I’ve been thinking lately about how one determines beauty. Arguments can be made for the primacy of the ‘eye of the beholder’ in such a determination, but one can’t discount cultural or experiential factors in defining the quality. I’ve been reading that the beauty of classical sculpture may lie to a great extent in the imagined perfection that the damaged remnants still in existence conjure in one’s mind. The figurative Greek sculpture that has over the centuries suffered abuse and intentional destruction still represents what many consider the ideal of physical beauty despite its fragmentary existence.
This idea has me thinking that maybe the greatest beauty, that which is most aesthetically pleasing is beyond physical manifestation; an argument for the existence of God.
