Mitchell Becker
Prompt 3
4/26/18
Final Version
How beauty can be used to create a more wholesome person
There is an old saying, that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. Beauty has always been hard for people to define, or to describe. People just tend to say ‘you’ll know it when you see it’. Which is true, but John Armstrong also provides us with a definition of beauty, based on Schiller, in his essay “La Bella Vita”. Beauty can help to make a person whole, and fill a void in ourselves that we so desperately need filled. This is explained more in The School of Life’s “What is Art For?” video. I believe that beauty plays a vital role in our well-being, and the arts can be used as a tool to extend that beauty to us.
The School of Life’s “What is Art For?” video
Beauty is vital to help us maintain an equilibrium in the world and ourselves. This can be achieved through art. The video “What is Art For?” is able to add some clarity about what art is exactly for and it’s able to provide us with 5 reasons of why art is useful. “Art keeps us hopeful with beautiful things, makes us less lonely and helps portray the normativity of pain, re-balances us (it can help compensates for something we lack), helps us to appreciate the little stuff in life, and it is propaganda for what really matters” (The School of Life). Art is a tool to able to provide cultures and individuals with whatever emotion they are lacking to create a more whole person. If a culture is going through war, then art that is more funny or pretty may be really popular because that’s what they are lacking. Or if an individual is very excitable and spontaneous, then perhaps they may be drawn to the beauty of a serene mountainside to help calm them. Whatever you are lacking or need subconsciously, art is a tool that can be used to provide you with beauty, creating a more wholesome person.
Our society tells us that the models in the magazines and on Instagram are beautiful, typically referring to women models. They have flawless skin, an hourglass shape with a skinny waist but a large chest, tan, and long flowing hair. This is what our media tells us is beautiful, and forces these beauty standards on women. Girls in the U.S. can start to feel this pressure to look like that as young as elementary school. It seems obvious that there is a flaw in our culture’s definition of beauty if it begins to opress girls as young as 10 to look like they’re 25, and most 25 year olds don’t even look like that either. It seems wrong that we as a society understand that when it comes to art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but we can’t see that this concept also applies to people. There isn’t one type of person or thing that is beautiful, it is all subjective. There can be beauty found in all of us, and it should be used to uplift us, so that we can see the real beauty within all of us.
So if we understand that beauty is different for everyone, then we can look at the shared experience of why we view things as beautiful. Beauty is a shared experience because even though beauty is found in different things between individuals and cultures, we all experience key things that cause us to see beauty. In Armstrong’s essay he talks about Schiller, a German poet, who helps to explain why we all experience beauty even though we each see beauty in different places. Schiller says that there are two different powerful psychological drives at work. “On the one hand, there is the ‘sense’ drive which lives in the moment and seeks immediate gratification…[the second drive] was the ‘form’ drive: the inner demand for coherence over time, for abstract understanding and rational order” (Armstrong). It was when both of these drives were seen at the same time is when we see true beauty.
Personally, the last time that I remember seeing something truly beautiful was the sunset outside of the dining hall. I remember sitting at dinner, my back turned to the glass wall overlooking the Saco. My friend told me to turn around and look outside, what I saw took my breath away. I saw the midnight blue of the sky fading to black while the edge of the sky right by the tree line was a beautiful pink and purple. I remember sitting there for what felt like 10 minutes. I ignored my food and friends so I could stare outside. Everything else faded away and I just took in the sunset. College can be stressful a lot of the time. That’s probably why in part I was so taken aback by the sunset. The beauty in the calmness and simplicity of it helped to fill a hole in myself where I felt so chaotic on the inside. This is yet another example of how we can find the beauty in things to help complete us. The sunset also helps to fill both of the drives described by Schiller. It filled the ‘sense’ drive and was immediately gratifying to see the prettiness in the ambre of colors. While also fulfilling the ‘form’ drive, the complexity in having the light from the sun hit the dust particles in the sky to cause such varying wavelengths in color is satisfying from an order and scientific perspective.
I also believe that art can be used as a tool to show beauty, to then be used to fill a hole in ourselves of something that we have been lacking. Taylor’s presentation about tattoos is a good example of a permanent way to help fill that hole with a constant reminder of beauty that is important to the person wearing it. Taylor wrote about her friend and her tattoos, she said “Her first tattoo was done on her forearm for her to constantly see when she looks down. She says ‘it’s a reminder that no matter how I may be feeling or what circumstance I’m facing, there is a better day to come and that I will rise above any challenge life throws my way.’”(Williams). The girl that she interviewed uses the tattoos on her body as a constant reminder of the beauty within herself. In this way, art and beauty overlap, but art isn’t always necessary for there to be beauty.
Beauty is the combination of fulfilling the instant gratification and rational order drives. Everybody experiences beauty in different things, but experiencing beauty is a shared experience. Society’s definition of beauty is flawed and shallow, true beauty isn’t so superficial. Beauty is vital to us because it can help complete us and fill the void of whatever emotion we are lacking, to make us a more whole and complete person. We can use art as a tool to extend that beauty to us.
Works Cited
Armstrong, John. “Can Beauty Help Us to Become Better People? – John Armstrong | Aeon Essays.” Aeon,
Aeon, 14 Feb. 2014, aeon.co/essays/can-beauty-help-us-to-become-better-people.
“Heidi Klum – WOMEN’S HEALTH Magazine – March 2014 Cover.” Celeb Mafia, 4 Feb. 2014,
celebmafia.com/heidi-klum-womens-health-magazine-march-2014-cover-54932/.
Templeton, Corey. “Fore River Sunset.” Corey Templeton Photography, Portland Daily Photo, 15 Apr. 2015.
The School of Life. “What is Art for?” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 9 September 2014. Web. 25
April 2018.
Williams, Taylor. “The Human Canvas” Let’s Talk About Art, 27 March 2018, University of New England,
Biddeford, ME. Oral Presentation.
