beauty will be convulsive - Page 2

We know and have seen through time that the nature of Beauty is to replicate itself or be replicated. For some reason, though we are unsure why, true Beauty will always be replicated or reproduced. Take for example a beautiful woman; she may be hunted down by a painter, or recruited by a painting school to serve as a nude model for a class etc. but in any event, she will be "discovered" by someone. It may be an individual, it may be an artist or an agency or an agent acting on behalf of an agency, but in any event, her beauty will be sought after and then replicated through the act of painting her or photographing or whatever form the art takes even sculpting, she will be replicated. After the first replication, others will come to see the artwork or photograph and be drawn to it - like say, the Mona Lisa. IN this way, she is further replicated in the lens of the eye of each viewer and also, in many camera lenses. Her image may then be licensed on everything from posters to tea towels to postcards and cups, but her face or her image whatever it is, will be reproduced. Beautiful perfume will be copied by lesser brands, a woman's sense of style may be mimicked (the sincerest form of flattery), etc. The Sistine Chapel will be photographed and admired, and therefore replicated and photographed. However you cut it, true Beauty is always replicated somehow by someone, or most likely, many someones and that is part of how we can identify a thing as beautiful or that has been, I should say, one of the criterions used by philosophers through the ages.

The problem is, that in some cases, the more a thing replicates, the less truly beautiful it can become. For example, Shakespeare noted "lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." What he means is that the single lily may be beautiful, but too many lilies become garish and lose their charm. Their stink is too noxious, overpowering, too intense. The same is true of simpler things - a little lipstick may look nice, but too much of a good thing can appear garish. Blonde hair or red hair may be appealing, but here again, if it becomes too common (as one could certainly argue it has), then it is just that - too common and the dark again becomes the truly beautiful because it is rarer and less replicated. So in a way, Beauty does itself in by doing what is only in it's nature - it replicates or we replicate it, call that what you will, some would say exploit, though I wouldn't, but in our efforts to preserve beauty, we often kill it off or ruin the very uniqueness of the thing. Often, true Beauty is quiet and does not shout its arrival. It is the whisper of a beautiful woman with no make up and dressed in jeans and a tank when she walks into a room versus a woman in a gold dress with full make up and bleached hair. We may look at the second woman at first because the eye is drawn to the obvious, but with this other on our horizon, she will soon lose our interest because she is too common. She may be okay for a short-term fix of some kind, but little else. The true beauty will not announce her arrival herself - rather, her beauty will announce itself or assert itself quietly, the way the scent of the jasmine flower will eventually reach the nose.

Article Author: Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti

Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti is a published writer in both the United States and Europe. She is widely known for her music commentary, particularly her writings about Bob Dylan about whom she runs a highly-trafficked site. …

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