The Objectivity of Beauty
/La Vérité
‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free’
This was the insignia that had been embroidered on our school uniform badge; a badge that was permanently stitched on our shirts, dresses, jumpers and blazer. An insignia which sat close to my heart - literally - and had been at the forefront of my mind and a reminder for six years. My school was named after the French Saint, Joan of Arc – a fortuitous woman we were encouraged to emulate in our formative years. A woman who was strong and courageous and who stood for Truth. She didn’t pander around with this virtue, as though it were a subjective prediliction. No, she believed in its absolute objectivity; so much so, that she literally gave up her life, and was burnt at the stake for proclaiming it.
La Vérité; meaning, the truth in French – followed by the famous line in John's gospel, The truth will set you free.
St Joan of Arc proclaimed the Truth, and although she was imprisoned and then executed, she was much freer than those that continued to lead lives based on falsehoods. It was the knowledge that there is absolute truth that had liberated her. And through her witness, would eventually deliver her people from the tyrannical oppression of the English; making them free, once again.
Truth.
What is, truth?
This is the question that had been posed to another convicted individual - prior to Joan of Arc - over 2000 years ago. It is what had given her the conviction and lit a burning flame in the heart of this bold young woman; along with many other heroic individuals that lived throughout the ages. It’s the axiomatic story of Western Civilisation, and it is an event that would change the discourse of human history; splitting it forever into two. It’s the account of Jesus Christ’s death, and we all know how the story goes. One of the best on-screen depictions of this narrative is the Passion of Christ. If you’ve ever seen the film, you might remember two contrasting scenes that really emphasises the notion of the importance of this virtue, Truth.
Jesus Christ is brought to the praetorium, chained like a common criminal and handed over to Pontius Pilate to be condemned. After an exchange, Pilate begins quizzing Jesus about His claim to be a King.
Pilate demands,
“So, you are a king?”
Jesus answered,
“You say that I am a king. For this purpose, I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—I to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate looks at him inquisitively, and then asks,
“What is truth?”
The scene later pans over to the private residence and into a conversation between Pontius Pilate and his wife. As if deep in contemplation from the previous exchange that he had had with the so-called criminal from Nazareth, he pensively inquires to his bride:
“What is truth, Claudia? Do you hear it? Recognise it when it is spoken?”
She gently replies,
“Yes, I do. Don’t you?”
“How? Can you tell me?”
After a long pause, she stares into the window of his soul, and with a deep pity in her heart, she gently cusps his face into her hands, and answers:
“If you will not hear the truth, no one will tell you.”
It’s such a simple; yet powerful scene.
Unless presented with the question, how many of us often sit with this query and truly contemplate this notion?
We live in an extremely relativistic time in history. Truth passed from being an objective reality - taking shape and living outside in the real world; to being something that has been captured inward, making it a subjective matter - determined by each individual - based on personal feelings and whims.
This individual relativistic ideology has unfortunately submerged its way into the culture, and because there is no so-called, Truth – the moral sphere ebbs and flows according to the plethora of differing tastes and feelings. For proof of this, one need only reiterate a phrase that has essentially become the slogan of the 21st Century: ‘what’s right for you, may not be right for me. And what’s right for me, may not be right for you.’ This could be true in some instances - for example, one form of exercise and diet could be right for someone who is already skinny, but looking to build muscle – this same regime, however, may not work for someone who is overweight and looking to shed those extra kilos. But there are some things that are absolute and objective truths, which our culture has unfortunately sanctioned a relativistic notion upon; and one of them being, is beauty. So often do we hear the phrase: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Like a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal, this feverish dogma continues to penetrate every facet of the aesthetic establishment – but is the notion that beauty is just in the eye of the beholder objectively true?
I would contest that the answer is, no.
Beauty can be objectively identified; and the relativisation of beauty has put us in this mad mess where we are being indoctrinated to accept ugliness as a form of beauty. We have not witnessed, for such a time in the history of Western civilisation, such an onslaught to the destruction of our aesthetic sensibilities; especially as it relates to our built environments. Civilisations in which have inherited vast amounts of beautiful cities, turn on these masterpieces, only to be destroyed and replaced with what can only be described as cold, soulless soviet style ghettos. Theodore Dalrymple, in his book, Our Culture, What's Left of It, writes that the ancestors of those that have inherited some of these great cities, “are like barbarians camped out in the ruins of an older, superior civilisation to whose beauties they are oblivious.” These are harsh words, and a severe analysis, but nothing fully encapsulates the reality in which we find ourselves in as a result of this relativistic outlook of beauty.
