Beauty, and the idea that there are “objective” standards of Beauty — however far beyond our ability to imagine, create, notate and understand them in this — is a driving force in my life and my art. I generally use the word “Divine” in place of “objective,” but the meaning is the same to me.

The trick is that I also understand the notion of personal aesthetics as described by Alain de Botton in his book The Architecture of Happiness. I’ve mentioned Botton and his ideas a number of times before, particularly here.

What if there is an objective beauty and personal aesthetics. As I brainstorm in my html editor, I’m wondering if our own subjective, personal ideas of beauty aren’t each part of the larger puzzle. Some of us like Victorian architecture, some Gothic, some the beautiful Japanese structures of the Edo period and still others mid-century modern. Perhaps the Divine, objective aesthetic is some unfathomable but utterly perfect combination of all styles.

This is pure speculation of course, and needs some significant mulling over. Even beginning from the point at which I believe that the Divine aesthetic is beyond our ability to imagine, create, notate and understand, this is a thought that seems worth pursuing.

This entry was inspired by Old World Swine’s two most recent posts, No Talent Required and Objective Beauty, both good reads.

In the last pages of Time-Life’s The World of Bruegel, I came across one of the most poignant quotations on art — speaking, it seems to me, particularly to the making of art — that I can remember in quite some time. From page 169:

Great paintings are not photographs but doorways into another world, a world so complete and so compelling that the eye and the mind of the viewer are drawn deeper and deeper into it. If the painting has too little content or none at all, only the eye will be pleased. Nor will the mind and imagination be engaged in it if the content is too literal or commonplace, stating everything but implying nothing. Such paintings, though recognizably real, will remain mere factual surfaces.

This from the editors of a book I criticized, too harshly in my wife’s opinion, this past March. I’m not exactly certain what to take away from the quotation as someone who 1) works in three dimensions as opposed to on canvas or board and 2) is innately drawn to minimalistic and abstract forms, but the observation seems to possess some value so I’m diving deeper into the rabbit hole.

Portraiture is often guilty of attempting to convey too much content in my opinion. Very little is left to the imagination in works such as Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon. Part of this may be a generational or historical ignorance if the painting utilizes symbolism lost on viewers not intimately familiar with art history, but frankly this work is little more than eye candy in a visual sense.

It’s easy, however, for me to think of portraits that I do find engaging. Girl With a Pearl Earring, the Mona Lisa and — though less formal — Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergere come to mind.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of my favorite paintings, not just portraits. It is wonderfully successful in it’s use of color, composition and countenance. The slightly open lips and black background add an incredible amount of interest. The Mona Lisa, while not a personal favorite, succeeds in the imaginative department with its surreal setting and, again, a facial expression that’s not quite definable. The Manet pictured above is another on the top of my own list. It is so easy in this painting for the viewer to climb into the bartender’s thoughts through her countenance. And while the proportions of her figure seem a bit awkward (though they may be accurate taking into account the crazy corsets of the represented time), the fact that her body is just off center — note the different spaces between her arms and torso on each side of the figure — lends an incredible sense of believability.

The aforementioned Napoleon has none of these things. It is stern and matter-of-fact, not asking anything of the person looking at the painting.

Perhaps a more interesting direction to take this discussion is how the quote relates to non-representational works, if it does. It’s easy to see how people might think these kind of paintings have too little content. For instance, does Jackson Pollock’s work from his “drip period” have any content to speak of? What about Rothko’s famous works? Does a piece of art need to have a recognizable element in order to have content?

Americans generally like to spout their opinions. We’re not shy about the teams we cheer for, the brands we love or the states we hail from. I’m reminded off-hand of San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, haughtily exclaiming “As California goes, so goes the nation,” last week.

Speaking about the arts is different than touting your favorite football team though. With a variety of styles and innumerable personal aesthetics in the visual world, artistic critique is more complex (it seems to me) than being high on your home state, something that probably owes more to our roots.

Over Easter dinner we talked briefly with new friends about visually inclined people’s tendency to critique the things and environments around them. The question was, in essence, How do we as artists, designers, architects offer constructive criticism without coming across in an oppressive or negative manner?

