so the cats can gather by the storm door to take in the Sun, made my coffee and headed for the computer to check out THE TIMES, opened up Mr. Brooks column, and fell head over heals in love with all the beauty I have taken for granted.
26
Beauty is a salve for the soul, as was this article, especially after reading about the Rep debate last night. That you for reminding me to focus on beauty when confronted with ugliness.
14
Socrates wrote that gazing upon ugly makes one ugly; gazing upon beauty, well, it's obvious.
After watching the Republican debate last evening, I decided to watch no more of them. Something terrible was happening to me.
After watching the Republican debate last evening, I decided to watch no more of them. Something terrible was happening to me.
28
In fact, contemporary art (of any era - Dutch Baroque, Italian Renaissance...) reflects the temper of its times. One should remember that in this election year.
4
This is a shout-out to Keats' timeless words: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all. Yes need to know...". Most lived would be dreary and despairing if we didn't find some beauty in a kind gesture, a smiling face, a baby's laugh, a flower's scent, a musical theme, a painting, a tree, etc.
10
David, a point of punctuation/grammar: You write, "But it also reminds me of a worldview, which was more common in eras more romantic than our own." The use of the comma after "worldview" means that it was more common in past eras to HAVE a worldview, not just a romantic one. And I would use "that" instead of "which." So, "But it also reminds me of a worldview that was more common in eras more romantic than our own."
10
It is telling that the game that most of the world calls football is commonly known as "the beautiful game," while what Americans call football is, at best, a brutal and profane game.
4
Sorry, you lost me.
Something about art...?
As far as I can tell, DB seems to be blaming artists for abandoning beauty. I would instead place the blame - if that's the right word - on the world opting for consumer-product economics and abandoning art.
Something about art...?
As far as I can tell, DB seems to be blaming artists for abandoning beauty. I would instead place the blame - if that's the right word - on the world opting for consumer-product economics and abandoning art.
11
For the first time in a long time, I say bravo to the author. If he only wrote articles on topics like this rather than his insufferably verbose and vacuous political pronouncements for the right , he would have countless more readers on your side. Treat this as your only true calling, David.
4
I love this stuff...I was running on beach this morning with my 2 dogs as the sun was coming up thinking how beautiful is this? I heard Heroes from Bowie in the car before I walked into work. It got me ready for all the nonsense that is coming my way. Beautiful any way you look @ it. Good work today David.
24
Congratulations, David Brooks! As far as I am concerned you hit the nail on the head. If art and the beauty and nobility of art were part of education in the US, our next generations would have quite a different outlook on life. And they would have the ability to shape their lives in a more conscientious way. That is why I stand behind Waldorf Education, where the curriculum is fortified by Art.
16
"Beauty is the wonder of wonders." Oscar Wilde
7
But alas, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The fact that Mr. Brooks can sense beauty outside his apartment, in the upstairs window, over a supermarket and a CVS, tells me more about the beholder than the beauty he is experiencing. Bravo David!
10
Yes, art is good for all of us.
Which political party consistently votes to fund the arts, and which political party consistently votes to defund the arts?
Which political party consistently votes to fund the arts, and which political party consistently votes to defund the arts?
11
I always wonder who the “we” is in such broad generalizations, as well as which is the exact moment that divides the before and after. I also think there is a tremendous sublime beauty in the quantitative data that gives evidence, whether to situations of discrimination or the value of arts funding, which then might motivate some to lobby and others to create art or combine the two.
3
Lovely words. As an artist and an elementary school teacher I so wish you would use your influence with your conservative brethren to support greatly increased
funding for art education, appreciation, and for the more subjective areas of learning that aren't measured by soul crushing testing. My students will thank you.
funding for art education, appreciation, and for the more subjective areas of learning that aren't measured by soul crushing testing. My students will thank you.
9
As women, we often feel that our only value is in beauty. Whether this is true or not, it has a chilling affect on our feelings of self worth.
2
Imagine a ballet school on the second floor of a busy street with the ballerinas exercising in front of the giant windows in their leotards. What a traffic stopper, especially at night. Of course, the author, in his reveries, can enjoy the view from his ivory tower with his binos, while down on the street it will be all sirens. Drink it in while you can because, for sure, those windows will soon be frosted over.
1
World War I, with its trench war and other devastating suffering, changed society, and changed art. Past conventions were blown apart. Art has not yet recovered.
11
That's nice. When I step from my front door I see, all lit up like a football stadium, a gigantic new gasoline station our city fathers saw fit to allow plunked down in the middle of a small-town residential neighborhood. America the Beautiful.
6
A wonderful piece. Thank you. And there's this to contemplate as well. Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Rhodora":
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
7
There is much beauty in mathematics. I remember reading Neil Immerman's paper on the closure under complementation of nondeterministic space bounded automata, a problem that had been unsolved for over 20 years. I note that this problem was independently solved by Róbert Szelepcsényi.
The proof is two short paragraphs, in plain English, no equations. It was so beautiful, I cried. Such a simple and surprising solution to a problem that is easy to state, but hard to solve. Immerman and Szelepcsényi won the Gödel Prize for this result, and it was well deserved.
Mathematics at this level is certainly an acquired taste. But when something beautiful like this happens to come around, the emotional reaction to coming face to face with such beauty is just as strong as finding beauty in something everybody can appreciate. The experience is rare and priceless.
The proof is two short paragraphs, in plain English, no equations. It was so beautiful, I cried. Such a simple and surprising solution to a problem that is easy to state, but hard to solve. Immerman and Szelepcsényi won the Gödel Prize for this result, and it was well deserved.
Mathematics at this level is certainly an acquired taste. But when something beautiful like this happens to come around, the emotional reaction to coming face to face with such beauty is just as strong as finding beauty in something everybody can appreciate. The experience is rare and priceless.
8
I loved this piece. My thoughts exactly. Hen3ry, I think you may have missed the point here. Beauty has always been synonymous with goodness. In the little things we ourselves display beauty can show itself revealingly. None of us want an ugly, insensitive, unfriendly, brutal and unconnected world. Our character as people is affected by moral and pleasurable conceptions of life. Beauty does contribute to our happiness, perceptions and understanding of things which I think is the point Mr Brooks is making. No platitudes here just good sense.
8
Maybe the reason people switched to a more data driven, proof driven culture is because many saw and see the economic system as unfair. The upper class may want to point to Paul Klee or van Gogh and advise the struggling class just to stop and look at the finer things and it will get better. Or say something like, well Basquiat came from the streets and look at the beauty you can make, stop complaining and just "seek" and "strive". The powerful like this message because it gives the illusion of "artistic" equality, something everyone can create and look at. And they say that that is the only thing the "really" matters. Don't look at the data, look at the painting, the dancers, listen to the music, numb yourself to the massive inequality and corruption by appreciating art or creating art. This message seems condescending. We should do both: crunch the numbers and make cool stuff.
Making the "data" more fair is spirituality inspiring and beautiful too.
Making the "data" more fair is spirituality inspiring and beautiful too.
5
Good column sir. Having a graduate degree in "Art History" has given me a wide appreciation of the visual arts...and a realization that none of man's creative genius can compare with that of nature. I regularly ride my motorcycle (itself; an industrial work of art) out to our beloved Sonoran desert, dismount, and..just..walk..around to immerse in a most magnificent landscape. Brings tears of appreciation to my eyes. I would like to read of other's beauty appreciation, please
8
Well said, jwillmann! Beauty - in whatever form - inspires us to be "a better person".
1
Wow. "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" P.B. Shelley. Aesthetic appreciation differentiates man from all other life forms. The same faculty of cognition that recognizes Beauty also recognizes the Spiritual values of Harmony, Truth, Joy, Freedom, Love and Integrity. On this subject we can agree.
8
By and large I agree. But I was struck by the word "accidental" as applied to our society's abandonment of the humanistic view of life. For a generation, hasn't the abandonment of humanism been a central tenet of the right?
8
What to make, in this context, of the absolute obscenity of the Art Market, with its absurd valuations of "Beauty"—in all its perceived forms—"Beauty" as the province of the rich and privileged, the arena, today, of the .001%, many of the highest selling art objects aligned with historical movements whose very names, "Impressionism," "Fauvism," "Cubism," "Expressionism," were once hurled at the artists associated with them in denunciation of their departures from what had once been thought "beautiful," perceptions of which are in a constant state of change.
4
David Brooks' writing is especially apt and welcome after last night's Republican debate. It's good to be reminded that beauty is around us and transcends the banal, the harshness, the violence. This is what the old Penn Station represented -- the ethereal, something to aspire to, a structure that dignified our human experience travelling to and fro. Whether on that grand scale, or some small fleeting vision of beauty, it is rare and welcome to be reminded that beauty, and art, are needed and not an accessory in our lives.
13
I skimmed most of the comments and was surprised not to see: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." Keats of course. Why do we grieve for the destroyed Buddhas and bombed ancient sites, as well as for the people who are driven off or killed? Because destroying beauty is soul-killing, for almost everyone.
22
Artists over time have contributed culturally in many ways, distinguishing sentimentiality and sentiment is one, another is seeing beauty where others do not. The beauty and dignity of an old woman made manifest in a Rodin sculpture, or the beauty of a solitary Second Empire home by railway tracks given life in a painting by Edward Hopper during the heyday of the Colonial Revival in the Twenties.
The troubling development that Brooks has tagged is that in our time it has become fashionable for artists to disclaim any interest in beauty and to seek relevance instead. What is lost is the social benefit of artistic insight into what may be beautiful, not the human appreciation for beauty. That, by contrast, is an instinct that has discernible roots in our evolutionary psychology, as evidenced by the musical instruments and exquisitely crafted tools created by our hominid ancestors.
The troubling development that Brooks has tagged is that in our time it has become fashionable for artists to disclaim any interest in beauty and to seek relevance instead. What is lost is the social benefit of artistic insight into what may be beautiful, not the human appreciation for beauty. That, by contrast, is an instinct that has discernible roots in our evolutionary psychology, as evidenced by the musical instruments and exquisitely crafted tools created by our hominid ancestors.
13
I agree, David: We left behind an ethos that reminded people of the links between the beautiful, the true and the good — the way pleasure and love can lead to nobility. And I think we did so most recently when we entered this election cycle.
14
I like to think that people can change and that this is not the same Brooks who once wrote " the economically stressed lack the self motivation to have rich inner lives".
I also think how much work goes into retaining beauty in every day lives. I think of Faulkner's work "The Bear" where he writes about the deep woods being timeless. There are probably strip malls or strip mines now in those woods. Republican legislators are biting at the bit to privatize public lands. I love the beauty of Monarch butterflies but only saw one this summer due to their plant food sources being sprayed.
I may sound political but beauty, natural beauty anyway, needs protection from the likes of the Kochs and from many Republican legislators.
I also think how much work goes into retaining beauty in every day lives. I think of Faulkner's work "The Bear" where he writes about the deep woods being timeless. There are probably strip malls or strip mines now in those woods. Republican legislators are biting at the bit to privatize public lands. I love the beauty of Monarch butterflies but only saw one this summer due to their plant food sources being sprayed.
I may sound political but beauty, natural beauty anyway, needs protection from the likes of the Kochs and from many Republican legislators.
51
On "When Beauty Strikes," Op-Ed column, by David Brooks, Jan. 15, 2016.
Brooks says that "A person who has appreciated the Pieta has a greater capacity for empathy." I would like to think so but lack evidence to support this view. If our capacity to appreciate art and literature would enhance our sympathetic nervous system, then we would all rush to help the thousands suffering--and some dying--from starvation in besieged towns in Syria. The illiterate poor, probably, are kinder than their highly literate counterparts in affluent countries. The kindest character in Gustave Falubert's "A Simple Heart" is the illiterate Felicite, a maid. All the good characters in the plays of Bertolt Brecht are common people, like Grusha and Shen Te. Beauty does lift our hearts and brings us joy, but its contemplation doesn't necessarily make us better human beings.
I remember watching an elderly affluent couple once coming out of the Met and shooing away an abject-looking panhandler. I didn't ask him them if they had seen the Pieta.
Brooks says that "A person who has appreciated the Pieta has a greater capacity for empathy." I would like to think so but lack evidence to support this view. If our capacity to appreciate art and literature would enhance our sympathetic nervous system, then we would all rush to help the thousands suffering--and some dying--from starvation in besieged towns in Syria. The illiterate poor, probably, are kinder than their highly literate counterparts in affluent countries. The kindest character in Gustave Falubert's "A Simple Heart" is the illiterate Felicite, a maid. All the good characters in the plays of Bertolt Brecht are common people, like Grusha and Shen Te. Beauty does lift our hearts and brings us joy, but its contemplation doesn't necessarily make us better human beings.
I remember watching an elderly affluent couple once coming out of the Met and shooing away an abject-looking panhandler. I didn't ask him them if they had seen the Pieta.
52
Brooks career as a hack rationalizer of whatever his masters ordered up that day, including a masterful turn in the voluntary war on false pretenses, an investment that even today, everyday, yields the slaughter of new innocents in the gift that keeps on giving while american robot armies patrol the skies around the world, has entered a new phase as he has grown old and muses on how others should live the way he thinks they should, sophmoric meditations fine for sophomores but not old men who must finish up thei musings by summoning up their true god, a strawman villian, the false construct of Post Humanism--just to prove he is a loyal, card carrying, phony conservative. (Douthat would have gone with decadence as the strawman or modernism; is the hack preference Harvard/Yale, generational, religious?)
Eros means what it means by the way. I got an OED so I know Brooks can afford one.
Art is doing fine, but of course hacks wouldn't know.
"Pancho needs your prayers its true
But save a few for Lefty too
He only did what he had to do
And now he's growing old"
Pancho and Lefty
T. van Zandt
For Lefty's one big betrayal, ok, but no, not for a hack who betrayed twice weekly for decades.
But to really get the eros it helps to have an old stoner with an enhanced sense of beauty and a traveling bluesman jew who actually knows the roots of the tree.
http://youtu.be/UsR0Y-sWk-E
Eros means what it means by the way. I got an OED so I know Brooks can afford one.
Art is doing fine, but of course hacks wouldn't know.
"Pancho needs your prayers its true
But save a few for Lefty too
He only did what he had to do
And now he's growing old"
Pancho and Lefty
T. van Zandt
For Lefty's one big betrayal, ok, but no, not for a hack who betrayed twice weekly for decades.
But to really get the eros it helps to have an old stoner with an enhanced sense of beauty and a traveling bluesman jew who actually knows the roots of the tree.
http://youtu.be/UsR0Y-sWk-E
10
Great video, two of America's best truth tellers/myth makers. This was lovely. Thank you for posting this!
