What makes something beautiful?

We worship a God who is said to be "Beauty Itself." But in a culture that thinks all claims are simple expressions of emotion (Emotivism), we think any claim to something being beautiful is equivalent to saying, "I like it, it makes me feel good feelies." Thus we dogmatically assume "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Unfortunately this dogma is at odds with the God who is Beauty. The Catholic Faith does not allow one doctrinally to be a relativist in regards to Beauty or beautiful things. Sorry. Likewise the principle of non-contradiction prevents this popular idea from being logically true.

Why Beauty Cannot be in the Eye of the Beholder

If I attribute "beauty" to a painting, and you say "it's not beautiful," we can't say the painting both is and is not beautiful, anymore than we can say it is and is not made of wood or is and is not existing. That is, contradictions refer to nothing. The phrase, "This ball is and is not" can be heard, but it refers to nothing in the mind nor in reality, they are words against themselves (contra/against + diction/words).

The purported solution to this problem by the Relativist is to say "it's beautiful to me," which is a way of steering the conversation away from the object being discussed. We're now talking about ideas in our respective heads, and not the painting. We replaced one objective object, with two subjective objects. In other words, we were both talking about the painting (P), stating it is beautiful (B) and not beautiful (not-B). Now we're talking not talking about the painting at all. We're saying the beauty (B) is not in the painting (P), but in me (M). And not beautiful (not-B) is in you (Y). We're now talking me and you (M & Y), rather than the painting (P). This does not solve the contradiction, it simply ceases to speak about objective reality in order to maintain two contradictory positions. If we insist that the question is not about me or you, but about the painting, we must return to whether or not you can say a painting is and is not beautiful simultaneously. By the principle of non-contradiction it cannot be, anymore than it can be and not be simultaneously. How about that for a sleight of hand?

What's at stake?

If you've ever had an argument about whether something is beautiful or not you know it can become heated. To remain "polite" in an Emotivist culture with a relativistic world view we must then jettison Reality out of conversation. Barbara said the Tower was beautiful and Katherine said it wasn't. Whew, this might turn into a cat fight, unless we resort to relativism. What's left is "pleasantries" in which we express whether something is or is not beautiful "to me." No common belief, shared truth, etc. can exist in such a culture.

If Beauty is God, and God is Beauty, and we don't have a common understanding of Beauty, then we're really disagreeing about who God is. Pleasantries or Truth, social grace or social suicide - this is the modern dilemma concerning beauty. What's at stake is whether we can know or experience or enjoy Beauty, or if we're all left up to indefensible, arbitrary, preferences. Good luck to artists looking for a patron in such a culture. Is our disposition as worshippers open to be amazed by and to desire Beauty? Or do we wish to put reins around Beauty as if it were a play thing to be led around by a leash? Beauty cannot be contained because it is God. So too, Beauty is not a thing that exists merely as ideas in two people's heads looking at the same object, but beauty is something objective, in reality, that moves men every day to do great things.

What is Beauty?

Beauty is that which being seen, delights.

At least, St. Thomas Aquinas thinks so. But why trust him? It would seem "to delight" is simply a fancy way of reasserting the emotivist claim: "to say an art piece is 'delightful' is only to say whether 'I like it' based on whether or not it evokes an emotion." But this is not it at all. To "delight" is for a thing to be apprehended by the Intellect, not the Passion. "Delight" therefore is not an emotive reaction or a movement of the passions proper. Why? Well, we "delight" for three reasons, which are Aquinas' criteria for a thing being beautiful:

1. Integrity: a thing being whole, "simple" qua being one as itself, a singular substance and not a mere pile of parts

2. Consonance/Proportionality: a things parts are in harmony towards its integrity as a single substance or thing

3. Splendour/Clarity/Radiance: a thing's inner logic or form is intelligible and presses upon the perceiver

Following this criteria then, we might find things which correspond to what we mean when we sing, "All Things Bright and Beautiful."

How "Christian Music" helped lead to Relativism toward Beauty

The Protestant "Jesus Movement" of the 1960's popularized American pop and rock in Christian Communities (Protestants gathered into groups or denominations, this phrase does not include Catholics). This music quickly became known as "Contemporary Christian Music." Even some Catholics drank deeply from this well.

