My wife Mónica is beautiful !

As my last post reads, I recently hired four astounding professors from various universities to work on the following question: “What is beautiful”? Their answers will be soon available in the form of short presentations on Vimeo. The enthusiastic Alain Létourneau from the Université de Sherbrooke described Plato’s beautiful text entitled Hippias Major. I always recommend it to my students because it is among the very first texts written on beauty, a concept which is indeed very complex. It is a dialogue between Socrates and Hippias, a well-read sophist. The objective of the conversation is to grasp the notion of beauty, to set out a definition of what exactly we mean by… “beautiful”.

What is beautiful and what makes something beautiful? I invite all of you to read Wikipedia’s page on Hippias Major for a first basic approach. “A pretty girl” is beautiful, as well a functional cauldron, a lira, a beautiful horse says Hippias. Shall we compare a beautiful girl with a cauldron? Gold is also beautiful… as well as being rich, powerful, strong, and respected and having beautiful funerals.

Socrates refutes these statements by arguing that beauty is that which is appropriate; that beauty is that which is useful; that beauty is that which is favourable and…finally, that beauty is the pleasure that comes from seeing and hearing.

After lots of debate and frustration, the conclusion falls into dualism (belief that the world is composed of two different kinds of substances), in our case, beauty being something apart from the object… And into substantialism (belief in substantial reality), in our case, beauty being an inherent part of the object.

At the end, no exact definitions of the beautiful were set, no agreement was reached. As we can see, beauty is in fact a very complex notion to grasp. This is a great discussion topic to tackle during the mid crit of our upcoming painting workshop in Tuscany while taking our aperitif.

Jockey of Artemisio, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

by Yves M. Larocque (Ph.D.) | May 28, 2014 | Art History, Inspiration |Thoughts, Painting

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We all make art! It is part of culture. It is deeply rooted in human nature as a way of communicating with others. We all need to tell our stories because it is stories that link us all. We are all one, one creative mind! Though, all unique and equipped with unique ways of expressing ourselves. We live in constant search of that unique liberating voice. At Walk the Arts we aim to facilitate our art makers to explore new territories. Our painting classes and art history trips on three continents are meant to be rounded art experiences among small groups of like-minded adults. We offer an environment that fosters creativity. As we always say, art as religion is just a matter of faith. This blog is about living fully the experience of art, about finding our single artistic path, about the joy of art-making. We believe that making art accessible to all will lead to a betterment of our society.

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