Query,
Wow! You've taken pretension to a whole new dimension. Just to be fair, I'd aver that DB and RD go down that road with some frequency. too.
Wow! You've taken pretension to a whole new dimension. Just to be fair, I'd aver that DB and RD go down that road with some frequency. too.
3
Perhaps I may sound a bit demode, but I seem to recall in my liberal arts university education of more than fifty years ago, whether the prof taught literature, philosophy, art, or even history and economics the idea of these pursuits having some beauty and emotive quality beyond just the instruction provided was offered at some point.
While not yet a universal, it would appear that recent generations, unlike earlier ones. define and celebrate art less in terms of emotive beauty, and more as statement especially any rebelling against convention.
We're building a sports arena here in Sacramento that whatever its practical utility will look like a Xmas tree ornament cut from a beer can, homage to the once flourishing canning industry, I suppose, here in the city.
Even from my own daily perceptions do I observe a failure to take notice as I once did of the simplest beauties; that is, until I am blessed with the wonderment of encountering and looking into a child's face.
While not yet a universal, it would appear that recent generations, unlike earlier ones. define and celebrate art less in terms of emotive beauty, and more as statement especially any rebelling against convention.
We're building a sports arena here in Sacramento that whatever its practical utility will look like a Xmas tree ornament cut from a beer can, homage to the once flourishing canning industry, I suppose, here in the city.
Even from my own daily perceptions do I observe a failure to take notice as I once did of the simplest beauties; that is, until I am blessed with the wonderment of encountering and looking into a child's face.
4
Mr. Brooks's sense of beauty is distressingly but unsurprisingly narrow and anthropocentric. Our species is well on its way to obliterating the true beauty in the world--natural landscapes, healthy soils, pure water, and wondrous flora and fauna that have sustained mankind through the ages. Humans create art in many forms, but it's flimsy stuff indeed compared to the wonders of a walk in the woods.
5
He did not exclude nature--you read that into the piece.
Reid Carron: Agreed! You make a strong case for the continuation of America's unique and beautiful wild places open to all of us!
Beauty of the kind that transforms the souls of the David Brookses of this world, might also lull the senses into political passivity.
As defined by Edmund Burke, the function of beauty is to "relax" the fibers of our being, is to suffuse us with a momentary experience of pleasure.
However, the soul-transformative emotion is likely to be inspired by an encounter with the "terror" of the "sublime"; the impersonal harshness of nature, for instance (or the astonishing violence of the French Revolution), can inflict a kind of pain on our souls that prompts us to act in astonishment.
Sometimes it's good brain-food to divert attention to the unconventional and think of pain, not pleasure, as a transformative emotion.
As defined by Edmund Burke, the function of beauty is to "relax" the fibers of our being, is to suffuse us with a momentary experience of pleasure.
However, the soul-transformative emotion is likely to be inspired by an encounter with the "terror" of the "sublime"; the impersonal harshness of nature, for instance (or the astonishing violence of the French Revolution), can inflict a kind of pain on our souls that prompts us to act in astonishment.
Sometimes it's good brain-food to divert attention to the unconventional and think of pain, not pleasure, as a transformative emotion.
2
As an artist, I cannot agree more with your position here. There is, in the academic, theorizing segment of the art world, a rejection of beauty as facile, even "cheap." But among my own works, those that get the most visceral reaction from viewers are the ones that manage to convey intense emotion through extreme beauty. In fact, difficult emotions like grief, sorrow, and melancholy are often best served by beauty. It's almost a "safe space" in which to weather those storms of feeling. I have found that dark, symbolic beauty can make the heart ache in a way that a more literal, rawer portrayal of sadness cannot. But somehow along the way beauty has come to be seen as artifice, a barrier between "real" emotion and the viewer. In fact, I would say quite the opposite: beauty is a marvelous means to communicate that which is too painful to speak.
6
Banned was I from fairy land for all those years. When I wandered off the trail one day there she was surrounded by delicate ferns among the old trees. She was only 24 the day she passed 140 years before.Her beauty no one could resist who had eyes. i was in fairyland and no rules were on her face thus none were on mine when we made love
The next day Fairyland burnt down . 9 months latter the baby was born where I had created the space in the forest to prevent any fire from passing.
6 of my wives were angry with me but this was the sign I needed to know they still were filled with human nature unlike the seraphim
The next day Fairyland burnt down . 9 months latter the baby was born where I had created the space in the forest to prevent any fire from passing.
6 of my wives were angry with me but this was the sign I needed to know they still were filled with human nature unlike the seraphim
1
The truest thing ever said about "beauty" is that old saw "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder." In other words, beauty defies analysis or judgment by academic specialists, the commercial culture market, historians, connoisseurs. It exists in the undefinable exchange between the object (whether in nature or art) and the individual viewer or listener. For me, the most profound observer of beauty is the maverick, anti-academic, anti-elitist critic David Hickey. In his collections of essays ("The Invisible Dragon," "Air Guitar," etc.) he nails the elusive power of this most human of needs.
2
After reading the column twice, I couldn't find the veiled reference to the rightness and goodness of Brooks' corporate masters, just some musings on beauty. Of course, for most of history, only the oligarchy had sufficient money and wherewithal to appreciate same (ie, like the Brothers Koch). The rest of us had to make a living to keep the wolf from the door.
After being castigated by the extreme right for calling Cruz "satanic", it's starting to look like David Brooks may be rediscovering his good self. May we all live to see it blossom and bloom.
After being castigated by the extreme right for calling Cruz "satanic", it's starting to look like David Brooks may be rediscovering his good self. May we all live to see it blossom and bloom.
4
One can observe the contrasts discussed by Brooks in a comparison between some of the older cities of Europe and America's modern urban areas. The architecture and layout of the former frequently date from the Renaissance or earlier, and their beauty attracts hordes of tourists. The more utilitarian design of American cities can embody a different kind of beauty (Chicago, for example), but charm hardly strikes one as their most notable characteristic.
Urban planners in the U.S. focused on a capitalist economy's need for efficiency, so an emphasis in architecture on functional design, combined with a commitment to broad streets, configured in a rectangular grid, became the ideal pattern for America's cities. The comparatively ancient capitals of Europe, from this perspective, sacrificed utility for beauty.
The minimalist nature of much modern art would seem to mirror the austere character of this country's urban design. Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, it is difficult to judge between a Rembrandt painting and one by Jackson Pollock, or between the architecture of Prague and the skyscrapers of Chicago. Each probably appeals to a different kind of sensibility, but who is to say that one inspires more than the other?
Much about the modern world is tawdry, but the same could be said of the impoverished and violent civilization of the Medieval or Renaissance eras. A sensitive person can find beauty in any age.
Urban planners in the U.S. focused on a capitalist economy's need for efficiency, so an emphasis in architecture on functional design, combined with a commitment to broad streets, configured in a rectangular grid, became the ideal pattern for America's cities. The comparatively ancient capitals of Europe, from this perspective, sacrificed utility for beauty.
The minimalist nature of much modern art would seem to mirror the austere character of this country's urban design. Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, it is difficult to judge between a Rembrandt painting and one by Jackson Pollock, or between the architecture of Prague and the skyscrapers of Chicago. Each probably appeals to a different kind of sensibility, but who is to say that one inspires more than the other?
Much about the modern world is tawdry, but the same could be said of the impoverished and violent civilization of the Medieval or Renaissance eras. A sensitive person can find beauty in any age.
3
The problem of art and beauty in the modern age?
This is largely a problem of what happens when not only time vastly opens up for humans--looming gulfs of past and indefinite futures born of science--but when absolutes of soul and salvation and concepts of absolute perfection are lost. Much of what we consider art today (in retrospective view of masterpieces) is contemplation of what people once thought could be perfect and endure and what was even sacred--thus the great painting or architectural wonder such as cathedral.
But in the modern age it has finally been seen that certain arts, those of language and perhaps especially music, have come into their own. Certain arts have always been comfortable with "being born and fading instantly" (the fine speech, recited poem, song sung perhaps only one time and for a moment in a night). Which is to say we moderns are creatures of temporary perfections and makeshifts of a moment and are all too aware that tomorrow can sweep away everything, that there is no perfect object, work of art, necessary for us to stand around and contemplate.
Obviously in the modern world artists such as architects are perhaps most humbled--those who make something and expect it to be even sacred and endure, such as a cathedral. The narrative of humans capable of building perfect objects and that we should build houses (museums) to accumulate these objects has collapsed as well. Humans are perhaps finally becoming musical, language, concept creatures.
This is largely a problem of what happens when not only time vastly opens up for humans--looming gulfs of past and indefinite futures born of science--but when absolutes of soul and salvation and concepts of absolute perfection are lost. Much of what we consider art today (in retrospective view of masterpieces) is contemplation of what people once thought could be perfect and endure and what was even sacred--thus the great painting or architectural wonder such as cathedral.
But in the modern age it has finally been seen that certain arts, those of language and perhaps especially music, have come into their own. Certain arts have always been comfortable with "being born and fading instantly" (the fine speech, recited poem, song sung perhaps only one time and for a moment in a night). Which is to say we moderns are creatures of temporary perfections and makeshifts of a moment and are all too aware that tomorrow can sweep away everything, that there is no perfect object, work of art, necessary for us to stand around and contemplate.
Obviously in the modern world artists such as architects are perhaps most humbled--those who make something and expect it to be even sacred and endure, such as a cathedral. The narrative of humans capable of building perfect objects and that we should build houses (museums) to accumulate these objects has collapsed as well. Humans are perhaps finally becoming musical, language, concept creatures.
t's too bad that so many of our leaders want to remove those things from our educational system that advance the appreciation of beauty. No art classes, no music classes? If everybody were a financial analyst or a computer programmer, we would probably end up living in an ugly world where only the bottom line is appreciated.
8
But please don't exclude financial analysts or computer programmers from the world of beauty, either as appreciators or creators.
Nicely written, well intended, but misguided.
Thank god for pundit artists like Ai Wei Wei and all the others who resisted tyranny in any place at any time, framing truth in the visage of an art form. It may not always be beautiful; it may be difficult; it may be hard to watch, read, or listen to.
But the purpose of art is not just to reveal one person's idea of beauty. It is with us to project our world in a way that helps us grow in understanding and fulfillment or our lives.
Thank god for pundit artists like Ai Wei Wei and all the others who resisted tyranny in any place at any time, framing truth in the visage of an art form. It may not always be beautiful; it may be difficult; it may be hard to watch, read, or listen to.
But the purpose of art is not just to reveal one person's idea of beauty. It is with us to project our world in a way that helps us grow in understanding and fulfillment or our lives.
7
Was a time I considered myself being smart and wanting to change the world, now that I'm much, much older, some wiser thinking encourages me to change myself. The natural world is the source of beauty in it's creativity. This natural world brought forth humanity with all it's creativity, determination to survive. The amazing and most beautiful thing is that from a period of nothingness to a species capable of contemplating it's existence, creatively exploring it's environment, reaching for the stars. Yes, Mr. Brooke, beauty is always there for one to see whether in nature or in natural selves. Unfortunately our worst enemy in viewing this beauty is ourselves
5
The article makes a critical point, the connection between beauty and spirit. From the ancient Greeks through the Victorian age, beauty was the outer manifestation of the inner life. The art critic Walter Pater brought this, in my opinion, to its highest point in the late 19th century, focusing his attention on the role of art, and beauty in general, as a source of inspiration and personal interpretation. And, may we not forget, to expand the definition of "beauty" beyond the confines of conventional loveliness to all things interesting, engaging and elevating. In many an American town and city, trees lined every street because, in the days before air conditioning, the practical need and benefits of shade were apparent. The emotional and spiritually comforting aspect of trees was also duly celebrated. Although any age is rife with social, economic and political problems, and one should never overly romanticize or idealize any past epoch, those Victorians did one thing right. They knew beauty could both inspire and comfort.
On the downside of beauty, runaway aestheticism is often an escape for many and a source of vanity for others. However, nothing is perfect, not even beauty.
On the downside of beauty, runaway aestheticism is often an escape for many and a source of vanity for others. However, nothing is perfect, not even beauty.
4
As usual as Mr Brooks "waxes" poetically about art and beauty, there is no mention of the money that supports the artists. His beloved Republican party has consistently cut funds for the arts and the price of one of their worthless jet fighters would support the arts in this country for the next 8 years. Our museums are closing, great music institutions cannot pay their workers and artists are being forced to pick up whatever crumbs the state and federal governments toss their way (which in my home state of Florida is pitiful).
7
Add to cutbacks to the arts, the degradation of nature. John O'Donohue speaks so eloquently of the natural beauty of the world and how essential it is to our beings and souls.
1
Thank God we have people to take up a bit of the slack, people who give $100 million to Lincoln Center, people who give $60 million to MOMA, people who give $35 million to the Smithsonian. . . people, in other words, like the evil dark lord David Koch. It's a complicated world.
Beauty in art has a racial colored gender ethnic sectarian socioeconomic political cultural national origin historical heritage perspective and context that may or may not blend and better the universal human condition. Standards of beauty are not universally agreed upon and accepted. Nature is universally and artfully beautiful and inspiring.
"There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea four which I know not: the way of the eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid". Proverbs 30: 18-19.
"There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea four which I know not: the way of the eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid". Proverbs 30: 18-19.
4
I've bene thinking a lot about this lately. Post-modernism was our reaction to modernism, modernism as defined by the 20th century ideal. Post-modernism was our enlightment. The idea that every story had multiple sides, that art didn't need to follow prescribed forms. The idea that the vulgar could be high art. We've built a culture around these testaments.
What I'm struggling with now, is how to rise above post-modernism. How to go past pastiche? As a professional writer, and as a person, I'm not quite sure. I can't seem to image beauty as Brooks talks about without slapping together images of imitations, without joining the ranks of my post-modern fellows. If post-humanism IS what follows, then we'll need to take this advice, to discover how to create beauty in a world that's forgotten the pursuit of beauty. God help us who would be artists if we could.
What I'm struggling with now, is how to rise above post-modernism. How to go past pastiche? As a professional writer, and as a person, I'm not quite sure. I can't seem to image beauty as Brooks talks about without slapping together images of imitations, without joining the ranks of my post-modern fellows. If post-humanism IS what follows, then we'll need to take this advice, to discover how to create beauty in a world that's forgotten the pursuit of beauty. God help us who would be artists if we could.
8
As a teacher in the arts (my own practice being music) I thank you for this, David. The smaller part of my work is training actual practitioners of music; far greater is the time spent in developing life-long ambassadors for beauty. I will pass your thoughts on to them.