As a result, the grammar of these communities taught our people to say "Christian music." We thus began to think there was "beautiful" or "good" music relative to Christians, as if it wasn't simply objectively beautiful. Even atheists study liturgical music if they get a music degree, and even atheists in England visit Evensong for its beauty though they know not what the prayers refer to.

So, suddenly self-identifying Christians are okay with relativism in music. Art shortly followed. This made it seemingly impious to say something like, "I think this Christian song is bad music, or that Christian art is ugly." At the same time, even older Protestants scratched their heads at this new movement and found the new "Christian music" to be unfitting compared to their "old timey hymns." This is because some of the classical criteria of a hymn, e.g. must be addressed to the Trinity, suddenly disappeared and were replaced with lyrics that referred not to the Lord, but to the worshipper. That is, the lyrics now referred to Man and spoke about what he was doing as he worshipped. This seemed wrong since the point of worship is God, not man, though Man may benefit by worshipping. For Catholics, this meant the destruction or removal of liturgical music, a genre of music designed specifically for the parts of the Mass to glorify God in what the church was doing in that unbloody sacrifice.

You can see this sort of relativism also hitting literature in the 20th c. Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) famously rejected the notion of a "Catholic novel" on the grounds that "Catholic" or "Christian" is not a distinct type of novel. She says that piety doesn't make up for bad writing, bad grammar, or bad story telling. A novel is either good or bad as a novel. She says if there were a "Catholic novel," it would be due to the images and the logic of the world in the novel being informed by a Catholic imagination. That is, the genre remains what it is, but with a Catholic flair. In other words, whether it be music, art, or literature, the thing is judged according to its own nature and that nature's goal. I can tell if a dog is a good dog by its species, whether its trained to be a pointer, tracker, or retriever, etc. Reality dictates everything has a nature and a purpose/telos, and judgments about a thing working well or being beautiful are relative to that reality, not to a person's tastes independent from reality.

Ironically, while the Jesus Movement's effect on music in Christian groups left huge wake, its founder left the movement to become an Orthodox Abbot of a monastery. Equally ironic is various Protestant bodies attempt to declare themselves part of a "Jesus Movement" post 2000s as if this is a new thing. Most of the youth in such bodies are are unaware of the history of this movement. The overarching defense of this "Christian Music" was largely a moral relativism that snuck into a seeming harmless thing - music - and that music and its defense warped thousands. It seems odd for a Christian to tell their child, "Abortion is evil. Don't be a relativist" in Sunday School, only to say, "Off to worship. Here we're relativists towards the Lord's worship." That doesn't add up. And in the end, the Liturgy is always more formative than Catechesis, what we do forms a person while teaching only informs them. Thus liturgies of relativism trump the best catechetical programs you can think up. Hence, a lot of Protestants became Relativists in the 20th c. from what they sang. We're reminded of the great gift and danger music is as Plato and S. Thomas More tell us in a child's formation of their passions, and hence their ideas, and hence their lives.

Thus, "Christian music" is an oxymoron that breeds relativism, and thus is a great enemy to the intellectual habits of a faithful Catholic. The same goes for relativistic speech habits like, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." This dogmatic proverb spoken from relativists contains a paradox. The person trying to make everyone a relativist is declaring you must dogmatically accept this proverb, and that it is absolutely true that all is relative. IE, this proverb leads to contradiction. Therefore, we can safetly dismiss it, no matter how many people say it, though it's important to remember what a supreme effect a repeated proverb can have on a society or generation. Hence, we're free to return to, "There is Beauty."

Identifying Beauty by Example Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, and his Parrot by N.C. Wyeth (above)

Integrity

I say "This painting is beautiful."

My friend Bill says, "Absolutely not! There's no integrity! Look, he's missing a leg! And that mangy parrot, don't get me started..."

