Beauty...

My second choice essay was on beauty. I chose the topic beauty because as an artist and want to be photographer I have no definition of beauty. And I wanted to see how other people defined it. I chose this essay “Definition Essay on Beauty” by Lindsey Fares because she has the same view as me on beauty.

“…beauty can perhaps best be described as connoting youthfulness.” Fares explains what the first Ancient Greeks thought of beauty. But I cannot agree with them. I believe that beauty is not only young but old. There is a certain beauty to behold the weathered and lined skin of someone who has lived a long life. The wisdom that you can see in the eyes of someone who has seen more years than your life doubled is untouchable. It’s not only that they are beautiful because of what time has bestowed on them, but because the way life flows off of them. They have lived. They have experienced things that you may or may not ever experience. And I believe that is beautiful.

“Other Ancient Greeks, particularly the Pythagoreans, conceived of beauty as connoting balanced ratios and proportions.” I also do not believe in this. Sometimes it is the unbalanced part that captures our attention. The fact that one single part stands out above all others. If we are talking about faces, an extraordinary jutting jaw line can be the most beautiful part of a face. If we are talking about nature it might be the big oak tree that stands among tiny green saplings. Or a large deformed rock among small circular pebbles. Beauty doesn’t have to be balanced.

“We have seen that, despite there being a general consensus that beauty exists, definitions of this concept are very different from each other. Perhaps we must conclude with the admission that beauty is one of those indefinable concepts that mankind will wrestle with for millennia to come.” Now, I can finally say that I agree. Beauty comes in all forms. It is undefinable by any one person or thing. You could almost say that what cannot be defined should not exist. Color exists, but try defining the color red to a blind person. It just cannot be done. It is almost like trying to explain what a poem is. Impossible.

That is why the title of Fares’s essay “Definition Essay on Beauty” is false. You cannot write about the definition of beauty if it does not exist. The Webster’s New World Dictionary claims beauty is “The quality of being very pleasing…” . But beauty can be exciting, dangerous, secretive, and mysterious. Name an emotion, and you have named a type of beauty. Look closely, maybe in a different light, a little bit of beauty can be found anywhere.

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