As an art and architecture student I learned to take criticism. Architecture projects were judged by local and visiting professors. Art studios were usually classroom affairs, where all of the students were expected to contribute to the discussion. There are a few keys to gracefully receiving other people’s opinions about your own work, or your own home decor, or fashion sense, et cetera. Two are most important. First of all, don’t take things personally (as much as this is possible, which varies for different personalities). Secondly, try and learn to discern when people are giving constructive criticism and when they are speaking out of their own aesthetic. In other words, as an artist we need to be able to take the best advice with us and know what to leave behind.

As an artist and person interested in all things visual, I’m also practiced in giving criticism. Often this happens unintentionally, and some of the time it’s solicited. Being so innately involved with the visual environment I — and others like me — are predisposed to making observations other people are less likely to make. A lot of these observations I keep to myself, but not all of them. This is where tact comes in. If I’m with friends or among other artistic types I will be less reserved, naturally. If I’m with people I don’t know or people I know who might misunderstand my noble intentions, I’m more likely to keep my trap shut. Hopefully my non-verbal language is tactful as well. I’m no good at all with putting on airs. Even if I’m not saying anything, I fear my body language or countenance give away my lack of interest or distaste. Although I don’t recall anyone ever actually telling me this.

Then how do we speak tactfully about the arts? The following is a list I devised of my own experiences on how to be a good critiquer:

* Be aware of when you’re reacting to an artwork through the lens of your own personal aesthetic. This is most if not all of the time. There is nothing wrong with this, but it can cause you to say things that don’t benefit the broader discussion.

* Focus on formal elements such as line, color, and composition, but don’t ignore conceptual elements. Ask questions about the artist’s concept, their inspiration. This can shed an entirely new light on a painting or sculpture. Some of Frida Khalo’s work comes across as more than a little macabre if you don’t know about her background, as an example.

* Comment on both successful and problematic areas of a piece. Look for the successes first.

* Think of “constructive” criticism as much as possible. Give suggestions based on proven principles. Don’t just say “I don’t like this color.” Say instead, “That color would be more appealing or dynamic if . . . “

These principles, I think, will help a person avoid becoming critical about most things most of the time almost always in a negative way. I’ve known a few people like this, and I just can’t imagine life is enjoyable for them on the whole — and certainly not for the people around them. Please feel free to add to my list or shuffle it around in the comments if I’ve left something out. I probably have.

Tim Jones over at Old World Swine responded to a commenter’s comments in his most recent post, The Nekkid Truth, Too. The conversation touched on some thoughts I’ve had in the last couple years, but up to this point had yet to put down. I’m using his entry as inspiration, thus, and putting the keys to the html editor.

Let’s get started with this statement from The Nekkid Truth:

God made us men to be attracted to the female form (I consider it his best work, the pinnacle of physical creation), so that is something to accept and to be grateful for. To acknowledge the attraction and the beauty is no sin, in itself.

The commenter is, through the course of the post, expressing a desire to appreciate masterful works of art which include nudity. However, he struggles with this on account of men’s predilection towards lust, the most common affliction of the fallen male.

The question that burns me personally is how, as a fallen male, do I distinguish admiration from something more perverse? Can I? Is there a black and white line marking the difference between, in Jones’ words, the desire to “possess” a woman and thinking — in overly simplified terms — “She’s gorgeous!” Do men possess the ability to admire without lusting?

As a man and an artist intrinsically interested in all things aesthetic, all ideas and ideals of beauty, this question intrigues me to no end. And I realize, however unfortunate for my own mental well-being, there may not be an end to wrangling with these questions in this mortal life. I struggle interminably with whether or not I can have a pure thought at all, often wondering if everything that goes through my mind related to the female physique isn’t tainted. I constantly reassure myself that this is not the case, but the concern doesn’t go away. Can a man actually think about a woman in a way, however mild, that isn’t perverse? (And I don’t ask this solely in the context of sexuality, although this is the greatest temptation.). Some people may think this last question is a bit off the rocker, but I would counter by suggesting that none of us really know what is Holy well enough to determine what thoughts in our human minds may or may not be completely pure.

Last year my wife and I visited with friends recently returned from a vacation in Singapore. They talked about how it is illegal, against the written law, for men to ogle at women in that country. While he genuinely appreciated the attempt at a modest culture — and thoroughly enjoyed his visit to such a law-abiding society — our friend also understood the problems with trying to legislate such things. He likened what he saw to a police state.