I remind Bill that integrity is to display the whole of the substance to be displayed. Captain Long John Silver is famously a one-legged man, and thus to keep the integrity, the wholeness of the man, we must make him one-legged. If we made him two-legged he might be some kind of "ideal man," but the man depicted wouldn't be ole Long John. Further, the integrity is supported by the presence of his parrot Captain Flint, and Jim Hawkins. This painting depicts a scene, a whole moment or the whole relation, between these three. It thus has integrity.

"Well," says Bill, "the thing is not simple a'tall. It has three characters, a litter of furniture, buckles and pans and smoking pipes, the bird's cage up top. The thing is far too complicated to be simple enough to have integrity."

I respond, "Well Bill, being simple is not opposed to there being many. For instance, God is one substance yet three persons. As Catholic Buccaneers we most certainly cannot believe simplicity and complexity are opposed. God is simple because He's one, but that oneness is infinitely complex, so we can't very well say that God's complexity is contradictory to His simplicity. Furthermore, if "simple" meant oneness without complexity or parts, then only a canvas with, say, the color orange could be beautiful. The second we painted it as an orange fruit with a rind and a top and bottom and glare depicting depth it would be not beautiful since you think complexity defeat simplicity. But this is simply not so. Many painting are complex in that they are detailed, yet they are beautiful in that they depict one scene. The problem is if someone is trying to do two things in a single piece of work. What we don't see is an attempt to depict the storming of the palisade on the beach and Jim discoursing with Silver on the ship. To try to throw those two together would be disharmonious and thus it would lose its integrity as one.

Consonance/Proportionality

Bill takes a second gander, and grumbling, concedes the point. "Ah!" he shouts, "but it has no proper proportionality! Look! The sides of the walls are all bent at bizarre angles; it's as if the whole room were standing 15 degrees off center. Furthermore, the room taken up by the two men is not proportional, part of Jim's leg is blocked by Long John's good leg.

"Ah yes," I reply, "but they are on a ship, a thing much shaken and moved by the waves of the sea. The picture captures this well with the angle. Now if the characters were standing at 90 degrees while the floor was at 15 degrees without bowed legs of any sort, which would show their strain to remain standing, then we'd have disproportionality. But as it stands the painting shows Jim leaning back to keep balance and Long John allowing himself to lean with the ship into the wall for support. The elements are consonant for two men out at sea.

Splendour/Radiance/Clarity

This is what we spoke about in the Lent II Homily regarding Jesus' Transfiguration, that his forms, the form of Man (human nature) & Form of God (divine nature), shone through his matter, his body. This splendour or radiance or clarity reveals how his body is beautiful, how he is Beauty-Itself, and how those who follow him through his Cross will receive bodies equally splendorous in the Resurrection.

Bill closes one eye, eyeing me suspiciously with the other. Well I don't see where this scene is taking place. It seems vague.

"Well," I say, "As we said before, the angle of the furniture reveals it's probably on the ship. Likewise the two are conversing and Jim is at ease so we know this is before Silver's real identity as a mutineer and buccaneer is revealed. Furthermore, the pans on the wall, the kettle on the stove, and the fact Silver is in a white shirt rather than his captain's blue navy jacket shows Silver is still fronting as a mere ship's cook. All this points to a certain form working upon my intelligence as I view the object. It seems clear where this occurs in the story."

"Ahh, but what if I ain't read the story?" replies Bill.

I reply, "Now there, Bill, you have a point. It would seem the form of the ship is all too vague. How must we evaluate this? Is the goal to always depict a thing as it appears in reality? By no means, otherwise the camera would have defeated all art, if arts purpose (telos) was simply to ape nature. But the thing being depicted does seem to be a ship scene with the two getting along. To this effect Wyeth seems successful, but not terribly so. How might the form of the ship come out more through the matter of the paint? The Hispaniola, the ship, is depicted as vague, abstract, and with not enough character. Yet this ship is a major component of the story, and I imagine that the purpose of this painting is to depict the story. A fine job has been done for Jim, Silver, and the Parrot, as the title indicates, but the form is never simply the name. The name is made to try and articulate the what it's all about, but artists can do this better or worse.""Ignorance doesn't mean a thing is not beautiful, only that you're unaware of it being beautiful and/or why it is beautiful. It may be that not all art is meant for everyone. For instance, this piece is clearly meant for someone who either has read or knows about Treasure Island." "Well, what about them dark shades of brown all about? The table top Silver's left elbow leans upon is evidently a table, what everything below it is just smathers of brown paint. It looks no different than the walls or floors around them, whose material is all too vague. Is the ship plaster, boards, something else? There seem no distinct marks to signify what it's made of."

