Part I : Decay

A

what is beauty?

Now of course, such a question to a group of artists should not be assumed to draw any sort of corollary between its object, beauty, and the answer to a more important question, what is art? Art and Beauty get thrown together more often than warranted, I believe. The question at its root doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the definition of Art, so do watch where your mind wanders, please (the discussion of why there is a division is separate from the intention of this post).

Well, since we’ve established a dividing line between art and beauty we can go on to one of the answers to the survey that caught my eye. Several of the artists cited “decay” as a primary source of beauty. The decay of ancient cities, such as Rome, was given as an example. I happen to agree that decay can be, indeed, very beautiful, though I’m not sure I would go so far as to claim that it is intrinsically so. Decay speaks to a richness, to a bountiful experience that gives birth to a magnificent history. Decay also provides an emphatic counterpoint to living, surging vibrancy, and in so doing may awaken us to a greater realization of the importance of fresh living action. Decay may give witness to a maturity imbued and fermented by its survival of encounters with many storms. In this way decay may be seductive, and this seduction is dangerous for it may veil the fact that decay ought never to be glorified for its identity, sought for its own reality. Decay is a sign, not the destination. A tourist may visit broken aqueducts or aged amphitheaters to inspire his or her sense of the aesthetic or to marvel at the arête of classical architecture; perhaps he or she visits to enrich his or her own living experience of history or art or beauty; but the tourist doesn’t stay there, the visitor doesn’t start living in the amphitheater or raising taxes for a Roman aqueduct system back home. In part, through the identity of decay the transition to an understanding of beauty as a sign is achieved. Beauty’s value is that of a sign, and signs are impartial at what they point to; for they warn us of evil and direct us to good; sometimes it is difficult to determine which is which. Even the signs themselves must be evaluated, for if decay happens too quickly is a sign of core deficiency, and a beautiful façade may disappear with the first strong wind.

I’ve got a hunch that maybe Christ wasn’t beautiful because of what I’ve described above–he wasn’t merely a sign, he is it. He is what signs throughout the ages have and still point to. He isn’t a useful analogue to get at a deeper reality, he is the reality itself.

(This is the end of Part I)