I long to view all of God’s creation with the eye that He intended. Laws, such as those apparently in effect in Singapore, will not change the fallen mind. They will not allow me or anyone else to overcome human tendencies to pervert, basically, everything we think or do. While my attitude may come across as a bit fatalistic, let me assure you that I still strive for and hope to see as much of the glory of God’s creation — including the female form — before I die. This pursuit constantly drives my work in the studio, even if it isn’t obvious in the forms or titles of my sculpture.

Adding: As Jim points out in the first comment, the Titian above is worth some commentary: “The clothed woman is believed to represent earthly vanity and materialistic love, the nude to represent higher, pure love. A casual observer might think it was the other way around.” See a few more details on Wikipedia.

See my other entries dealing with women and beauty via this link.

I’ve been fascinated with various forms of large-scale transportation since I was very young. I grew up in a non-descript western Nebraska community that boasts the worlds largest rail classification yards. And after my first time flying — first time old enough to remember, anyway — I became infatuated with commercial aviation. Any time an airplane, small props such as the Beechcraft 1900 in the case of the North Platte airport, flew within hearing I would look up. Thankfully this wasn’t very often in the small town, or I might have acquired a permanent crick in my neck. More reflection on my interest in aviation is in this post from June of last year.

I don’t fly all that much, but in the last five weeks I set foot in airports for two separate trips. My layover was in Memphis in both cases. The Memphis airport is a dreary place to be (the one point of promise was the real-live art hanging on the walls). In the concourses ceilings are low, corridors are narrow and the tiled walls are a drab brown-gray. It may be the ugliest airport I’ve been in.

But a lot of airports look like this, bland and uninviting. Situation Terminal, from The New Yorker’s website, tackles the question “Can anyone design a nice aiport?” The story lays out a bit of airport design history, suggesting the logistical nightmare that is a large airport and tight finances fostered a more or less pragmatic approach to terminal and concourse design in the last thirty to forty years. Attempts at reinventing the airport were, while perhaps visually interesting, failures in function. The New Yorker cites Eero Saarinen’s efforts at JFK and Dulles in this regard.

“Since then,” the story says, “airport authorities have been wary of letting any architect have a say on what should go where. Now most architects don’t get to do much more than give the main concourse a big, swooping space with natural light — like the one in the new American Airlines terminal at Kennedy airport — which acts as little more than a distraction from the banality of the rest of the terminal.”

There are, however, two shining examples of a better way to design airports according to columnist Paul Goldberger. Norman Foster’s Beijing Capital International Airport’s Terminal 3 is the airport rethought, successfully according to Goldberger. Apparently the space is intuitive and logistically more sound than the comfortable — even if archaic — model airports presently defer to.

I’m not so keen on the aesthetics from what I can tell in the architects renderings, though, or the 500+ photos uploaded to Flickr. It looks like a very large commercial building, like so many other airports, from what I can tell. Sure, it appears as though the architect specified some attempts to cover up the generally cold underlying structure, but based on the images I’m finding online the attempt was futile. The one exception is the Ground Transportation Centre. This space actually looks pleasant to be in.

The second example of a new airport architecture Goldberger’s piece cites is Terminal 4 in Madrid. The column doesn’t say much about function in Richard Roger’s Barajas Airport project, but the images lend me to believe this is, overall, a much more inviting environment than Terminal 3 in Beijing.

My own experience lies more with smaller venues, such as the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) or Lincoln [Nebraska] Airport (LNK). In many ways these smaller airports are much nicer to fly in and out of, even if there aren’t as many restaurants to choose from. I often wonder if the hub and spoke system major airlines use to get people from place to place is less than optimal. I suppose — that is, I hope — the airlines have seriously considered alternatives to this model at some point in their history. With all of the financial trouble most of them are in right now, one would think this might be a good time to revisit a variety of innovative options in order to say afloat and gain and edge on the competition.

I’m perusing videos uploaded to YouTube detailing the storm and resulting damage from Friday’s tornado in Atlanta. It’s fascinating to me how websites like Flickr and YouTube allow for such dynamic and more or less real-time citizen journalism. These websites foster an organic creation of a veritable archive, of sorts, recording important, interesting and personal events. The founder and director of ArtsLink lives near downtown Atlanta but, thankfully, was unharmed; the house her and her husband just signed a contract one day before on is just blocks from a badly damaged neighborhood, however.

I’ve mentioned in one or two previous posts — posts probably more than two years old now — my own monumental run-in with tornadoes. Seven of them, in fact, all in one night. I was three years old and distinctly remember huddling in the basement with my mother. My father was galavanting around town with his sister, trying to rouse their aunt who they were worried wouldn’t heard the civil defense sirens. They were trying to do this without getting shot, knowing their aunt kept a .38 in her nightstand.