Final Analysis

"So then?" Bill asked. "I might say it is a fine painting, perhaps not entirely beautiful, not amazingly beautiful or wonderfully beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless. It could be better, but it meets the criteria of beauty, it delights in the proper way. But whatever criticism we may find here, it's of a matter of the degree of Radiance/Splendour. The intelligibility of the form is clear upon sitting with it for a while, but nothing screams "ship" until you notice the angle or some of the objects on the stove. It's good, beautiful that is, but "nothing to write home about."

On the Beauty of the Soul

Concerning beautiful people we might be inclined to think it's all about physicality, per (1) Integrity & (2) Proportionality. But lest we forget (3) Splendour, let us not forget that some people with malice or shallow words have made many say, "I thought they were a person or good looking until they opened their mouths" or "that is, until I realized what kind of person they were." Whether the form shines through the matter, that is, the soul radiates its virtues or vices through the body and the person's actions, largely influences whether a person is beautiful or not.

These three aspects of beauty equally can be seen regarding the soul. If a person has integrity then they have a singular soul that is about one thing, they will one thing, the Lord. Their proportionality or consonance is that the pieces go together well: that the powers or parts of their soul fit well: intellect on top, senses in the middle, nutritive powers on bottom. The same keeps for splendour, in which case we are looking to see if their virtues shine through their flesh, especially through works of mercy, works of charity, whereby we show God working in and through this. At this point, it becomes evident a person has become a portal by which Beauty itself can be seen, or a "mirror of charity" which reflects the Trinity to persons here on earth.

A Beautiful Soul with an Ugly Body?

A body informed by this sort of soul, this sort of form, will appear to those who have eyes to see, as a beautiful body. This is a sort of beauty rarely sense and can break the heart of the viewer, as is evident when one sees the beautiful man. Here we might turn to the Stations of the Cross for an example.

VI. The Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

...

He hath no form or comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemeed him not. His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. V: Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts. R: Show us the light of thy counteance, and we shall be whole.

In other words, Christ was scourged so savagely, beaten to a pulp, that he appeared uglier than any other man, almost not human to sight. There was seemingly no beauty in the body, so much so not only did his body not delight men enough to draw them in, but we turned away to hide from him. Here we have a seeming paradox, an ugly body with a beautiful soul. The Greeks said something similar about Socrates, that he was uglier than sin but was full of little gods due to his supposed visions of the divine. If you have ever found someone not terribly attractive then seen their virtue and they suddenly appear different, then you understand this.

There is a sense in which Christ's situation is unfitting, it is not meet and right, it has no decorum. But since his soul is the more important of his parts, above his body, this causes pity. Here is a just man who has his body beaten to a bloody pulp, the Lord Himself enfleshed and come to save us, and he has paid dearly for his justice. It is this pity in seeing beauty in the soul, and not beauty in the body, that causes a rupture in the passions and a conflict in the will. Misercordia, the virtue of pity, charity, is the proper response. Here the virtue of hope longs for a resurrected, beautiful body. If one can see it is the soul that animates the flesh, the form which makes the man what he is, then one is still drawn in to the ugly man's beauty because they see the beauty of his soul. This is why our Lord can declare in Station Eleven:

V: I, if I be lifted up:

R: Will draw all men unto me.

Here, a man marred beyond all beauty becomes the most beautiful body to grace the earth. It is not by force which this man compels other men gaze upon him on the cross. It is a gift of illumination which allows us to see rightly and thus be drawn in by his Beauty. Beauty has become incarnate, and that incarnation has a name. This hopefully what we see everytime we walk into a catholic church and see the crucifix above the altar.

"Beauty will save the world."

-Dostoevsky