I am troubled often, as are others who have offered comments to your column, at where the resources necessary for producing so many beloved masterpieces came from. Imperial Vienna provided the fertile soil needed for so much genius to flower, yet that wealth was accumulated on the backs of generations of laborers whose brief lives were unending toil and misery. Then the Hapsburgs; today the Kochs. This will, for me, always be troubling.
But my love for Mozart's music is nevertheless undimmed. The Hapsburgs are gone, and we see them for what they were. The same will be true for the Kochs. What these power brokers had a role in creating transcended them the moment it came into being, and the existence of beauty will always be a counterweight to the ugliness of power.
I am troubled often, as are others who have offered comments to your column, at where the resources necessary for producing so many beloved masterpieces came from. Imperial Vienna provided the fertile soil needed for so much genius to flower, yet that wealth was accumulated on the backs of generations of laborers whose brief lives were unending toil and misery. Then the Hapsburgs; today the Kochs. This will, for me, always be troubling.
But my love for Mozart's music is nevertheless undimmed. The Hapsburgs are gone, and we see them for what they were. The same will be true for the Kochs. What these power brokers had a role in creating transcended them the moment it came into being, and the existence of beauty will always be a counterweight to the ugliness of power.
15
Very good letter. Thank you for sharing.
It's good to seek out beauty in its expected places, which is why I rarely visit my hometown of Washington without making a pilgrimage to the Freer or the Mellon (as we alte kakers still think of the National Gallery of Art). But for me the most moving encounters with beauty have come unexpectedly. To be surprised by beauty is to be shocked and delighted as one is shocked and delighted by a sudden insight. The trick, of course, is to be open to it, to be capable of surprise. That's something to work on every day.
13
But please don't confuse "beautiful" with "pretty." There's a lot of beautiful visual art and music that some would at first dismiss as "ugly." Sometimes the beauty requires a longer exposure and a deeper understanding.
9
Here is another brief excerpt from "Beauty" and speaks to what Dan wrote:
"It has become the habit of our times to mistake glamour for beauty......In contrast, the Beautiful offers us an invitation to order, coherence and unity. When these needs are met, the soul feels at home in the world." from pg 5 of the paperback "Beauty" by John O'Donohue.
"It has become the habit of our times to mistake glamour for beauty......In contrast, the Beautiful offers us an invitation to order, coherence and unity. When these needs are met, the soul feels at home in the world." from pg 5 of the paperback "Beauty" by John O'Donohue.
2
Late to the commentary here, but I would just add that Plato held that the purpose of education was to teach us to love beauty, and that the Greek word "kosmos" originally indicated a beautifully functioning orderly whole. (It still lives on, barely, in our word "cosmetic."
Beauty was not something alien they had to import into their lives when they had time; they lived within it. We can too. idealinthewest.com
Beauty was not something alien they had to import into their lives when they had time; they lived within it. We can too. idealinthewest.com
22
Let's put some of that beauty in the neighborhoods of the poor. In the prisons.
Beauty should not be only for financially comfortable or the law-abiding. We are all humans. And we need more beauty. In strategic places, where the beauty of nature or art, might contribute to a more peaceful, prosperous and law-abiding society,
Beauty should not be only for financially comfortable or the law-abiding. We are all humans. And we need more beauty. In strategic places, where the beauty of nature or art, might contribute to a more peaceful, prosperous and law-abiding society,
57
The Greek word eros had many meanings ranging between the love of a married couple to that of a man for a boy. Choose your words carefully.
1
Hear that artists?
Paint your pretty pictures and shut up.
Paint your pretty pictures and shut up.
3
I find it strange that a republican waxes so enthusiastically for beauty when public funding for education in the arts has been strangled over the last few decades by conservatives hiding behind the pretense of fiscal responsibility. Every few years, there is some scandal about an avant-garde artist who paints religious images in excrement, and the flag for budget-cutting for the NEA, NEH, and public-school music education gets unfurled once again. The pretense is that they're just trying to balance the budget by trimming the profligate 0.01% waste. But the real problem with art, you see, is that it's not all beautiful. Sometimes it's provocative - liberal, if you will - and conservatives hate that. Without poo-poo-Jesus now and then, society staggers a little bit closer to being a collection of isolated middle-aged men leering at pubescent ballet students. (Yes, that was totally unfair, but how could I resist?)
2
When Samuel FB Morse came back from France with superior copies of the Great Masters he, himself, had made a the Louvre, he found out Americans were not at all interested in Art. His exhibition of this work failed. Which eventually led him into business and the invention of the Telegraph.
Things are now better in the US, but that basic American interest in meat and potatoes at all levels, remains evident. Mr. Brooks shows his "New York Values" in this piece and it is time to realize that Right Wing Middle America is not about art nor it is about Sense or Sensibility. One reason that the Super-Collider was never built is that a Conservative Congress was outraged that art was being bought for the barren and sparse Super-Collider center walls in Dallas with Federal money.
Things are now better in the US, but that basic American interest in meat and potatoes at all levels, remains evident. Mr. Brooks shows his "New York Values" in this piece and it is time to realize that Right Wing Middle America is not about art nor it is about Sense or Sensibility. One reason that the Super-Collider was never built is that a Conservative Congress was outraged that art was being bought for the barren and sparse Super-Collider center walls in Dallas with Federal money.
1
Samuel Morse's Great Masters of the Louvre was on exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, along with an Impressionist exhibit from the National Gallery, during the fall and early winter. I saw it several times, and once was lucky enough to be alone (with my husband) in a room full of Bonnard paintings for a couple of minutes before crowds overwhelmed us. There were huge crowds each time we visited. I think that most commenters here do not even understand what David Brooks is trying to say--beauty is everywhere if one will only look and appreciate small things as well as great art. I am amazed every single day as I look at the evergreens, mountains, and waters of the Pacific Northwest. I find joy in the beautiful granite and river rock that seem to grow all around. I collect and display it, and sometimes carve it. I paint incessantly to try to capture some of the beauty I see every day. Why are so many people so negative and why do they interpret everything as a political or racial issue?
1
I could see it, David stepping out onto his balcony on a chill winter night to watch young ones practicing a skill.
I can also picture myself, standing there beside him and ruining it for him.
"Lovely, aren't they?" I'd ask and then point out the discipline and devotion necessary to achieve such skill, the years of training, the wealth necessary to be included in a 1% skill... and when he told me to get off his balcony, I would ask him if he really wanted to help them, for, yes, even the 1% engaged in beauty, need all the help they can get. David could do it, he, himself, maybe even all by himself....
You see, without saying so, we know he is watching young women.
Young American women.
And, those young American women he is watching, seeing only their grace, are not equal to him under the Constitution of the United States of America.
Their rights, their highest rights, are under those dog-catcher laws called "The Titles", Title IX, Title X, etc., inferior laws for inferior "citizens".
Someday those graceful citizens will have to put up their silk dancing shoes and enter the other world, the one where they are not viewed as beauty and grace, but just "women", women who have no say on those graceful bodies, who will be paid less, promoted less, listened to less, and, if they lose their wealth, be told when to breed by the Hyde Laws, for some of them will be poor.
Help them, David.
Use your column to demand the ERA for them.
Or you can pull your drapes and stop watching.
I can also picture myself, standing there beside him and ruining it for him.
"Lovely, aren't they?" I'd ask and then point out the discipline and devotion necessary to achieve such skill, the years of training, the wealth necessary to be included in a 1% skill... and when he told me to get off his balcony, I would ask him if he really wanted to help them, for, yes, even the 1% engaged in beauty, need all the help they can get. David could do it, he, himself, maybe even all by himself....
You see, without saying so, we know he is watching young women.
Young American women.
And, those young American women he is watching, seeing only their grace, are not equal to him under the Constitution of the United States of America.
Their rights, their highest rights, are under those dog-catcher laws called "The Titles", Title IX, Title X, etc., inferior laws for inferior "citizens".
Someday those graceful citizens will have to put up their silk dancing shoes and enter the other world, the one where they are not viewed as beauty and grace, but just "women", women who have no say on those graceful bodies, who will be paid less, promoted less, listened to less, and, if they lose their wealth, be told when to breed by the Hyde Laws, for some of them will be poor.
Help them, David.
Use your column to demand the ERA for them.
Or you can pull your drapes and stop watching.
6
While I generally agree with Mr Brooks here, and there are many reasons I could cite as to why the ideal of beauty is in retreat, I'll focus on the decline and devaluation of technique. It may seem ironic, but the elevation of individual self-expression as the highest good has done much damage to the ideal of beauty.
Auden said that a man who wants to write poetry because he's got something to say isn't going to be a poet. Yeats asked, 'how can we know the dancer from the dance?' Those ballet students become beautiful - even if their technique is not yet perfected - because when they lose themselves in the art, they find their grace. (Athletes in the zone may attain the same grace.)
Beauty requires transcending the self. Contemporary 'art' settles for expressing the self. Given room, which there never is, this should lead into a discussion of the key role of discipline in beauty: those dancers could as readily 'express themselves' with spontaneous movements, or a temper tantrum or epileptic seizure. Wordsworth defined poetry as emotion recollected 'in tranquility'; the brain, not the heart or the gut, produces art.
Lastly, beauty is elitist. Contra the mushy pop song, not everything is beautiful in its own way. (Nor can egalitarians make everyone beautiful by abolishing the ideal of beauty, any more than you can make everyone tall by abolishing yardsticks.)
Had I world enough and time I'd write a beautiful comment but this farrago will have to do.
Auden said that a man who wants to write poetry because he's got something to say isn't going to be a poet. Yeats asked, 'how can we know the dancer from the dance?' Those ballet students become beautiful - even if their technique is not yet perfected - because when they lose themselves in the art, they find their grace. (Athletes in the zone may attain the same grace.)
Beauty requires transcending the self. Contemporary 'art' settles for expressing the self. Given room, which there never is, this should lead into a discussion of the key role of discipline in beauty: those dancers could as readily 'express themselves' with spontaneous movements, or a temper tantrum or epileptic seizure. Wordsworth defined poetry as emotion recollected 'in tranquility'; the brain, not the heart or the gut, produces art.
Lastly, beauty is elitist. Contra the mushy pop song, not everything is beautiful in its own way. (Nor can egalitarians make everyone beautiful by abolishing the ideal of beauty, any more than you can make everyone tall by abolishing yardsticks.)
Had I world enough and time I'd write a beautiful comment but this farrago will have to do.
An oblique comment, but perhaps useful: We could say that, in this age, reality trumps beauty, that we don't have time for beauty. Worse, we could say we we can't pursue it while needing to defend our positions, our spaces, our emotions. Or that good art is defined by a clear reflection of this hellish world.
Claptrap. In an age where death, for the most part, is far removed, and for space all we need do is shut off our infernal machines, we have no excuses. Certainly we don't have the excuses of disease or the short and brutish lives others before us have lived - while still creating the art of a richly lived life.
Claptrap. In an age where death, for the most part, is far removed, and for space all we need do is shut off our infernal machines, we have no excuses. Certainly we don't have the excuses of disease or the short and brutish lives others before us have lived - while still creating the art of a richly lived life.
Like most things worthwhile, appreciating beauty requires effort: the attempt to first recognize it, and then to appreciate it. Beauty just doesn't happen; wherever it can be found, it simply *is*, on its terms. The indolent in our "diverse" culture eschew the hard work; they want it fully presented. A certain amount of both recognition and humility are the dues one must pay. Frankly, a sizeable percentage of our electorate would rather not do the hard work of acceptance; it's got to be ready-made. Perhaps it asks of the onlooker a commitment to a greater good. Mr. Brooks, if I can make a humble suggestion, give a listen to Bruckner's Romantic symphony (No. 4, the final revised edition). The breathtaking coda that brings the majestic work to its magnificent conclusion was described by the British musicologist Robert Simpson: "it's like walking through a giant cathedral." One must work hard to reach it; only then can beauty's rewards be realized.
1
This is a lovely article David. I read here that you are reaching towards something that Nietzsche also wrote about, 'We have art so that we don't perish from the truth'. Things of beauty, the experience of the beautiful is heightened and made meaningful not only because of what it is,and it's effect on the spirit and soul, but also by the experience of the opposite. The realities of life that are often so hard to bear are, or can be, softened by the experience of beauty in all it's forms. Beauty is, and has been, profoundly important for us humans and our civilisations.
2
Unfortunately, money trumps beauty in the US; any kind of architectural integrity is sold in exchange for $ savings or maximization. The towers going up in NYC? The only beauty is the views from the multi-million dollar apartments. The new view from Central Park? The shadows cast on the streets from these buildings? The skyline? They are like several tall thin middle fingers saying I am a foreign national multi-millionaire and pay no real estate taxes, so there! Some people would call that art!
I once sat near the stage at a ballet and could see the effort, the sweat and hear the small grunts. So much more beautiful seen at a distance. But yes, beauty and longing and soul intertwine in our humanity. A very nice column, Mr. Brooks.
3
For a different take on our surroundings, try reading “The Libido for the Ugly,” H.L. Mencken’s bleak take on the American landscape and the people who don’t take care of it. Here’s an extract:
“I have seen, I believe, all of the most unlovely towns of the world; they are all to be found in the United States. I have seen the mill towns of decomposing New England and the desert towns of Utah, Arizona and Texas. I am familiar with the back streets of Newark, Brooklyn and Chicago, and have made scientific explorations to Camden, N.J. and Newport News, Va. Safe in a Pullman, I have whirled through the gloomy, God-forsaken villages of Iowa and Kansas, and the malarious tide-water hamlets of Georgia. I have been to Bridgeport, Conn., and to Los Angeles. But nowhere on this earth, at home or abroad, have I seen anything to compare to the villages that huddle along the line of the Pennsylvania from the Pittsburgh yards to Greensburg. They are incomparable in color, and they are incomparable in design. It is as if some titanic and aberrant genius, uncompromisingly inimical to man, had devoted all the ingenuity of Hell to the making of them. They show grotesqueries of ugliness that, in retrospect, become almost diabolical. One cannot imagine mere human beings concocting such dreadful things, and one can scarcely imagine human beings bearing life in them.”
Beauty and ugliness. They are rarely far apart.
http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/hlmlibidougly.htm
“I have seen, I believe, all of the most unlovely towns of the world; they are all to be found in the United States. I have seen the mill towns of decomposing New England and the desert towns of Utah, Arizona and Texas. I am familiar with the back streets of Newark, Brooklyn and Chicago, and have made scientific explorations to Camden, N.J. and Newport News, Va. Safe in a Pullman, I have whirled through the gloomy, God-forsaken villages of Iowa and Kansas, and the malarious tide-water hamlets of Georgia. I have been to Bridgeport, Conn., and to Los Angeles. But nowhere on this earth, at home or abroad, have I seen anything to compare to the villages that huddle along the line of the Pennsylvania from the Pittsburgh yards to Greensburg. They are incomparable in color, and they are incomparable in design. It is as if some titanic and aberrant genius, uncompromisingly inimical to man, had devoted all the ingenuity of Hell to the making of them. They show grotesqueries of ugliness that, in retrospect, become almost diabolical. One cannot imagine mere human beings concocting such dreadful things, and one can scarcely imagine human beings bearing life in them.”