Even though I ended up with my first Big Wheel from a pile of rubble following the storm that devastated Grand Island, Nebraska in June 1980, I was terrified of tornado sirens for years afterward. I dreamt of the yellow noisemakers bouncing down the basement stairs of my home coming to get me. When the sirens would blair and storms were near, I would race into the house.

Somehow I overcame this phobia around the age of 12 or 13. By then I’d seen two other twisters in my hometown of North Platte, Nebraska, one as a funnel right over my little league game.

I can’t, unfortunately, lay out exactly how these powerful storms, with or without a tornado, went from being so frightful to so captivating for me. I would like to be able to understand how this shift occurred in order to better articulate the fascination I now have for thunderstorms, a fascination that impels me through my artistic processes.

As I’ve said before, I find storms both beautiful and powerful. They are beautiful when viewed from a distance (easily done on the prairies I grew up on); the textures, the forms and the light are stunning. They are powerful when upon you, which goes without saying. This combination awes me, how something so visually wonderful can also be so terrifying. Perhaps the best word to describe such a phenomenon is sublime.

Though I often lament living in Northwest Arkansas on account of it’s trees and hills obscuring the horizon, I still look forward to this stormy time of year. I’ve made note of a few places in town where one can look a ways into the sky and see approaching storms. I migrate to these locations with a camera whenever the forecast for thunderstorms is promising.

From Iconia, guest blogger Michael Dubitzky suggests we should rejoice at the recent theft of more than $160 million in paintings in Switzerland.

From CNN, Spanish Health Ministry bans ultra-thin models from the runway, and begins standardizing dress sizes.

From TechCrunch, it looks to be a promising year for clean energy startups.

I must admit that I’m not all that into Sunday morning church services these days. So when a series of Powerpoint slides (yay) began to play in front of the congregation yesterday, I only paid half attention — at best.

The slides, as I recall, exhorted people in the pews to give something to God during the service, not expect something from it. In other words, don’t complain about the music or the color of the carpet; just sing and pray and give back to God.

Of course, I may be butchering the meaning of the slideshow — only paying half-attention and all — but that’s beside that point here. The point here is the thought that struck me towards the end of the announcement: “What if there’s something to people’s expressed (or unexpressed) distaste for certain aspects of a church service or building?”

What if such complaints are an affirmation of the importance of beauty, of aesthetics?

Generally speaking, I don’t condone church-hopping on account of ugly carpet or even redundant praise and worship music (a pet peeve of mine); as we all know thanks to countless email forwards laden with Christianese, “There’s no such thing as a perfect church.” But the fact is that our environment does influence us and music is an enigmatically powerful art. The fact also remains that different people will always own different aesthetics, and attempting to satisfy all at the same time is unrealistic.

How do we reconcile or approach personal aesthetics within a community setting such as a church? Perhaps we poll people:

Circle the color of carpet you prefer:

Navy
Aqua
0000FF
Turquoise
Royal blue
Cornflower blue

I’ve quoted Architect Daniel Lee before, and I’ll do it again here:

“It is possible to worship God in a gymnasium or lecture hall, because if people are truly seeking him, God will meet them there. But to worship in such architecture is to suggest that our purpose is either recreational or cerebral. We should build spaces crafted specially for a human-divine encounter with God.”

Or, it seems to me, perhaps we shouldn’t build sacred spaces at all. New Testament instruction dictates that we as Christ-followers regularly assemble. It doesn’t say where or how often or how many songs to sing — or necessarily to sing at all — to my knowledge.

Adding: As smitten as I am with the idea of house churches, my interest in the visual environment and architecture supersedes my suggestion that we forgo church buildings altogether. I believe they can, in appropriate cultural context, serve as a witness to the surrounding community as well as significantly encouraging — if well-considered — meditation and communion with our Holy God.

I speak regularly of beauty on this blog, more often in the context of the human physique or the built environment than with respect to the fine arts. Why or how it’s ended up this way I can’t exactly say, but I’m taking this opportunity to talk specifically about beauty as it relates to the tactile arts.