The question must then be asked, how do we approach the nature of beauty as being an objective congruence?
For this, we must look to the great philosophers of Antiquity; where serious philosophical disputes had taken place about the subjectivity verses objectivity of beauty. The perennial question about the nature of beauty was developed, having its Western origins in Plato’s dialogues - notably the Symposium. Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece and Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in the middle ages all held that beauty existed outside a person’s mind, making it objective. People had to discover the nature of beauty through knowledge and extramental reality. Whilst these great philosophers held different conceptions of what “beauty” is, they do agree that it is a feature of the “object,” and not something in the mind of the beholder.
For Aquinas, beauty is id quod visum placet, "that which pleases upon being seen."
In order to understand the meaning of Aquinas' words, we must unpack what is meant specifically regarding the words visum and placet. The former connotes more than meets the eye. Its meaning is closer to our understanding of the word "vision" (as opposed to "eyesight") and refers to an intuitive knowledge that includes the senses. There is a vast difference between seeing and looking; the former requires that we view that which we are apprehending with more than just sight, we must apprehend it - the latter connotes to more of a viewing of an object in a somewhat biological sense; think the cornea, retina, light, etc.. The same can be said for listening and hearing - listening requires apprehension, whereas hearing is also a biological function in which the tympanic membrane, cochlea, malleus etc.. all work together to bring sound physically into a person. The two senses that are involved in the apprehension of beauty are what St. Thomas calls "the senses of knowledge," that is, sight and hearing. The word placet means more than a mere sensual pleasure. It is better rendered as "a delight for the soul." This delight is conferred when a person beholds a beautiful object by means of an intuitive knowledge that incorporates either sight or hearing. This means that just like we might need to develop our knowledge of mathematics - in order to better apprehend it - so too, we must develop our knowledge of beauty, so that we might too apprehend as objectively as we might perhaps apprehend mathematics.
Intelligence, therefore, which is our capacity to know, plays an indispensable role in the apprehension of beauty. This is a most important factor because it means that beauty is not merely subjective (or "in the eyes of the beholder," as many claim), but is objective inasmuch as it is an object of knowledge. Beauty has its roots in reality.
The notion that beauty can be objectively conceived can only come about by a sort of passing of the intransigent thought, and to cultivate a Hellenistic approach to that thought by giving birth to new life. But as we know, the birth and death of a living being requires pain. We must die to ourselves and our preconceived notions in order to give life to that which is old; but also, new in our times. This calls to mind something Socrates states in the Phaedo. He says words to the effect of, is not the love of wisdom the practice of dying. If we are to truly become a culture that loves wisdom; wisdom stemmed from truth, then we must amputate that which is poisoning the body of society, and insert a renewed life of the truth as it relates to beauty. Just as if we had placed a relativistic notion upon, say mathematics, or the sciences, would there be a great contention; so too, must we contest the relativisation that has been placed upon that which is seen as negligible; which is beauty.
The truth hurts. The Truth hurts especially when we are living a lie. The Truth hurts especially when we live our lives built on a lie. The Truth especially hurts when we build our civilisations based on a lie. When we make some of the most important aesthetic decisions on that lie. The Truth hurts, because if we are living in a lie, then it means some extracting needs to be done. And if anyone who has been to a dentist for a procedure - would know - that to extract, means that we must accept that the decay and rot of our society needs to be removed – and in order for it to be removed – we must take steps to root out the primary cause, which is extremely painful. But if we are to move forward and accept the objective reality of beauty; then this is a procedure that needs to take place - For it is in dying that we are born to life, sings St Francis of Assisi.
Blaise Pascal says, "Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
There is a sequence in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot when the Christlike figure Prince Myshkin is mocked by a character called Ippolit:
“Is it true, Prince, that you once said that the world will be saved by ‘beauty’? Gentlemen’, he shouted in a loud voice to all the company, ‘the prince says that the world will be saved by beauty!”
If beauty is to truly save the world; then we must recognise and love the True objectivity of what that beauty is – this is my hope; and in doing so, might this renewed found wisdom shall set us free.
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1652) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
The artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the giants of Baroque art, sculpted Ecstasy of Saint Teresa located in Rome’s Santa Maria della Vittoria depicting the Carmelite saint wounded in ecstasy by the golden arrow of beauty from an angel’s bow. Yet Saint Teresa also knew one did not have to be a mystic to experience transcendence to communicate with God. In her autobiography, she employed a simple metaphor of describing the peace that comes from prayer: like peace that comes from watering a garden. It is an image that itself is an invitation to beauty.