Beauty and ugliness. They are rarely far apart.
http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/hlmlibidougly.htm
4
When I think of the divorced man, past middle age, staring from his darkened apartment at the young dancers, the first assumption I make is not that beauty is enlightening his soul.
1
Absorbing this column on the one hand and then looking for “eros” in the grating realities of Trump and Cruz . . . well, David, I don't think so. Whatever you might want to say, both subjects are painfully related in 2016.
"You change the world be changing people’s hearts and imaginations." Prove it! The concept runs counter to nearly everything being presented to the world.
"You change the world be changing people’s hearts and imaginations." Prove it! The concept runs counter to nearly everything being presented to the world.
1
Great art is not beautiful. It starts by being frightening, then settles into beauty.
1
I used to hear "beauty is as beauty does." I just read that the ancient Greeks, with all of their eros for truth, beauty, the finer things, supported a group of people with public funds for the purposes of sacrifice to avert or mitigate natural disasters, win wars, be driven out in exile to appease public wrath over some issue. These people, the pharmakoi, were often people deemed mentally unfit or ugly. Beauty is often in the eyes of the beholder.
I have one memory that stands as the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I was young and I was allowed to see a classmate's new baby brother. The baby gazed back at me with ...and I remember thinking these very thoughts....eyes that shined like the sun. Of course, I meant bright radiant blue. And of course I was mocked for comparing blue eyes to a yellow sun. The day ended in much mockery of me...but the beauty and truth of that moment endures. I was looking at my child and my child was looking right back at me. The rest of the story...a picture put together for everyone else to see. Truth is beauty. Love is beauty.
I have one memory that stands as the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I was young and I was allowed to see a classmate's new baby brother. The baby gazed back at me with ...and I remember thinking these very thoughts....eyes that shined like the sun. Of course, I meant bright radiant blue. And of course I was mocked for comparing blue eyes to a yellow sun. The day ended in much mockery of me...but the beauty and truth of that moment endures. I was looking at my child and my child was looking right back at me. The rest of the story...a picture put together for everyone else to see. Truth is beauty. Love is beauty.
4
The column is a wonderful paean to beauty, the value of considered thought, and search for excellence. It stands in sharp contrast to the petulant, destructive, and essentially trivial Republican debate we witnessed last night.
I am grateful to Mr. Brooks for giving us hope for the future despite the sound and fury of those whose ill-conceived emotional knee-jerk reactions would ultimately destroy the beauty of our values.
I am grateful to Mr. Brooks for giving us hope for the future despite the sound and fury of those whose ill-conceived emotional knee-jerk reactions would ultimately destroy the beauty of our values.
1
Elegant and artful way to avoid writing about the GOP debate and its anti-Eros candidates
8
Very appropriate subject in current time when terrorism, ethnic and religious conflicts and inequality are driving the society to a dark corner. Recently I listened to a Nun who said that we create our objective world and every object outside creates four level of forces inside us - cognitive, intelectual, emotional and spiritual. It is the intensity of these forces that determines the richness of our life. A balanced play of these forces creates a society that we call enlightened. The importance of beauty for human spirit is appreciated by an enlighten society. We need to go back to the root - understand that measurements and big data analytics, computational power and visualization are means to grow all four forces and help human to uplift their state - not only to create efficiency and profit.
Good lord, take more walks.
3
Interesting column. However, given the fact that it's become too expensive to pay a casual visit to most museums in NYC, time to appreciate art is limited because of our crazy work schedules, and that much art is in private collections that none of us have access to, I question the reason for the column. Maybe Mr. Brooks has enough leisure time in his life to stop and appreciate the tableaux before him. He seems to have enough of the good life to be able to write platitude filled columns with straw men to help support the GOP. Most of the people I know don't have that sort of time.
We're too busy trying to survive the life the GOP and big business has chosen for us: one of severe insecurity and fear that everything we've worked for will vanish because we will lose our jobs, or need extensive medical care, or something worse. We're too busy trying to save money for every possible disaster that our failing safety net won't cover because America doesn't believe in helping any but its rich citizens, corporate or otherwise. But there is a certain beauty to that. Once you know that you considered useless by your own country you realize that the only reason you have to work hard or do a good job is for your self respect.
We're too busy trying to survive the life the GOP and big business has chosen for us: one of severe insecurity and fear that everything we've worked for will vanish because we will lose our jobs, or need extensive medical care, or something worse. We're too busy trying to save money for every possible disaster that our failing safety net won't cover because America doesn't believe in helping any but its rich citizens, corporate or otherwise. But there is a certain beauty to that. Once you know that you considered useless by your own country you realize that the only reason you have to work hard or do a good job is for your self respect.
7
Art whether modern or traditional is an eternal expression of beauty, though beauty is perceived differently by people and societies; even what's described as ugly by some becomes an object of beauty with a touch of art. Thus every artistic expression becomes an aesthetic expression in itself, reflecting in turn, the interlocking continuum of Truth-Good-Beauty.
3
I appreciate this column, but I think it too thoroughly conflates art and the pursuit of beauty, or aesthetic quality and beauty. Maybe I've just heard the word "beauty" too often conjoined with "products". The world is full of commercialized prettiness, and I feel so suffocated by it, and the manmade landscape of envy and ambition and desire, that I don't even know what beauty is any more. Can beauty be divorced from justice? To the Greeks, justice was a measuredness, a balance, a proportion conducive to beauty. I feel robbed of my ability to strive for something better, and so robbed of my ability to think of beauty.
I'd call the chance tableaux of ballet dancers a kind of loveliness or grace—like the Classical Graces. Something that just is, free of charge, freely given.
My response to a Pietà isn't "that's beautiful." I feel pain for the mother, and something more like nausea. What kind of God would do that to his son? Beauty can't exist without the hope of justice.
I'd call the chance tableaux of ballet dancers a kind of loveliness or grace—like the Classical Graces. Something that just is, free of charge, freely given.
My response to a Pietà isn't "that's beautiful." I feel pain for the mother, and something more like nausea. What kind of God would do that to his son? Beauty can't exist without the hope of justice.
3
"What kind of god would do this to his son?", is to me a pretty clear indication of the theological poverty existing so sadly with so many folk today. Suppose you consider that "God" provides [love & life itself] and humanity is given the freedom to choose how to use these gifts. 'God' did not "do this" to his son, to whom he gave mortality, humanity, mankind is responsible for the 'killing of The Christ' 2000 years ago, and indeed today on a daily basis... Think about it.
Thanks David.
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
5
"... and, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all". - O. Nash
I'll never see a tree at all". - O. Nash
1
Beauty can also be a snare: hiding an ugly person behind a lovely face.
Or it can be a trap for the beautiful. How many beautiful people have found that beauty makes the world open doors for them that would have required great effort from the unbeautiful. How many beauties have gotten fame and fortune by being just beautiful without ever developing enough character to deal with the real challenges of life: Marilyn Monroe, beautiful and desirable beyond measure, dead at 36, the most photographable beauty that ever was, but unable to sustain life. And our culture has now confused beauty with sex appeal: beauty is sold on the silver screen just for men to watch and dream of sex.
Let's talk about virtue instead. Notable quote: "Courage is the most important virtue because without it you can't practice any other virtue consistently." Maya Angelou.
You, David Brooks, could use some courage to move beyond the stale and unworkable and ugly economic prescriptions of the Republican Party of the United States of America.
Or it can be a trap for the beautiful. How many beautiful people have found that beauty makes the world open doors for them that would have required great effort from the unbeautiful. How many beauties have gotten fame and fortune by being just beautiful without ever developing enough character to deal with the real challenges of life: Marilyn Monroe, beautiful and desirable beyond measure, dead at 36, the most photographable beauty that ever was, but unable to sustain life. And our culture has now confused beauty with sex appeal: beauty is sold on the silver screen just for men to watch and dream of sex.
Let's talk about virtue instead. Notable quote: "Courage is the most important virtue because without it you can't practice any other virtue consistently." Maya Angelou.
You, David Brooks, could use some courage to move beyond the stale and unworkable and ugly economic prescriptions of the Republican Party of the United States of America.
20
I think you missed the point....The false beauty you mention was the very thing Mr. Brooks was exploring. He clearly raised the difference between the Greek definition of eros and the modern one.
The author's admiration of the dancers wasn't that they were waif thin models from a fashion magazine or glamorous movie stars, but that they offered a sense of calm, grace and harmony in contrast to the "banal streetscape". They aspired to fluidity in a constrained world. In a world addicted to virtual experiences and Facebook friends, they were REAL. For an instant, one human paused to appreciate something that went unnoticed by many and in that noticing, let his thoughts extrapolate beyond the dancers to things that have been misplaced in our culture.
It is you who should explore moving beyond your stale and unworkable prescriptions, the insatiable need to turn every opinion piece into a political snark fest. Anyone of any political persuasion can still step back and ponder beauty - the highest definition of beauty - and how it might illuminate our world.
The author's admiration of the dancers wasn't that they were waif thin models from a fashion magazine or glamorous movie stars, but that they offered a sense of calm, grace and harmony in contrast to the "banal streetscape". They aspired to fluidity in a constrained world. In a world addicted to virtual experiences and Facebook friends, they were REAL. For an instant, one human paused to appreciate something that went unnoticed by many and in that noticing, let his thoughts extrapolate beyond the dancers to things that have been misplaced in our culture.
It is you who should explore moving beyond your stale and unworkable prescriptions, the insatiable need to turn every opinion piece into a political snark fest. Anyone of any political persuasion can still step back and ponder beauty - the highest definition of beauty - and how it might illuminate our world.
1
So where in this article is there any reference to to the Republican? Brooks is talking about a beauty not comprised of appearances here unlessw I missed the point.
1
Kardashians and Instagram selfies. Technology has allowed the narcissistic and superficial among us a bigger stage than they ever could have imagined.
1
I walk out my door and count the vultures in the neighbor's tree. (God's honest truth!) This has only been in the last couple of years --- when the dimwitted city council instituted a bow hunting policy within the city limits, and I live near a wooded section. (Oh those hunting types!) The neighbor's tree is the high point for surveying the land they swirl. It's such a warm reminder every morning how we are dust and dust we shall return.
4
Modern art often appears to be something a child or monkey could do. I believe that before as artist is declared as accomplished or highly gifted they should be required to paint something resembling a Rembrandt or sculpt something that looks realistic. Then let them do their modern stuff.
4
They have. You need to look at the artist's history to see those beginner's studies, however.
As the philosopher Mike Muir said, "Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it don't make no sense, and just because you don't like something doesn't mean it ain't no good."
1
I don't blame for not wanting to comment on the latest Republican debate - no beauty there. Not even in your fave, Marco.
There's a main thoroughfare up here - Route 30A, or Comrie Ave to the locals who knew it before it was the ugly road of chain stores just like ugly roads of chain stores all over the country. Except when you travel North, you face the Adirondack Mountains.
It's winter now and the trees are bare but come Spring or Autumn , I'll be going about my business, and if that includes driving north on 30A, I'll look up to a bank of trees all fleshed out in the colors of the season. It's beautiful, it literally 'makes my day'. I understand what you're saying, Mr Brooks.
There's a main thoroughfare up here - Route 30A, or Comrie Ave to the locals who knew it before it was the ugly road of chain stores just like ugly roads of chain stores all over the country. Except when you travel North, you face the Adirondack Mountains.
It's winter now and the trees are bare but come Spring or Autumn , I'll be going about my business, and if that includes driving north on 30A, I'll look up to a bank of trees all fleshed out in the colors of the season. It's beautiful, it literally 'makes my day'. I understand what you're saying, Mr Brooks.
5
I live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. For several years I attended a yoga class in a ballet studio that had tall glass windows. The studio was next to a wooded area. My yoga teacher was also a ballet teacher at the studio. She said that often at night white-tailed deer came to the windows and watched the young ballet students dance.
81
How lovely. Thank you for that image. Sounds like a poem.
1
There may be a solution to bridging artists and industrial designers with engineers. Kansei (Japanese word meaning the sensibility of the five senses) was developed by Mitsuo Nagamachi in the 1980s and made a deep contribution to the success of the Mazda Miata. Kansei engineering uses statistical analysis to extract specific product attributes that lead to emotional responses. It helps artists explain to technical people which aesthetics will be most successful.
3
It seems David Brooks is experiencing a sea change in his life and thinking. Just this week he noticed the brutality of Ted Cruz and today he's worried that we've lost our appreciation for beauty and truth. The ugliness of Republican politics is overwhelming and dismal, so much so that a good man can search his soul and wonder how he lent himself to it.
Many people's "humanism" never left them, it can and does exist- even in politics. It doesn't exist in today's Republican Party. That's where this lament of David's comes from. We understand and we forgive you, David.
Many people's "humanism" never left them, it can and does exist- even in politics. It doesn't exist in today's Republican Party. That's where this lament of David's comes from. We understand and we forgive you, David.
68
From the recent harsh judgment of Cruella Cruz to today's touchy-feely ode to an urn... Our Mr. Brooks is coming out as a sensitive lefty.
1
I think you've hit the nail on the head Nick. I've thought this for some time. Mr.Brooks is a closet progressive. Welcome David.
1
'We' may have left behind an ethos that reminded people of the links between the beautiful, the true and the good,' but most individuals who pursue art are quite aware of these links. In many things, there is no 'we.'
3
I love this piece, but please don't dismiss those artists who yearn for a beauty that is "more grittier and confrontational". Consider "Blackstar", the music video from the recently deceased David Bowie. Blackstar may or may not be a metaphor for the cancer that killed him, and the video is indisputably gritty--full of images of bejeweled skulls, scarecrows on crucifixes, and trembling men and women. And yet, the parts come together in a whole that is, in my opinion, transcendental and sheer genius.
Bravo the gritty and confrontational. Encore, encore.
Bravo the gritty and confrontational. Encore, encore.
7
We need Mr. Brooks and others to counter the madness of our angry world.
8
Thank you, David Brooks, for your advocacy for the power of beauty. I couldn't agree more. May I suggest a tweak in your thinking? You, like almost everyone, equate beauty with its nouns, as if beauty were the beautiful objects or things you see framed in a dance studio window. The real power of beauty is the capacity to experience beauty, the time-stopping, heart-surging human moment--the verbs of beauty. People live surrounded by the nouns of beauty but if they lack the verbs have no access to the power of those nouns. Also, if you have good connections with those verbs, you start experiencing beauty more widely, in objects that are not conventionally beautiful, like the face of an old person. The uplifting and transformative power of beauty lies in its verbs. And while artists are adept at creating the nouns, an overlooked and under-supported workforce called "teaching artists" are the experts at developing the verbs.
