Beauty and Truth

My dear friend over at Lora Grady Photography recently mentioned that she wanted my help in starting a Facebook group for women photographers/videographers/artists/business owners to support one another, throw around ideas, and share our work.

I want to say right up front that I have hardly done a thing, and that Lora has spear-headed this project from its inception. I did, however, help her to think of a name for the group. It wasn't until we were at the bridal fair a few weeks back, connecting with brides in the area, and speaking with another photographer in the group, that I realized I had never really explained where I got the name "Beauty and Truth".  I thought it would make an appropriate post on this blog, as it is something I think about on a regular basis.

In fact, I've mentioned it before.
But I'll mention it again, and be very clear.

This earth is brimming with beauty. Exploding with beauty. Bursting at the seams and tumbling out with beauty. There is so much beauty, at times our souls cannot hold it all, so we pull some of it back out of ourselves, package it up as we like, and call it our art.
In sharing it, we let something so personal (the way we perceive the beauty in the world) react with the perceptions of others, and something miraculous starts to happen... lights go on and the understanding is enlightened, even if it is in ways that no one can explain.

The words "Beauty and Truth" belong to the typical vernacular.  People know these words.  Philosophers, in particular, those that take an interested in the topic of Art Philosophy, have often discussed at length if art is primarily a vehicle of truth, or a vehicle of beauty.

I'm not sure why they never stopped to consider that the two are the same thing.

John Keats, the English Romantic Poet, was a brilliant artist.  That he died at the premature age of 25 is, in my opinion, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the poetic world.  But when he died, he left behind a small collection of works that have haunted me all of my adult life.

One of my favorites, Ode on a Grecian Urn is written from the perspective of one who is examining a decorative urn, likely in a museum, and musing over its beauties.  At the end of the poem, Keats issues the following, powerful statement:

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all
            Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

I admit that in the years I have pondered these lines, they have become quasi-scriptural to me, taking on new meaning and facets each time I go over them in my mind.  Every beauty has a Truth behind it, and every Truth is beautiful.  I cannot explain how deeply I believe this to be true.  Yet, there has to be another side to the coin.  I cannot always see something that is beautiful and point to the exact Truth it mirrors, but why not?  Why doesn't that bother me, or cause me to change my mind about the synonymous value of the subjects?

 

Keats himself sets my mind at ease on this point with a phrase that he coined.  That is, the phrase, Negative Capability.  

As far as scholars know, Keats only used the term once in his writing, in a letter, in which he said, "I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason . . . with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration."

If he were here right now, I'm sure he and I could have quite the conversation, and perhaps I would come out realizing that I had completely mistook his meaning.  But putting these two ideas together, I have formulated a belief system about art that is not to be easily shaken.  Beauty and Truth are the same thing.  They are merely perceived differently.  Truth is understood intellectually, and beauty is felt.  But everything beautiful is Truthful, and every Truth is beautiful. 

All beauty cannot be easily translated into a Truth that can be grasped by a finite mind.  Sometimes, we as human beings, just have to admit that we do not understand entirely, and enjoy what we perceive: the beauty.  No, not just enjoy it, but revel in it, breath it, love it, cherish it, rejoice in it, become a part of it, and let it become a part of us.

When we do, we will see that we, somehow, in the back of our minds, in ways that we cannot explain (and usually only for moments at a time) understand.  Everything.  Perfectly.

That is art.  That is Beauty.  That is Truth.  That is Life.

"A poem needs understanding through the senses.  The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water.  You do not 'work the lake out', it is an experience beyond thought.  Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery." -Ben Whishaw as John Keats in Bright Star