From Wikipedia: The image of the young woman is a
symbol of human beauty in the West,
and a dominant theme in western art.
The above painting is “Nymph with morning glory flowers”
by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

Beauty has driven how I think about and create my sculptures (and occasional paintings) since I can remember thinking about and creating art. It influences every one of my artistic decisions. My works represent a process of searching for a Divine beauty, for a more palpable definition of a subjective and somewhat ethereal concept.

beau·ty (byōō’tē)
n. pl. beau·ties
The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.

I hope the idea of beauty plays into every tactile artist’s work and process, but by no means do I expect every work of art to aspire to be beautiful. Art serves a much broader purpose than just beautification, even if, in my opinion, this is one of the most important aspects of visual art. Many other approaches to a work are equally valid, whether the crafter’s intentions are social, political, personal or relating to the interesting concept of the sublime. And, of course, using these in any combination is also an option.

I don’t know how to approach the subjective nature of beauty in this entry. Suffice it to say that I do believe there are aspects to beauty, artistic and otherwise, that cross cultural, social and personal aesthetics — though I don’t know what these would be off-hand. I suppose one can point to flowers or sunsets or mountains or oceans as universally eliciting a positive emotional response (Although, if I recall correctly, 19th century Europeans didn’t necessarily think of things like mountains and oceans as beautiful, but instead referred to them as sublime.). I personally like to think of beauty in terms of original Creation. What did Adam and Eve and the garden look like before the Fall? How can I emulate or capture a snippet of this ideal?

In asking how I can aspire to a Divine aesthetic I usually end up abstracting both the beautiful and sublime as I find them in nature, particularly — and you’ll already know this of me if you’ve read this blog for the last couple of years — thunderstorms as they occur on the American prairies. I also stick to forms and textures that mimic the natural materials and processes I prefer, generally employing natural visual elements such as wood grain into the finished product.

I’ll continue this train of thought with an article in the near future dealing with Gregory Wolfe’s most recent Image Journal editorial (take note of their new website), which is in defense of beauty.

Chuck Colson references Francis Schaeffer’s Art and the Bible in this article from The Christian Post:

“The neighbors watched the new church building go up in just one month—and what a sight it was! The church was a squat, square building made of unrelieved concrete. On the inside was garish red carpeting. A massive parking lot surrounded the church.

Nothing could possibly have been uglier — and the fact that so many Christians build church structures like this reveals how far Christians have strayed from the place beauty and art are meant to have in our lives.

As the late Francis Schaeffer notes in his book, Art and the Bible, we evangelicals tend to relegate art to the fringes of life. Despite our talk about the lordship of God in every aspect of life, we have narrowed its scope to a very small part of reality. But the arts are also supposed to be under the lordship of Christ, Schaeffer reminds us. Christians ought to use the arts “as things of beauty to the praise of God.”

This is exactly what God commanded regarding the building of His Tabernacle. As Schaeffer says, “God commanded Moses to fashion a tabernacle in a way [that] would involve almost every form of representational art that men have ever known.” In Exodus 25, for example, God instructs Moses to make for the Holy of Holies “two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them.”

In other words, God was commanding that works of art be made: a statuary representation of angels.

Outside the Holy of Holies, lampstands were to be placed—that is, candlesticks of pure gold, decorated with representations of nature: almond blossoms and flowers.

And then we have the descriptions of the priestly garments. Upon their skirts were to be designed pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet.

Does God value beauty for beauty’s sake? It seems He does. Consider the two columns Solomon set up before the Temple. He decorated them with a hundred pomegranates fastened upon chains, as God commanded. These two free-standing columns supported no architectural weight and had no engineering significance, Schaeffer writes. “They were there only because God said they should be there as a thing of beauty.”

And this brings us back to those ugly church buildings we often build. No wonder non-Christians often remark on the ugliness of our churches—an ugliness that is off-putting to anyone sensitive to beauty.”

Continue reading via this link.

I don’t feel like I have much to add to this that I haven’t already said on The Aesthetic Elevator. I might suggest, however, that people do have — in most places in America — at least one or two aesthetically pleasing architectural options. These are usually older denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal and so forth) and older church buildings, although these same denominations do do a much better job with new design, in general, than non-denominational or Baptist congregations. For instance, the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches in my small town occupy very nice structures, even if somewhat basic in the case of the Episcopal church.

By comparison, the non-denominational buildings look more like offices and warehouses than anything else. This, of course, saves money — and possibly makes use of an otherwise uglier vacant structure — , but it does nothing for the aesthetic of the community or to the praise of our worthy God.