24
David Brooks’ article is thought provoking. It without doubt points out the spiritual shallowness of the post modern world. The pursuit of beauty is an uplifting experience. However, what is beautiful? A clear-cut definition of beauty has escaped thinkers from Socrates to modern pundits. Perhaps this is necessary. That beauty can inspire to a level beyond simple logic argues for an equivocal source. Yet everyone is capable of delineating a view, a tune, or work of art as either beautiful or pedestrian. We all have our own definitions, a product of our culture tinged with a personal bias.
How to instill the appreciation of beauty is not a matter of educational policies alone, but rather a shift in our social ethos.
How to instill the appreciation of beauty is not a matter of educational policies alone, but rather a shift in our social ethos.
14
Years ago, I wrote a little essay to myself on the question of beauty. I imagined people looking at the Pieta and all expressing their admiration for the beauty of it. One was looking at the composition of the forms and the skill of Michelangelo's carving. Another was looking at the depiction of the mother for her son, and the poignant sadness depicted there. Another was seeing the religious meaning of the crucifixion and Mary's sacrifice. Others were seeing various combinations of al these aspects. They all agreed that the statue was exquisitely beautiful, but each one was seeing something different.
1
David is "descending and abandoning his natural turf" and continues his odyssey of increasingly irrelevant elitist pontification." True Racial reconciliation...will be through...the kind of deep emotional understanding...that art can foster" So based on artists named in Davids column, we drop some Georgia O'Keefe and Paul Klee, on the citizenry and make our "unknown known" and linking with the "cosmic regions"and we eliminate can events like Emanuel AME and unarmed black men being murdered by the police, sounds rational to me. "Everybody approves of art" does that include ISIS?Maybe their savagery is "performance art". When you contrast the squalor and heartbreak of the refugees, the endemic carnage of the Middle East, and the spread of Global terror and juxtapose that with"When Beauty Strikes" it illustrates a reality chasm that helps explain the increasing alienation of many in our American society.
4
ISIS is a destructive force. They are against beauty, against reminders of the history of Islamic art. Its followers have destroyed so many cultural artifacts and ancient historic sites. Of course this destruction pales against their murder of thousands of innocents but it is an extension of their brutality.
And, therefore, thank God, we have Paris.
4
I agree with other commenters, that being reminded there is beauty in the world is an almost jarring contrast to the Republican debate a few short hours ago.
The thoughtful, informative and excellent writing of David Brooks, Thomas Egan and Paul Krugman makes Friday morning my favorite time of the week.
The thoughtful, informative and excellent writing of David Brooks, Thomas Egan and Paul Krugman makes Friday morning my favorite time of the week.
4
For me, art is innocence. When I see or hear something beautiful, I am in the moment and grateful to be a part of something greater. I am child again, absorbed, thrilled and freed. There is something so uplifting, even supernatural about humanity's reverence for gentle beauty. And as nature has supplied us with magnificent visuals, tactile diversity and a symphony of sounds, I hope we continue to interpret, appreciate and embrace our amazing gifts.
Great piece, Mr. Brooks.
Great piece, Mr. Brooks.
7
Than you, David. I remember the period of time when I was in deep grief over the loss of our baby. I was numb to the world. One day while driving in Seattle, I stopped at a red light on 60th and Greenwood Ave. opposite a ballet school and glanced up to see the form of a ballerina in her class. She raised her arm so gracefully that it brought me the first whisper of beauty, the first promise that my life would, one day, experience joy again. I wish I could thank her.
170
"I wish I could thank her."
You just have.
You just have.
3
Years ago I spent an afternoon in the Art Institute of Chicago, immersed in paintings of ordinary faces lit from within by a numinous light. Stepping out onto Michigan Avenue, I found myself surrounded by people coming, going, and sitting. Every face now seemed to be lit from within by the same light. Faces I would not have noticed as I entered enraptured me as I departed. It was a beatific vision.
14
Fabulous article.
Yet, look around, and beauty thrives, though not on Fox News, etc.
People are trying all sorts of creative, beautiful things to enhance their world, our world, and its inspiring to us oldies (I'm 63).
Beauty indeed has a spiritual buzz that is hard to define....but when one feels it...ah.
And it thrives, in my view, irrepressibly.
Yet, look around, and beauty thrives, though not on Fox News, etc.
People are trying all sorts of creative, beautiful things to enhance their world, our world, and its inspiring to us oldies (I'm 63).
Beauty indeed has a spiritual buzz that is hard to define....but when one feels it...ah.
And it thrives, in my view, irrepressibly.
3
How beautiful! I am so thankful my mother was able to pass on an appreciation for the arts, even though the money that once fostered such was long gone. I believe it was her appreciation for these finer things that got us, her children, through life somewhat unscathed - even though we would never live near a place where we could enjoy them, and wouldn't be able to afford them even if we did, we knew they were out there, because she told us. It was our hope for a better life, I guess.
5
"These days we all like beautiful things. Everybody approves of art."
Mr. Brooks, surely you jest! Our "culture" has been commercialized and coarsened. Find me 10 people today, even if your lofty sphere, who have ever heard Mozart's C-minor Mass or would recognize the theme from Bach's Goldberg variations.
Derivative pop nonsense masquerades as "art." Every pretentious rapper who shouts sophomoric rhymes is an "artist."
I will grant that the eternal beauty of a phrase, a gesture, an evocative poem, is a window to a dimension of existence that makes living worthwhile. But those windows are largely shuttered, painted over with garish and crude strokes, drowned out by the cacophony of digitized cognitive cocaine.
Of course even as I write this lament, I recognize that your musings and my response are luxurious expressions of our privilege and of no great value to the millions of Americans whose souls and households are impoverished by the materialistic, greedy, unjust society wrought largely by your ideological brethren.
Mr. Brooks, surely you jest! Our "culture" has been commercialized and coarsened. Find me 10 people today, even if your lofty sphere, who have ever heard Mozart's C-minor Mass or would recognize the theme from Bach's Goldberg variations.
Derivative pop nonsense masquerades as "art." Every pretentious rapper who shouts sophomoric rhymes is an "artist."
I will grant that the eternal beauty of a phrase, a gesture, an evocative poem, is a window to a dimension of existence that makes living worthwhile. But those windows are largely shuttered, painted over with garish and crude strokes, drowned out by the cacophony of digitized cognitive cocaine.
Of course even as I write this lament, I recognize that your musings and my response are luxurious expressions of our privilege and of no great value to the millions of Americans whose souls and households are impoverished by the materialistic, greedy, unjust society wrought largely by your ideological brethren.
16
Well, Steve, what are you intending to do to alleviate this state of affairs?
1
Trouble is abroad, evident in excessive coarseness in public discourse and imagery. Mr. Brooks is wrong to say we all appreciate beauty. A loss of sensibility to beauty threatens the senses and thinking of many. Thus torrents of invective exaggerate "disaster, loss, stupidity, etc," in our debates. Apocolyptic speech demonstrates not just untruth but fundamentally, ugliness, because the old philosophers were right in linking beauty, truth and good. Undermining one weakens the others.
3
Columns like this are infuriating. There are countless artists out there engaged with beauty and sublimity, and many of them are also engaged with theory and technology. Yes, I'm thinking of my work. But I see kindred spirits everywhere.
Or I'm just delusional trying to bridge both worlds. But I think not.
Or I'm just delusional trying to bridge both worlds. But I think not.
5
Kindred spirit here. Thank you, Ed.
Last night I was transported by the gorgeous melodies and spectacular dancing in Rodgers and Hammersteins King and I. As Anna admonished the unhappy King to Whistle a Happy Tune, the Republicans were mocking NY values. I will take the joy and inspiration of the City's extraordinary cultural institutions over the crass, sullen and frankly racist Republican debates any day.
44
That several commentators would assume a sexual connection with Brook's admiration of the beauty of young dancers says a lot about what Brook's is saying here.
Why are people so anxious to apply their own interpretations of motive to other people? And why are these interpretations so often the most negative versions of motivation? This is certainly the antithesis of the pursuit of beauty.
Please reader's, be generous enough in spirit to give Mr. Brooks the benefit of the doubt. When I first came to NYC my best friends girl friend was was in the corps of the NYC ballet and I absolutely loved observing their rehearsals when I got a chance.
My friend was a photographer of the company so I also had the amazing opportunity to attend many performances right above the stage while working as his "assistant".
Both experiences were transcendent- and in a manner entirely above the waist.
Why are people so anxious to apply their own interpretations of motive to other people? And why are these interpretations so often the most negative versions of motivation? This is certainly the antithesis of the pursuit of beauty.
Please reader's, be generous enough in spirit to give Mr. Brooks the benefit of the doubt. When I first came to NYC my best friends girl friend was was in the corps of the NYC ballet and I absolutely loved observing their rehearsals when I got a chance.
My friend was a photographer of the company so I also had the amazing opportunity to attend many performances right above the stage while working as his "assistant".
Both experiences were transcendent- and in a manner entirely above the waist.
6
I agree. I am puzzled by the view that seeing the ballet corps through the window is just some old guy peeping tom sort of thrill. Seriously folks, it really is possible for a man to appreciate the strength, grace and flow of a female dancer without wanting to bed her.
NOW AT AGE 73 . . .
...as I can recall moments and events ... but it seems most people have been captured not by beauty or those ethereal spiritual experiences but the pursue the idol of vulgar materialism.
Many goals that consume one's life ... a game which brings little fulfillment or enlightenment.
After my mother died ... an about 75 year old billionaire I knew offered to help me pro bono with the modest estate which she had left to me. [I knew of his great wealth because the NYT had reported that he had sold his Wall Street company for $2B and remained CEO.]
I arrived at his office at about 3:30 ... but, during the middle of our encounter all of a sudden he looked at his watch and excused himself as he said that the Stock Market would soon close ... and he wanted to see how it had ended via a TV in another room.
Though he was a regular guy (which I use as a great compliment) ... but, his wife not so much. I felt sorry for him. For how would an even substantial increase in wealth improve the essence of his life?
Now, I gain a great deal of solace as I remember those spiritual moments from the past. My first sexual experience when I was in college has become far more precious with time. Or, The Yankee games thru the World Series which they seemed to always win.
And in 1953 when we went to Rockaway for the summer and the boardwalk had to be repaired using a special tar. Now on occasion I smell this odor in Manhattan and the 1953 gestalt is revived.
Proust?
...as I can recall moments and events ... but it seems most people have been captured not by beauty or those ethereal spiritual experiences but the pursue the idol of vulgar materialism.
Many goals that consume one's life ... a game which brings little fulfillment or enlightenment.
After my mother died ... an about 75 year old billionaire I knew offered to help me pro bono with the modest estate which she had left to me. [I knew of his great wealth because the NYT had reported that he had sold his Wall Street company for $2B and remained CEO.]
I arrived at his office at about 3:30 ... but, during the middle of our encounter all of a sudden he looked at his watch and excused himself as he said that the Stock Market would soon close ... and he wanted to see how it had ended via a TV in another room.
Though he was a regular guy (which I use as a great compliment) ... but, his wife not so much. I felt sorry for him. For how would an even substantial increase in wealth improve the essence of his life?
Now, I gain a great deal of solace as I remember those spiritual moments from the past. My first sexual experience when I was in college has become far more precious with time. Or, The Yankee games thru the World Series which they seemed to always win.
And in 1953 when we went to Rockaway for the summer and the boardwalk had to be repaired using a special tar. Now on occasion I smell this odor in Manhattan and the 1953 gestalt is revived.
Proust?
3
"But it also reminds me of a worldview, which was more common in eras more romantic than our own."
David Brooks is a true Romantic. But in the modern sense. He has romanticized Conservatism at the NYT to the point to historical revisionism, unto an ideal which never existed. Tiny dancers.
But today's article is odd. Creepy odd. Viewing a ballet practice from afar is never about the art, but rather, as Mr. Brooks puts it, "arousing the senses." And he goes on. As is his wont.
David Brooks is a true Romantic. But in the modern sense. He has romanticized Conservatism at the NYT to the point to historical revisionism, unto an ideal which never existed. Tiny dancers.
But today's article is odd. Creepy odd. Viewing a ballet practice from afar is never about the art, but rather, as Mr. Brooks puts it, "arousing the senses." And he goes on. As is his wont.
4
Well, there is good art and lots of bad - and certainly a lot of bad architecture. There always has been. The old good stuff is saved in Museums or preerved, so the comparisons between the new litter around us and the old, worthwhile is not a fair one.
A Corbusier structure has all the tragic beauty of the best of the Greeks and a De Kooning woman is, to me, as beautiful as a Degas dancer. Truly beautiful art is rare, and as an architect, I can attest how very difficult it is to design a truly beautiful building.... and it always has been.
A Corbusier structure has all the tragic beauty of the best of the Greeks and a De Kooning woman is, to me, as beautiful as a Degas dancer. Truly beautiful art is rare, and as an architect, I can attest how very difficult it is to design a truly beautiful building.... and it always has been.
2
Some Logical Positivists think ethics is really a branch of aesthetics but I see the other way round.
When people say beauty is skin deep, they are likely to equate conventional beauty with true beauty which has very different meanings a la different schools of philosophy and/or theology. Why, which is more beautiful, the Sistine Chapel or Mother Theresa in motion in the slum of Calcutta?
While ballet is elegant and requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices - to be able to appear so light and spontaneous when it requires so much efforts and control - the first thing comes to mind when I read your lead in is the TV series "Flesh and Bone!"
So beauty can have a outer layer, an inner layer and an inexplicable layer as well. Extremists and literalists are so attached the outer layer that they allow their own prejudice to overwhelm their sense of appreciation. This is not just the prejudice against the poor or the downtrodden but also the prejudice against the rich or the lucky. The extreme right thinks the hard luck cases not trying hard enough; the extreme left thinks the rich is guilty because of the social status. Neither cares to look at the circumstances on a case by case basis and both have committed the error of looking at beauty at the most superficial level
When people say beauty is skin deep, they are likely to equate conventional beauty with true beauty which has very different meanings a la different schools of philosophy and/or theology. Why, which is more beautiful, the Sistine Chapel or Mother Theresa in motion in the slum of Calcutta?
While ballet is elegant and requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices - to be able to appear so light and spontaneous when it requires so much efforts and control - the first thing comes to mind when I read your lead in is the TV series "Flesh and Bone!"
