beauty will be convulsive - Page 6

beautiful as that of Lady Diana sitting alone on a bench outside of the Taj Mahal. Elsewhere, Prince Charles was off with his Camilla, and our lovely Diana knew it and was left in India all alone, and so posed in all of her reality of that moment which was forever captured on film by many photographers; she is seated quietly, hands contemplatively on her lap, head down as if in tears or deep thought, and slightly bent at the leg and the waist, like a delicate animal who has either just been born who has given up in surrender and is about to go down. She was, in fact, about to go down and did. It was among the worst times in her life and was the moment before the prophetic shittra hit the fan, yet there is something so hauntingly beautiful about the moment and it's not to do with Lady Diana herself so much, but what she makes us, the viewer, feel, which brings me back around to perception and how we feel true Beauty.

Since we can't define Beauty to everybody's satisfaction, we can say that as we've noted, Beauty causes us to behave or react in certain ways. There are as I've mentioned, things that we do in the presence of beauty that we do at no other time. One thing that Homer told us was that Beauty, true Beauty, is "lifesaving". Proust thought the same thing and said as much. Beauty was life saving because, Scarry notes, "Beauty quickens, it adrenalizes. It makes the heart beat faster. It makes life more vivid, animated, living, and worth living." This much, I think, is true. Beauty makes the blood rush and the heart beat a bit faster. It could be a painting, a thing, a woman, an object, a man, whatever, but whatever or whoever it is, we want it and we pursue it; we feel our spirit enliven, we suddenly have more energy (as when falling in love, or in cycles of marriage when we wax full with love again), but in any case, we are highly energized and more, I would say that we are a more youthful and optimistic outlook in the presence of beauty. Beauty rubs off on us in this way - it spreads the good news and we feel better for having been around it and so will do whatever it takes to get more of those endorphins floating around and so put ourselves in the path of beauty again and again; we will listen for the song of the mourning dove, we will visit a particular painting or artwork, we will see a chosen person, and all because their spirit enlivens us. Note that I said spirit, for true Beauty is far less about the outside and more about the inside and the qualities projected from that deep place.

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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