My former professor in art failed to perceive the beauty of the Mona Lisa painting when she saw it in person. She wasn't impressed. — Caldwell

Yes, there is clearly something wrong with her. — Bartricks

Yes, there is clearly something wrong with her. — Bartricks

Clearly, there is something wrong with you. When I see Mona, the only thing I want is to run away as fast as possible and release a dump. She is ugly as hell. Imagine I would find her in my bed, giving me that same grin when she makes me... Brrrrrrr!

Beauty lies in my dog jumping out of a moonlit blanket of mist. Dew glistening thousand colored in the morning autumn sun, trying to touch it and realizing it glistens from fungi on a pile of dogshit.

Yes, there is clearly something wrong with her. — Bartricks

Interesting! In what sense, may I ask, is something wrong with the Mona Lisa?

Of course. I've seen some Rodins. But I am not a great enthusiast of art. I like Turner and the odd Matisse. But mostly I like Japanese, Pre-Columbian and Ancient Egyptian art and also Greek, Roman and Etruscan pottery. I like the power of these pieces but beauty has never been the quest. A given work has to give me thrill, I need to feel a sense of vitality or serenity coming from it.

I was thinking exactly the same! :lol:

I was thinking exactly the same! — GraveItty

Soulmate!

Is there a difference between seeing a painting in person, or from a picture book?

beauty has never been the quest. A given work has to give me thrill, I need to feel a sense of vitality or serenity coming from it. — Tom Storm

And that -- I suggest -- is precisely what people call beauty.

Yes there is, obviously. The canvas is in 3d most of times, and all the colors and nuances cannot be reproduced on screen or paper.

And that -- I suggest -- is precisely what people call beauty. — Olivier5

OK

Yes there is, obviously. The canvas is in 3d most of times, and all the colors and nuances cannot be reproduced on screen.
now — Olivier5

I don't mean the physical difference. I know how dear Mona looks like without ever having seen the painting myself. I can't imagine bursting into tears when seeing it for real. Maybe tears of boredom, as sprang up when seeing the de nachtwacht and de staalmeesters, for example. Though some of his paintings impressed me, like the view on the Amstel. But they did so when looking in a book.

And that -- I suggest -- is precisely what people call beauty. — Olivier5

It isn't. An ugly scene can do just the same. Even more maybe.

The difference it makes to your own personal aesthetic emotions depends on many many things including how receptive you are to certain styles. But in practice, a good rule of thumb is that the reproduction of a work of art will give you less than the original.

An ugly scene can do just the same. Even more maybe. — GraveItty

Can you give an example?

The difference it makes to your own personal aesthetic emotions depends on many many things including how receptive you are to certain styles — Olivier5

Sitting in a chair, beneath a soft-toned lamp, makes me appreciate van Gogh more than looking at his paintings in the museum.

Can you give an example? — Olivier5

I get more vitality from looking at ugly scenes like some dadaists show us. Or de Koninck. These big magic blacks give me bright shining light. Serenety even. The are not beauty, in my eyes. Beauty is superfluous.

The professor, obviously. The mona lisa is just fine

Beauty is superfluous. — GraveItty

Unless you can see the beauty of ugliness. There is a passage about that in Heinlein's Stranger in Strange Land, where an alien comes to earth and tries to understand human civilisations. One of the things puzzling him is human art, and how it can depict ugly scenes. The examples are drawn from sculpture, including Rodin:

A great artist—a master—and that is what Auguste Rodin was—can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart . . . no matter what the merciless hours have done to her.


(Celle qui fut) la Belle Heaumière, by Rodin.

You're a philistine. Or you haven't actually seen it.

Beautifull sculpture. Looks like the thinker has done a bit too much thinking.

It's a thin line between beauty and ugliness. Maybe there is not even a line at all. It's all in the eyes and ears or nose of the beholder though. You can construct abstract schemes for explaining it, like I read in a thread here about art, but this merely relocates both beauty and ugliness. Besides the formally pleasing aspects of an artwork, there are of course many other ones.

You're a philistine. Or you haven't actually seen it. — Bartricks

You mean Mona? No, I haven't actually seen her. And luckily. Spared me money for the entrance ticket.

Ah, well there you go. I have. And there aren't words to describe it.

Velasquez's portrait of pope innocent X is another in the same league.

If you see them and are unmoved, then you're just dead inside.

Ah, well there you go. I have. And there aren't words to describe it.
now — Bartricks

I have them. If I see the painting (be it for real or not, I'm not a fetishist) I get the feeling of giving her a wake-up slam in the face, to make her stop giving me that double smile. Leonardo must have had a hard time with that lady, self-assured serenity. So it does provoke a feeling in me.

Beauty is symmetrical relationship. A harmony of complimentary opposites.

As an aside, I think the "big picture" "truth" of life is also a harmony of opposites. I.E Yin Yang

This may be the source of John Keats saying “Beauty is truth–truth beauty

And R Buckminster Fuller: "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

Like I say, a philistine.

Beauty is symmetrical relationship. A harmony of complimentary opposites. — Yohan

How does this explain the beauty of my dog jumping up out of a dark ultramarine moonlit blanket of low mist?

And R Buckminster Fuller: "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. — Yohan

I have exactly the opposite attitude.

I have exactly the opposite attitude. — GraveItty

And I bet its a complimentary opposite, if we examined both attitudes in the proper context.

How does this explain the beauty of my dog jumping up out of a dark ultramarine moonlit blanket of low mist? — GraveItty

To me you are asking "where is the symmetry". I assume you are relating the experience to something in your memory, perhaps subconscious memory, which is creating a symmetry.

Edit: To me the imagine evokes a balance between gravitas and levity.

Edit: However, I do agree that the perception of symmetry, or the feeling/state it evokes aesthetically as the experience of beauty in a person, is subjective. So my definition was too simplistic.

And I bet its a complimentary opposite, if we examined both attitudes in the proper context. — Yohan

It's not a complementary opposite. It's no complement at all. It's the lacking of symmetry or its complement. If we examine symmetry and it's complement in the proper context than we end up in math, which can have beauty (symmetry is fashion in physics). But the most beautiful math is in which both are not present. Now you can call this a complement again, but then you are stuck in the symmetry-asymmetry dichotomy.

But the most beautiful math is in which both are not present. Now you can call this a complement again, but then you are stuck in the symmetry-asymmetry dichotomy. — GraveItty

I'm not sure what you are saying. The most beautiful math is when there is neither symmetry no asymmetry?