So beauty can have a outer layer, an inner layer and an inexplicable layer as well. Extremists and literalists are so attached the outer layer that they allow their own prejudice to overwhelm their sense of appreciation. This is not just the prejudice against the poor or the downtrodden but also the prejudice against the rich or the lucky. The extreme right thinks the hard luck cases not trying hard enough; the extreme left thinks the rich is guilty because of the social status. Neither cares to look at the circumstances on a case by case basis and both have committed the error of looking at beauty at the most superficial level
1
Case in point, there are readers here who choose to criticize Mr Brooks no matter what he said. In effect, they try to reduce the columnist to a one-dimensional man. Regrettably, it is they who have lost the sense of beauty by failing to deal with the column on its own right and perhaps to help understand the inner life of its author
3
So gracious and beautiful, David. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We can always count on you. Another one for the fridge like "A Moral Bucket List."
1
Sorry Mr. Brooks, John Keats beat you to it 196 years ago.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"
6
David,
I agree with your thoughts on beauty but would add that beauty is not merely a product of human creativity. Last night I was doing the dishes and looked out the window. As the dancers struck you, I was struck with the beauty of a white crust of snow atop the firewood stacked outside. Beauty is all around us if we have but eyes to see.
Great art has the power to break through and open our eyes to beauty. But once opened there is beauty to be found in a mote of dust floating in the sunlight.
I agree with your thoughts on beauty but would add that beauty is not merely a product of human creativity. Last night I was doing the dishes and looked out the window. As the dancers struck you, I was struck with the beauty of a white crust of snow atop the firewood stacked outside. Beauty is all around us if we have but eyes to see.
Great art has the power to break through and open our eyes to beauty. But once opened there is beauty to be found in a mote of dust floating in the sunlight.
122
Great column! And not once did you slip in your normal gottcha comment blaming everything on liberals. Hard to do when most artists of any stripe are surely tainted by their humanistic liberalism.
3
I've known many people with an advanced appreciation of culture -- educated, well-traveled people, people who enroll as members of museums and subscribe to the performing arts -- who were also cold and miserable as human beings. I hope their pursuits of beauty aided them, inspired them, helped them develop, I hope they were better off with their appreciation of beauty than without it. I can even imagine that they were/are the better for it. But if what David Brooks is describing is an accurate view of how human beings and beauty intersect, then it seems to me perhaps necessary but not sufficient.
One specific place where I can discern a difference between how I see things and how David Brooks sees things is the notion of "educating the emotions" that frequently crops up in his work. What I see with regard to emotional development is more like a process of learning to discern the emotions, to identify what is already there, to put the emotions in perspective, to become able to shift from one emotional reaction to a more helpful emotion. But maybe there is a stage of educating our emotions -- I wouldn't want to rule it out, but I also wouldn't want to assume it is the only process involving our emotions through which we reach our potential as human beings.
One specific place where I can discern a difference between how I see things and how David Brooks sees things is the notion of "educating the emotions" that frequently crops up in his work. What I see with regard to emotional development is more like a process of learning to discern the emotions, to identify what is already there, to put the emotions in perspective, to become able to shift from one emotional reaction to a more helpful emotion. But maybe there is a stage of educating our emotions -- I wouldn't want to rule it out, but I also wouldn't want to assume it is the only process involving our emotions through which we reach our potential as human beings.
19
I read it that Mr. Brooks had a moment of wonder and awe perhaps at the contrast of a box store and the gracefulness of the dancers. Psychologists now tell us that experiences of awe and wonder are transformative by reorienting our goals and values (Kelner & Haidt, 2003). But that is only a beginning: the emotions do need educating which is the job of a lifetime. Social scientists are perplexed by the gap of empathy in today's world: not that we don't feel it for others, but that we don't feel it for people different than us and therefore empathy doesn't translate to action. It certainly is playing out in our culture and our politics: no one credits the helping hand they were given to be where they are now i.e. Christie's unapologetically crass reference to our President who personally held his hand--and his back--in the time of NJ's great need after Hurricane Sandy. After the debate debacle last night I needed a dose of beauty this morning.
1
Beauty strikes everyone, even those who adore ugliness.
David Koch loves art.
David Koch was so inspired by his gazillion-dollar family business of polluting oil refineries, chemical manufacturing facilities and crude oil pipelines that after buying almost half of the Congress and half of America's governorships, he even recently bought part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $65 million, now known as David H. Koch Plaza.
David Koch also loves history.
He's a major donor, exhibit sponsor and trustee on the board of directors at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History.
Never mind that David Koch's oil and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries is one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and that Mr. Koch funds a large network of climate-change-denying organizations, spending over $67 million since 1997 to fund groups denying climate change science.
Museums tell the priceless story of art, the humanities and history to the public.
Who better to fund that story than billionaires like David Koch to help artistically paint over the realities of Grand Old Pollution, Grand Old Poverty, Grand Old Prevarication and Grand Old Parasitism ?
Monet, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Renoir and Picasso are all grand masters.
We should also give credit to the great grand masters of the indefinable ancient art of Greed Over People.
When ugliness strikes beauty, indeed.
David Koch loves art.
David Koch was so inspired by his gazillion-dollar family business of polluting oil refineries, chemical manufacturing facilities and crude oil pipelines that after buying almost half of the Congress and half of America's governorships, he even recently bought part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $65 million, now known as David H. Koch Plaza.
David Koch also loves history.
He's a major donor, exhibit sponsor and trustee on the board of directors at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History.
Never mind that David Koch's oil and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries is one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and that Mr. Koch funds a large network of climate-change-denying organizations, spending over $67 million since 1997 to fund groups denying climate change science.
Museums tell the priceless story of art, the humanities and history to the public.
Who better to fund that story than billionaires like David Koch to help artistically paint over the realities of Grand Old Pollution, Grand Old Poverty, Grand Old Prevarication and Grand Old Parasitism ?
Monet, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Renoir and Picasso are all grand masters.
We should also give credit to the great grand masters of the indefinable ancient art of Greed Over People.
When ugliness strikes beauty, indeed.
252
I wish you didn't call Leonardo "da Vinci": "da" small C, means "from" in Italian. Nobody would call Erasmus simply "van Rotterdam." True, Erasmus, lucky he, never got the Dan Brown treatment.
Yeah, David Koch, Beauty Pimp.
Yes, indeed. The expression of beauty is an important human need.
This piece reminded me of having taken two semesters of an art history course when I was an undergraduate, not because it had anything to do with my major, but because it helped me to understand much about the world that I did not yet appreciate as a young adult. Admittedly this was at a liberal arts college where not every learning experience had to have monetary value. Is it not possible to learn about something that leads to a career as well as to learn about quite a number of other things that lead to being a more well-rounded person?
The same college that provided me with a solid education also gave me a sense of beauty. While some buildings on campus were admittedly more utilitarian than beautiful, most of them still were intended to add something to the harmonious nature of the surrounding natural and built environment. Our dining hall, while being in the center of the campus, also looked out onto one of the most stunning valleys of the midwest. Every meal offered a million-dollar view as well as the possibility of connecting in some way with the natural world.
No doubt a number of students were blessed to be from families that could afford the private school tuition at that place, but quite a number of us (me included) were from working class families who aspired to higher education and who worked and saved hard to be there. We were all allowed the same dignity and beauty regardless.
This piece reminded me of having taken two semesters of an art history course when I was an undergraduate, not because it had anything to do with my major, but because it helped me to understand much about the world that I did not yet appreciate as a young adult. Admittedly this was at a liberal arts college where not every learning experience had to have monetary value. Is it not possible to learn about something that leads to a career as well as to learn about quite a number of other things that lead to being a more well-rounded person?
The same college that provided me with a solid education also gave me a sense of beauty. While some buildings on campus were admittedly more utilitarian than beautiful, most of them still were intended to add something to the harmonious nature of the surrounding natural and built environment. Our dining hall, while being in the center of the campus, also looked out onto one of the most stunning valleys of the midwest. Every meal offered a million-dollar view as well as the possibility of connecting in some way with the natural world.
No doubt a number of students were blessed to be from families that could afford the private school tuition at that place, but quite a number of us (me included) were from working class families who aspired to higher education and who worked and saved hard to be there. We were all allowed the same dignity and beauty regardless.
8
Is beauty merely an effete luxury, as so many commenters on Brooks's stimulating piece argue, or the core of the human soul? I suspect that one can judge a society not only by how it treats its poor, but also how it honors, and remunerates, its artists.
33
Americans have more free time than ever before to pursue beauty. They see it in a 40 yard pass or three point basket, and talk of how meaningful it is while reeking of cheap beer and Doritos.
11
It's important to remember the difference between a politician and a critic of the politician -- the one has to make serious decisions with a balance of good and bad consequences. The other judges those decisions and analyses them, hopefully based on wisdom. An artist and an art critic are also in different spaces. The one creates, exposes us to a world we cannot perhaps see in their special ways until they reveal it to us -- for us to contemplate, see and appreciate in new ways, and to learn from. The critic tries to clarify for the uninformed how to get the most out of the art or to argue that some art is better than other -- better in informing us, in making us see the world more deeply, or perhaps in inspiring us. If David Brooks is to be an art critic he might first try to understand art himself -- at least get informed about what real art critics argue about and the basis of their ability to do that. It is good that he tries to show how a full human should be involved in all facets of reality. It might also be good to humbly admit when you are out of your league, just groping, not settling things.
2
Art is communication. My photography is how I communicate my feelings about the world I encounter. I think David is a big fan of pretty and "sheer beauty" - whatever that is. That is wonderful. For others, beauty is not found just in pretty but in an image or sculpture or a painting that actually says something.
For example, Margaret Bourke-White did not shy away from the gritty with her photography. Arresting images that also had a social commentary attached were a large part of her work. Beautiful work technically that also had something to say. She did not say it obliquely.
There are plenty of tranquil landscapes and sunsets being made. Paintings and photographs that capture the artist's feelings and calm us inside. There are also images and sculptures and installations that make a statement - gritty perhaps - and from my perspective more interesting.
Then again, beauty is in the eye...
For example, Margaret Bourke-White did not shy away from the gritty with her photography. Arresting images that also had a social commentary attached were a large part of her work. Beautiful work technically that also had something to say. She did not say it obliquely.
There are plenty of tranquil landscapes and sunsets being made. Paintings and photographs that capture the artist's feelings and calm us inside. There are also images and sculptures and installations that make a statement - gritty perhaps - and from my perspective more interesting.
Then again, beauty is in the eye...
3
Few would disagree with the benefits of "beauty" in an ugly world, but Mr. Brooks doesn't address the issue of who owns the "rights" to beauty.
His pals in the GOP would say that only if you can write a check do you "deserve" beauty. Whether it be a piece of art, or a view over the Grand Canyon, they would proclaim "beauty' as the rightful property of the few.
The rest are out of luck.
His pals in the GOP would say that only if you can write a check do you "deserve" beauty. Whether it be a piece of art, or a view over the Grand Canyon, they would proclaim "beauty' as the rightful property of the few.
The rest are out of luck.
13
I wonder if David Brooks appreciates how radical the implications of this column, if taken seriously, would be. It calls -- rightly, I believe -- for the dismantling of industrial society and the abandonment of an economy based on mass consumption. Are you really ready to go there, David?
3
In short, Hey you artist kids, get off my lawn.
1
Good column David. There is much ugliness in the world and taking time to appreciate beauty is good for the soul. As to your former political party, the ugliness was on display in the debate and there just wasn't enough time to claim they would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. As to love, eros and agape, and there was no agape displayed on stage last night.
3
The question for Tom is this:
When veterans are allowed to die for lack of medical care and NOT ONE person causing that tragedy is made to answer for that, should Americans be angry?
When unchecked immigrants carrying diseases that kill American kids in the Midwest are allowed to come across the border, should patriots and nurturers of children be angry?
When Barack orders those convicted of murder and rape and armed robbery among the aliens simply driven four hundred miles and released, should those who want to be protected be incensed?
When our allies no longer trust us to even do the right thing internationally and the most evil people ridicule us and our sailors, should we be angry?
When one President promises to protect two countries and Barack orders that protection removed with no promises from our enemies, should Tom NOT be angry?
If so, what is wrong with Tom?
When veterans are allowed to die for lack of medical care and NOT ONE person causing that tragedy is made to answer for that, should Americans be angry?
When unchecked immigrants carrying diseases that kill American kids in the Midwest are allowed to come across the border, should patriots and nurturers of children be angry?
When Barack orders those convicted of murder and rape and armed robbery among the aliens simply driven four hundred miles and released, should those who want to be protected be incensed?
When our allies no longer trust us to even do the right thing internationally and the most evil people ridicule us and our sailors, should we be angry?
When one President promises to protect two countries and Barack orders that protection removed with no promises from our enemies, should Tom NOT be angry?
If so, what is wrong with Tom?
All your questions are off topic to both my comment as well as the column.
1
So seldom do I agree w/ D Brooks that when we share a viewpoint I feel I must say so. Back g fallen in love with a ballerina and married her, to attend recitals of dancing daughters, I can attest to the divine nature of ballet. But beyond that pleasure I can also agree that life revolving around lucre alone is dismal in the extreme. Can one imagine Donald at the Met or Cruz at Carnegie Hall? I cannot.
At a park near my house is a bench with this memorial: "He played in Carnegie Hall." I never tire of resting there, if only to bemoan the spiritual despair of this century so evident in last night's dismal Republican production of "Who Can Inspire Least?"
If that is what we can expect from an election marked by For Sale signs, who wants tickets? Not I!
At a park near my house is a bench with this memorial: "He played in Carnegie Hall." I never tire of resting there, if only to bemoan the spiritual despair of this century so evident in last night's dismal Republican production of "Who Can Inspire Least?"
If that is what we can expect from an election marked by For Sale signs, who wants tickets? Not I!
4
You must have watched the Republican debate last night, Mr. Brooks.
You've given up, haven't you.
You've given up, haven't you.
102
Such a contrast to the Republican debate with all its ugliness! Come with us and vote Democratic, David.
99
Enough grousing! Thank you, David, for thoughtful thoughts.
7
"The shift to post-humanism has left the world beauty-poor and meaning-deprived." So true. A perfect example is the "crucifix in a glass of pee" given prominent display in a public museum. Would any have complained if Rudy upon visiting that museum had simply and "accidentally" knocked an elbow on that work of art and sent it crashing to the floor?
But it's not just modern art which screams nothingness it's also modern music - soulless to its discordant core. Throw in modern dance, modern theatre wallowing in vulgarity, and on and on; where is the beauty? A real problem we have here.
But it's not just modern art which screams nothingness it's also modern music - soulless to its discordant core. Throw in modern dance, modern theatre wallowing in vulgarity, and on and on; where is the beauty? A real problem we have here.
3
At least as far a music goes, you need to dig deeper. There is some fantastically lovely and creative music being produced today. It's not playing on your FM radio.
1
They eye belongs to the beholder.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
2
Would you call the following 20th century musical compositions "soulless to [their] discordant soul"?
Igor Stravinsky's soulfully rhythmic "Le Sacre du Printemps"? His glorious neoclassical ballets "Apollo" and "Orpheus"? His "Symphony of Psalms"?
Or Aaron Copeland's lyrical "Appalachian Spring"? His Igor-like rhythmic "Billy the Kid"? His tender opera "The Tender Land?"
Or John Adams's "Nixon in China"? His "Death of Klinghoffer?"
The late quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich?
Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem"? His operas "Peter Grimes," "Billy Budd," and "Death in Venice"?
The vibrant string quartets of Eliot Carter?
As for "vulgarity" in "modern" theater: Edward Albee's moving and poignant "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Final line: Martha: "I am, George. I am [afraid]."
It takes "the long distance" listeners/viewers--their undistracted attention--to appreciate all arts modern.
Igor Stravinsky's soulfully rhythmic "Le Sacre du Printemps"? His glorious neoclassical ballets "Apollo" and "Orpheus"? His "Symphony of Psalms"?
Or Aaron Copeland's lyrical "Appalachian Spring"? His Igor-like rhythmic "Billy the Kid"? His tender opera "The Tender Land?"
Or John Adams's "Nixon in China"? His "Death of Klinghoffer?"
The late quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich?
Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem"? His operas "Peter Grimes," "Billy Budd," and "Death in Venice"?
The vibrant string quartets of Eliot Carter?
As for "vulgarity" in "modern" theater: Edward Albee's moving and poignant "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Final line: Martha: "I am, George. I am [afraid]."
It takes "the long distance" listeners/viewers--their undistracted attention--to appreciate all arts modern.
1
Mr Brooks, I would like to congratulate you for the most interesting and beautiful piece of writing I have read in years ! Yes : art can change our experience of the world ; art can promote the comprehension of what that most counts in life. Thank you for your courage for such a writing. Thank you for existing.
13
Mr Brooks is amazing on writing his thoughts on beauty such as the dancers practicing their grueling moves as something that is beauty in a fleeting moment that in any example of a multitude examples should be appreciated and possibly make our lives a little richer and endearing. The point I received is that through appreciation of the beauty life gives us or what we create is perhaps a common bond of the like minded to transcend the boundaries society had placed on ourselves through creative arts. A wonderful piece.
6
Thank you for this unexpected article from you, for sharing a moment in which your humanity was deeply touched. The devastating ugliness of our violent culture and political landscape speaks of hearts that have forgotten to look for beauty. True beauty is more than superficial. It whispers of something deeper, of a magnificence we can barely comprehend; a magnificence that we little human beings share. The deep beauty of those ballet dancers is in their determined struggle against the natural constraints of the human body to achieve an ideal, an elegance, a language of heart-inspired movement that reminds us we can do and be so much more than we suspect. Yes, they are beautiful. I am so glad you see it.
6
Happiness and beauty are memories chosen from experience, cherry picked:
“We do not choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences. Even when we think about the future, we do not think of our future normally, [as in] the experiences. We think the future of our anticipated memories.” (Kahneman) Our memory of an experience shapes our anticipation of the future, Mr. Brooks coddles this bias and entices us to look back upon "great beauty" and ignore the cruelty from which it often emerges: emaciated, obsessive, sculpted in a crucible of physical pain and privation.
Keats tells us that: "When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"
Is it possible that Brooks would employ this tendency and draw our attention to sentiments about "remembered experiences" stripped of the pain? "Economists are experts on happiness. The world is understood primarily as the product of impersonal forces; the nonmaterial dimensions of life explained by the material ones." Not really. Not anymore, once the Behavioral Economists restored meaning, value to a non material measure. In fact, material contribution to one's happiness is genuinely limited, contrary to all neo-classical economics. Looking back at the art and beauty of all "gilded" ages a taint of cruelty that privilege exacts, smells.
“We do not choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences. Even when we think about the future, we do not think of our future normally, [as in] the experiences. We think the future of our anticipated memories.” (Kahneman) Our memory of an experience shapes our anticipation of the future, Mr. Brooks coddles this bias and entices us to look back upon "great beauty" and ignore the cruelty from which it often emerges: emaciated, obsessive, sculpted in a crucible of physical pain and privation.
Keats tells us that: "When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"
Is it possible that Brooks would employ this tendency and draw our attention to sentiments about "remembered experiences" stripped of the pain? "Economists are experts on happiness. The world is understood primarily as the product of impersonal forces; the nonmaterial dimensions of life explained by the material ones." Not really. Not anymore, once the Behavioral Economists restored meaning, value to a non material measure. In fact, material contribution to one's happiness is genuinely limited, contrary to all neo-classical economics. Looking back at the art and beauty of all "gilded" ages a taint of cruelty that privilege exacts, smells.
3
David, david, DAVID! (can I call you David?). I get what you're saying. Our society has become far to....plebeian...with it's tastes. It's sensibilities have been eroded under the constant onslaught of all things digital. We have become so "wired together" that we cannot see the singular. In the quest for immediacy we sacrifice all things that command contemplation. I get it. Beauty gets lost in the minutia. Errrr...so to speak.
But Beauty.....Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, eh?
John~
American Net'Zen
But Beauty.....Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, eh?
John~
American Net'Zen
1
I find the first couple of comments "creepy" and more about the writers' than Brooks. Lovely and uplifting to read Brooks' today...
3
Hey, if a person chooses to disrobe in front of their undraped window, that is their business.
Now Mr. Brooks is telling artists how to do their job.
David's rational reminds me of officials in the old Soviet Union who came up with ideas of how art to best serve the public. It is really startling to discover daily how similar Republican positions have become to what we used to consider un-American.
Is it surprising then that 100% of the Republican candidates are climate change deniers aligning with Vladimir Putin who served as a KGB agent for 15 years? Like Mr. Putin they are all gun-loving and anti-gay conservatives and one of them (their top candidate) even makes no bones of his mutual deep admiration.
What happened to the freedom loving, pollution fighting, human rights advocates of yesteryear's Republicans?
David's rational reminds me of officials in the old Soviet Union who came up with ideas of how art to best serve the public. It is really startling to discover daily how similar Republican positions have become to what we used to consider un-American.
Is it surprising then that 100% of the Republican candidates are climate change deniers aligning with Vladimir Putin who served as a KGB agent for 15 years? Like Mr. Putin they are all gun-loving and anti-gay conservatives and one of them (their top candidate) even makes no bones of his mutual deep admiration.
What happened to the freedom loving, pollution fighting, human rights advocates of yesteryear's Republicans?
11
In ON BEAUTY AND BEING JUST, Elaine Scarry argues that access to and pursuit of beauty corresponds with access to and pursuit of justice. I am still thinking about her thesis. However, the thesis is borne out at least partly by the lower recidivism rates of ex-offenders who has participated in prison arts programs.
Redemption is the greatest beauty.
Redemption is the greatest beauty.
2
One day when my mother was about twelve years old, her father had an accident with the tractor. Some insurance money came into the household, a modest amount, but for this close-to-starving sharecropping family, a windfall. This money enabled them to buy a radio, and my mother heard her first broadcast of the Metropolitan opera. She didn't know what it was, but it was profoundly different from everything else she had ever experienced up till that moment. She always said that it was her first intimation that there was something "out there" beyond the farm and its privations, something deeply thrilling. She didn't even know it then, but much later she realized that it was beauty. She dates her determination and inspiration to be the first in her family to graduate from college, to earn a PhD, and to create a life filled with art, travel, music, and beauty for herself and in time her children. Beauty is one of the greatest powers in the universe. Access to beauty is a human right, and the protection and promulgation of beauty is one of the highest obligations of a civilized polity.
412
An interesting notion - is our deficit the lack of beauty around us or inside us?
4
a precise observation.........david brooks in his beautifully intentioned essay touches on compassion and the unconscious,including his own need to see beauty.Chuang Tzu in his" seminal" work The Inner Chapter describes an exchange between Confucius and his pupil Yen Hui.........."may I ask about the minds fast? "center your attention," began Confucius, "stop listening with your ears and listen with your mind........then stop listening with your mind and listen with your primal spirit.......hearing is limited to the ear......mind is limited to tallying things up.......but the primal spirit is empty:ITS SIMPLY THAT WHICH AWAITS THINGS......Tao is emptiness merged,and emptiness is the minds fast.".......in this state the most mundane and simple things are beautiful........actually all that one perceives is beautiful..............its a rare and wondrous state !
1
Doesn't anyone proofread columns before they're sent to press at the Times? I was appalled by that stomach churning first paragraph. David Brooks is clearly on throes of of some mid life crisis. Brooks had better stop staring at those dancers before that ballet school issues a restraining order against him.
6
Sharon5101, the stomach churning comes from your own mind. And I agree with another commenter who said a couple of the comments were creepy. I don't often agree with Brooks and don't agree with everything in this article but I do believe that recognizing and internalizing the beauty that surrounds us is essential to a good life.
6
It is earth shattering when a conservative (authoritarian type) ponder art and beauty. Taking a wooden nickel from Mr. Brooks is tantamount to discovering that the GOP would readily fund Planned Parenthood or sponsor a gay rights parade. I imagine Mr. Brooks with a powerful telescope pondering lanky nubiles and evil thoughts. This and other Editoral efforts suggesting that conservative GOP types are normal is insidious and evil as propaganda lurks over his WORD processing program.
I find it really sad that of eleven comments only one was positive. I find that Mr. Brooks is offering much for thought these days, especially as he retreats from political themes. I also think that 'Midway' him/herself is creepy, to take issue with a simple observation about seeing dancers in a ballet school. Only a perverse individual can see this as creepy as opposed to the moment of beauty which it is, and only an individual who is him/herself a Scrooge, morose and sour on life, probably because of his/her own family problems, would be so below-the-belt as to bring Mr. Brooks personal life into a comment about this essay on the importance of art and beauty. Shame!
10
Have you never read of the widespread disrespect of David Brooks in media (mainstream and otherwise)? That you are astonished means to me that you are unaware of the author's noted hypocrisy. As one writer noted years' ago: Read what David Brooks says today, and forget what he said before.
Now, do you're own research.
Now, do you're own research.
2
Oh so thought provoking Mr. Brooks. And I agree that art, "beauty" can uplift our souls. I wish however, that you had dwelt on the definition of beauty itself more. As a retired architect, I look at my own "life" and professional experience as one of dealing with beauty every day. Not just a few times was I confronted with clients who didn't share my particular vision. Likewise, I find myself in the minority in preference for classical music over other forms. Music by the way, is my own preferred vehicle for experiencing that transformation of which you speak.
Had you attempted to define that beauty you speak of, you would have been forced to recognize that the means of expression of beauty takes many forms and is expressed in myriad idioms and techniques. All credit to you though for lamenting the decline of appreciation of things "beautiful" and the culture which elevates the importance of "beauty' void of economic or social attachments.
Had you attempted to define that beauty you speak of, you would have been forced to recognize that the means of expression of beauty takes many forms and is expressed in myriad idioms and techniques. All credit to you though for lamenting the decline of appreciation of things "beautiful" and the culture which elevates the importance of "beauty' void of economic or social attachments.
5
Well done Mr. Brooks. Thank you.
2
You should listen to Tim Keller's sermon from 2011 on the beauty of God. He uses the passage from Psalm 27 to explain how important beauty is to us as humans to better understand God.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"
that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
--John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
The problem may be that even if we all say we appreciate beauty, there is still no consensus as to what constitutes the truth where politics are concerned.
that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
--John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
The problem may be that even if we all say we appreciate beauty, there is still no consensus as to what constitutes the truth where politics are concerned.
2
Maybe we have wrongly come to think of beauty and art as something that a common person can only receive, as a spectator or listener. And that if you are below advanced level on your hobby, you should give up doing it.
First, trying your hand at something, however amateurishly, makes it easier to find beauty in and appreciate the works of true artists. More you do yourself, more you get into.
But I also believe that there can be true beauty and art present in what we do, even as sloppy amateurs, if we genuinely strive for it. Perhaps not so much in external standards but in the moment and for ourselves. Simple things can still be beautiful.
Defining our internal experience by external standards is the error. It also turns us away from noticing the beauty around that is there by accident and is not advertized.
First, trying your hand at something, however amateurishly, makes it easier to find beauty in and appreciate the works of true artists. More you do yourself, more you get into.
But I also believe that there can be true beauty and art present in what we do, even as sloppy amateurs, if we genuinely strive for it. Perhaps not so much in external standards but in the moment and for ourselves. Simple things can still be beautiful.
Defining our internal experience by external standards is the error. It also turns us away from noticing the beauty around that is there by accident and is not advertized.
54
When I retired about two years ago, I took up sketching, working with colored pencil. I'm starting to get a sort of knack for it. It gave me great pleasure when a couple of friends, professional artists, told me I was pretty good. One of them even called me an artist! Even better is the way I now look at the world. I see colors and shadings in a very different way and I see the relationships of trees and buildings and landscapes with a new appreciation. I also get more pleasure from my visits to the Art Museum.
PS. I also took up piano a couple of months ago. I think my ear for music is a improving, and it has done wonders for my typing skills.
PS. I also took up piano a couple of months ago. I think my ear for music is a improving, and it has done wonders for my typing skills.
1
So I wake up this morning and go downstairs to get the papers and this good girl comes downstairs with me, and we go outside to get the papers and a squirrel bursts across the lawn and Kota here bolts after her for a minute or two for the fun of doing it, and then comes back and looks straight into my eyes with her big brown eyes, and I look up at the oak trees over us where the squirrel has already made his getaway, and I say to myself, thank you G-d for giving me all these beautiful things again today.
52
It is our commercial civilization that leaves the world beauty-poor and meaning-deprived. Art becomes just another way to make money. We promote not the fullest inner life, but rather the most rich consumer existence. The meaning of Christmas is the annual spending orgy that keeps important sectors of the economy functioning and their employees with jobs.
7
Speak for yourself. We are individuals and some more independent than other. You cannot mandate us into a group, nor trreat us as one size fits all. Some of us believe and not because we are paid to do it.
Some of you have a very poor understanding of Christianity, I think...
Some of you have a very poor understanding of Christianity, I think...
I miss the days when Mr. Brooks simply tried to convince us to vote Republican. Since recent candidates have pulled that rug out from under him, he now tends to wax philosophical. His conservative urges have not left him, but they’ve changed form. Instead of an artist descending to the level of pundits, our pundit has become an artist, masterfully constructing a platonic ideal of a world, and longing for a time that never really existed.
Back then, only the elite had the time and wherewithal to appreciate beauty. Most people struggled to survive for their two score and five, eking out a miserable existence in what we would consider abject squalor, succumbing early to rotten teeth and scrofula, or God knows what else. Beauty coexisted with some pretty ugly stuff.
True, there was soaring architecture to be found in churches. But churches were only important back then because there weren’t any hospitals. I’d trade you ten Gothic cathedrals for one CVS with a Minute Clinic.
Brooks laments the rise of Big Data, but I would argue that there is great beauty to be found in data. With it we can predict the weather, and project elections before all the votes are in. Who can forget the moment when Karl Rove’s head exploded, unable to contain the reality of Obama’s victory in Ohio? That’s a color the old masters never had on their palates. Apoplectic purple. Beautiful.
Back then, only the elite had the time and wherewithal to appreciate beauty. Most people struggled to survive for their two score and five, eking out a miserable existence in what we would consider abject squalor, succumbing early to rotten teeth and scrofula, or God knows what else. Beauty coexisted with some pretty ugly stuff.
True, there was soaring architecture to be found in churches. But churches were only important back then because there weren’t any hospitals. I’d trade you ten Gothic cathedrals for one CVS with a Minute Clinic.
Brooks laments the rise of Big Data, but I would argue that there is great beauty to be found in data. With it we can predict the weather, and project elections before all the votes are in. Who can forget the moment when Karl Rove’s head exploded, unable to contain the reality of Obama’s victory in Ohio? That’s a color the old masters never had on their palates. Apoplectic purple. Beautiful.
235
The appreciation of beauty has never been the sole province of the elite. Beauty doesn't have to be man made. It can be the beauty of bare trees against a winter sky, the beauty of a field filled with a good crop, the beauty of a rainbow during summer rain. Beauty is all around us if we only look and I believe many people who are far from elite have been appreciating it for centuries.
6
But churches were only important back then because there weren’t any hospitals.
---------------
Ah, but there were women like nuns taking patients into the homes, and doctors who travelled to serve.
Who do you think built so many of the hospitals in this country? And educated poor children?
Hint: it was not marketplace-driven necessarily. You forget at your own peril.
---------------
Ah, but there were women like nuns taking patients into the homes, and doctors who travelled to serve.
Who do you think built so many of the hospitals in this country? And educated poor children?
Hint: it was not marketplace-driven necessarily. You forget at your own peril.
gemli, your posts remind me of the scene in "Animal House" when the dean says "I hate those guys" in this case the dean being Brooks. Keep up the good work.
3
Mr. Brooks, do you need an editor to tell you your opening lede is creepy? A newly divorced man, presumably without the sexual outlets and "safeness" of a married man with a ring on his finger, is looked at askance if he tells us he is watching ballet dancers do their stretching exercises near an exposed window that is visible from the street.
What to you is "arrestingly beautiful" to others is someone's daughter, sweating to learn a physical skill. It would be like stopping to watch men and women sweat in a spinning class: those people are not on display for you, but are working out, essentially.
Buy ballet tickets. Find beauty where you can. Learn to ask another woman out. But don't stop and enjoy your "romantic" moments watching... that's creepy, even if nobody editing your work is willing to tell you that...
You see, with the ring on your finger, you're presumed "safe". You might just have a daughter in there, or might know something about ballet. But you've kind of admitting you are using the floor-to-ceiling windows to satisfy your own beauty needs.... you're no longer seen as so safe, even if you are a "Somebody" unlikely to be mistaken for another middle-aged guy on the street observing...
Get into a support group, or perhaps find a more realistic middle-aged man who might be able to explain this to you? Somebody who takes care to avert his eyes to non-public scenes like that, who understands his proper role in society now as a mature unmarried man.
What to you is "arrestingly beautiful" to others is someone's daughter, sweating to learn a physical skill. It would be like stopping to watch men and women sweat in a spinning class: those people are not on display for you, but are working out, essentially.
Buy ballet tickets. Find beauty where you can. Learn to ask another woman out. But don't stop and enjoy your "romantic" moments watching... that's creepy, even if nobody editing your work is willing to tell you that...
You see, with the ring on your finger, you're presumed "safe". You might just have a daughter in there, or might know something about ballet. But you've kind of admitting you are using the floor-to-ceiling windows to satisfy your own beauty needs.... you're no longer seen as so safe, even if you are a "Somebody" unlikely to be mistaken for another middle-aged guy on the street observing...
Get into a support group, or perhaps find a more realistic middle-aged man who might be able to explain this to you? Somebody who takes care to avert his eyes to non-public scenes like that, who understands his proper role in society now as a mature unmarried man.
29
Frankly I'm surprised the NY Times allowed this comment. It projects the disturbing hangups of it's author onto Mr. Brooks, for the entirety innocent act of appreciating the beauty of dancers practiceing their art. In a public space. And from a distance. This is no different from watching a pick-up game of basketball and appreciating the athleticism of the paticipants.
137
Nonsense. There is nothing creepy in his observation of the dancers in the windows, especially in contrast to the CVS on the ground floor. I also think your thinking that what married vs divorced or single men are "allowed" to see is ridiculous!
131
It isn't non-public if it's a school with a big panoramic window. This is a living sign-board for the school. Ballet is a performance art form, it exists to be watched and enjoyed. What a mind you have!
116
I wish Mr. Brooks wouldn't air-brush the heck out of the past, let alone rewrite the present like this.
The vast majority of the human race, for most of our history, really didn't think a lot about Beauty, with or without the capital "B." That's an invention of the Romantics, one they came up with at the very time pastoral beauty was being eaten alive by Ye Olde Industrial Revolution.
Take a look at TJ Clarke's stuff on 19th century French painting, pr various analyses of van Gogh's career, and don't miss "The Potato Eaters." There in one image is your "embrace of the beautiful," for the plain folk.
And those ballet dancers so admired? Products of a Russian court with French intellectual help, and a fruit of about as crushing a dictatorship as the world has ever seen...Tsars, peasants, and so on.
As for the modern world, there's plenty that's beautiful in our art, architecture, music: try Laurie Anderson's "Strange Angels," or Bob Dylan still, try I.M. Pei's buildings on a good day, try Lucian Freud's late paintings. Try Sam Shepard's plays, or Keith Jarrett and Diana Krall. Try Gaudi and Barcelona.
I think you may have "pretty," confused with "beautiful," and "elite culture," (or at least, what the elites THINK they're supposed to enjoy) confused with culture.
And please: if you're going to cheer for capitalism, leave off forgetting that it is capitalism that does what you're complaining about: "all that is solid melts into air," and he was right.
The vast majority of the human race, for most of our history, really didn't think a lot about Beauty, with or without the capital "B." That's an invention of the Romantics, one they came up with at the very time pastoral beauty was being eaten alive by Ye Olde Industrial Revolution.
Take a look at TJ Clarke's stuff on 19th century French painting, pr various analyses of van Gogh's career, and don't miss "The Potato Eaters." There in one image is your "embrace of the beautiful," for the plain folk.
And those ballet dancers so admired? Products of a Russian court with French intellectual help, and a fruit of about as crushing a dictatorship as the world has ever seen...Tsars, peasants, and so on.
As for the modern world, there's plenty that's beautiful in our art, architecture, music: try Laurie Anderson's "Strange Angels," or Bob Dylan still, try I.M. Pei's buildings on a good day, try Lucian Freud's late paintings. Try Sam Shepard's plays, or Keith Jarrett and Diana Krall. Try Gaudi and Barcelona.
I think you may have "pretty," confused with "beautiful," and "elite culture," (or at least, what the elites THINK they're supposed to enjoy) confused with culture.
And please: if you're going to cheer for capitalism, leave off forgetting that it is capitalism that does what you're complaining about: "all that is solid melts into air," and he was right.
100
Did not Phidias the ancient greek artist direct the construction of the Parthenon,
and Caracalla direct the restoration and refinement of the Pantheon in ancient Rome? Beauty was a primary concern of philosophers from ancient Greece up until the 19th century, hardly invent by the romantics.
And does not every lover experience the beauty of the beloved, and the gardener their flower beds. Beauty is found at every level and everywhere, Kitch, glam, lowbrow, highbrow, country, folk, jazz and hymnal, primitive and modern.
As Robert Perzig opined in 'Lila' you may not be able to define quality but you know it when you see it.
and Caracalla direct the restoration and refinement of the Pantheon in ancient Rome? Beauty was a primary concern of philosophers from ancient Greece up until the 19th century, hardly invent by the romantics.
And does not every lover experience the beauty of the beloved, and the gardener their flower beds. Beauty is found at every level and everywhere, Kitch, glam, lowbrow, highbrow, country, folk, jazz and hymnal, primitive and modern.
As Robert Perzig opined in 'Lila' you may not be able to define quality but you know it when you see it.
1
Ah yes, the predictable knee jerk reaction of a weary, well known sort. Yes, elites create beauty for the rest of us, in spite of or because of the world around them: the Parthenon, the Blue Mosque, Chartres, The Pyramids, The Iliad, the plays of Shakespeare, the oratorios of Handel, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, the Ginkaku-ji, and so on.......works of genius created by geniuses for the rest of us who do not possess it. Tear it down with social criticism if you like: the works of the past, and works being created now, will endure no matter what comments are made about them because everyone, well, almost everyone, exposed to the many incarnations, in its many forms, of inspired genius will continue to be moved, to gaze and listen in awe......... forever.
2
Awake America! Enjoy the aesthetic of family--- procreate and multiply, and go forth and be happy in the "artful" potential that poverty allows, and by all means, don't expect economists, politicians, or the wanton sinfulness of consumerism to provide you with the ethereal joy that one derives from the spiritual richness of life without concern for social or economic justice.
9
Art reflects society and culture. To appreciate beauty society must first promote that which embodies it. Justice, enlightenment, charity, prudence, temperance and hope. When we emphasize these instead of the violence and materialism so evident in our culture and art (watch any prime time television show with the accompanying advertisements) what do you expect.
2
Beauty is selfless; it's love, and as you point out, empathy. But if you are a Republican running for office beauty is pain. Beauty is ignorance. Beauty is despair. The beautiful is the ugly: Gross inequality, ruined planet, denied healthcare.
8
Beauty is the harmonious relationship between the various parts of something to each other and to the whole.
2
Beauty can be a guide to what needs to be done. This is because beauty is what we perceive in situations that have potential. There is more there beyond what we see now ... that's beautiful.
To use beauty as a guide, we need not only to give it credit as something to rely upon for guidance, but also give it respect. When we cultivate beauty, we cultivate potential. Cultivating beauty is an approach that is opposite to exploitation and extraction, and one we should indulge more often.
To do so, we need restraint. Exploitation rewards in the moment. Cultivation rewards in the long term.
To use beauty as a guide, we need not only to give it credit as something to rely upon for guidance, but also give it respect. When we cultivate beauty, we cultivate potential. Cultivating beauty is an approach that is opposite to exploitation and extraction, and one we should indulge more often.
To do so, we need restraint. Exploitation rewards in the moment. Cultivation rewards in the long term.
1
See the address/lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson on beauty:
http://www.emersoncentral.com/beauty.htm
He mentions three aspects: 1. The perception of natural forms 2. The addition of a higher spiritual element to #1. This can turn virtue into beauty 3. Beauty as an object of intellect.
While Mr. Brooks does not address beauty in this manner or relate to #2-3, it is #3 which is sorely missing in society. This is what schools should be teaching, from kindergarten through university. There is beauty in understanding, that click when it all comes together. This may not happen often, but it should be something to which we all strive. In this sense we are all potentially artists and all have the capacity to create beauty. It is just a matter of hard work and hard thinking and indeed intellectual creativity.
This too can change the world, peoples' hearts and imaginations.
http://www.emersoncentral.com/beauty.htm
He mentions three aspects: 1. The perception of natural forms 2. The addition of a higher spiritual element to #1. This can turn virtue into beauty 3. Beauty as an object of intellect.
While Mr. Brooks does not address beauty in this manner or relate to #2-3, it is #3 which is sorely missing in society. This is what schools should be teaching, from kindergarten through university. There is beauty in understanding, that click when it all comes together. This may not happen often, but it should be something to which we all strive. In this sense we are all potentially artists and all have the capacity to create beauty. It is just a matter of hard work and hard thinking and indeed intellectual creativity.
This too can change the world, peoples' hearts and imaginations.
15
Thank you Mr. Brooks. We all needed to hear this. Thank you.
3
From the late-1980s through the early 1990s I had a high one-bedroom bachelor pad with a small terrace in the East mid-80s off Second Avenue. When I stepped out in the evenings and cast an eye around the MANY apt. buildings that surrounded me, what was notable was the number of women disrobing in front of their undraped windows. So much for prior romantic periods, but I always wondered whether the phenomenon was due to thoughtlessness or the knowledge that I was watching. One way or another, I don’t think it had a lot to do with eros in the ancient Greek sense.
Sorry about the earthiness of that simile, but David’s Vidalian “confection” of the day cries out for it. We yearn for civilization as we see it disintegrating in parts of the world and as the economic supports for it are attenuated even in the West; and what characterizes civilization more intensely than beauty, of form or of action or of thought? It’s far more than a shift to post-humanism that has left the world beauty-poor and meaning-deprived. Indeed, post-humanism may be merely the natural reflection of real causes of the loss of beauty and meaning: unrestrained interest and a loss of the willingness to protect civilization from the buccaneers of the world because that protection can be so expensive.
Sorry about the earthiness of that simile, but David’s Vidalian “confection” of the day cries out for it. We yearn for civilization as we see it disintegrating in parts of the world and as the economic supports for it are attenuated even in the West; and what characterizes civilization more intensely than beauty, of form or of action or of thought? It’s far more than a shift to post-humanism that has left the world beauty-poor and meaning-deprived. Indeed, post-humanism may be merely the natural reflection of real causes of the loss of beauty and meaning: unrestrained interest and a loss of the willingness to protect civilization from the buccaneers of the world because that protection can be so expensive.
10
If you're going to cheer for capitalism and big business, then cheer for them: don't whinge when the effects of capitalism and big business became clear to you.
By the way, the eros thing? Even in the ancient Greek sense, that is something in you calling to--and being called by--what you see. Try Plato's "Symposium."
By the way, the eros thing? Even in the ancient Greek sense, that is something in you calling to--and being called by--what you see. Try Plato's "Symposium."
6
Mr. Brooks is one tortured columnist. His party has left him in an untenable position - deny truth, condemn his party, or simply write about and talk abut anything other than the party he has supported. His last option is apparently his only one.
Pity the New York Times.