One might have expected that I’d possess a Doctorate in something or another by now so fierce has been my desire for knowledge. But the belief that it’s acquisition might satisfyingly be centered in so called places of learning was mightily tempered by my high school experience and the five or so years I attended full time college. Some crucial knowledge is not found there and may even be masked by the practices and prejudices that permeate ‘higher learning’.

 

So it’s no surprise to me that my long time inquiry to find the answers doesn’t assume where the answers may lie (interesting play on words). I’ve a long time sense that truth, where ever it’s found, is still truth and balony is balony no matter how it’s dressed up.

 

As a boy I wanted to know the answer to this: what is beauty. What exactly?

 

My first premise was to believe it was a matter of geometry and proportion and while I wasn’t far off, I was worlds off.

 

Only less than a decade ago I got my answer, though not all. I did find out what beauty is and with that knowledge, how the assessments of it can vary so much from person to person and culture to culture.

 

It actually set me back a bit when I found out how it works.

 

Mind you, I don’t have a scientific basis for what I believe nor am I certain technology exists prove it as yet.

 

Try it for yourself. It turns out that beauty is the meeting of two real things in one’s response to that meeting. It is my belief that within each individual being are preferences, expectations, and preset triggers. These apply to sound, scent, touch, visual imagery, proprioception, sensitivities in emotion, etc.. There are both preferablility and sensitivity elements to the prewired disposition of an individual. Some of these, maybe all of them, are subject to personal adjustment, and some are only manageble via deliberate self control. Some have an impulse to steal, or dominate, or over indulge, but learn to subject the matter to their will while others will run with it and only get into trouble with it.

 

How this affects the sensation of beauty, be it in the sounds or sights or smells has to do with what I think to be complex interplay. I smell fresh baked bread. I like that smell. I check it out. Most seem to agree that it’s a friendly sensation, this smell. Not everyone agrees about the smell of baked fish. Some love it, while others want to gag.

 

The same with Imagery.

 

A few years ago, knowing my boss and his predilections, I warned him about a job applicant who would come for an interview. “She’s very pretty,” I told him. “Don’t dismiss that she could be good at the job on that basis. Give her a fair shake.”

 

At the end of the day he was still waiting and asked if I knew why she’d not showed up for her interview with him. But she’d already come and gone.

 

It was clear to me that I saw with a different eye than he did. When I explained which was the pretty one, he was aghast.

 

“You’re kidding me!” he exclaimed.

 

Well, she was. He didn’t think so and it didn’t change the fact.

 

This is the sort of thing that distracts people from believing there are hard and fast truths. I saw her beauty, he did not. So, was she or wasn’t she?

 

His prewire for what passes for attractive is different than that of artistic me and of course, my perception is the correct one.

 

Knowing that people are programmed with some variances should soften the blow of those who look at what you’ve created and snort or complain or worse. It doesn’t make your work any less valid.

 

People actually highten as well as mute their reactions and sensitivities depending on their own circumstance, but it doesn’t change the thing to which they react. It simply changes the value they assign to it. This is how love and hate work. Children who got along well may despise each other later after they’ve been indoctrinated by hate traffickers.

 

On the other hand, people for whom we’ve sacrificed and to who we offer service can end up moving in status from unknown stranger to beloved friend. Not that they changed.

 

My original intent as a boy was to discover what beauty was so that armed with that formula I could more easily do beautiful art work.

 

I believed that everyone would recognize and appreciate what I created.

 

The reason I was temporarily devastated by the realization that there was much more to the formula was that it seemed to me that all that needed to happen to destroy the artistic value of anything I did was for people to change and they do that all the time!

 

Suddenly I felt that art was vaporous and arbitrary whereas I’d believed it could be forever.

 

Then I looked at the matter again and realized that one accepts certain standards and as long as there are others who accept similar standards then there is some permanence and a foundation upon which to build, artistically because an appreciative audience remains.

 

Honesty, for example is beautiful. I’m not speaking of cruel nakedness  of delivery such as a dolt who approaches people and tells them things calculated to hurt their feelings, “Because it’s true”.  Honesty is the lack of guile. You see innocent children who have no evil intent and ask them a question which they address with no intent to deceive and you can see the lack of guile on their face. It is an aspect of beauty that I want to be part of the faces of the subjects I paint so I look for that in my models. Real beauty is undone by the face of pretense and I don’t like to paint pretenders. Even when it’s innocent, it doesn’t look good. This is why I try to avoid model shoots that are simply a series of poses. The face is the picture, and I want the body dynamics to be correct, but they can not make up for a sour expression. Fortunately I can still use photo stills of a pretty girl in a bad mood if she has good presence. I make up the face.

 

A man on an airplane told me he was not happy with a woman who came to his house to visit him just before his flight. She left dishes in the sink, and he likes a clean house. He was irritated by her, and this despite that she had attributes he considered essential to feminine beauty. Them main one he pointed out was, “big butt”.

 

I told him I didn’t get it. To clarify, I asked exactly what he meant by describing a body shape that included a fairly normal upper body geometry on top of a lower body geometry that looked as if it should be assigned to a larger person and included shelves where the hips and backside were found.

 

“No that’s what I’m talkin about!” he said, smiling. He meant it.

He explained, “I think it’s a cultural thang.”

 

So now I know that someone will love any art I make. Some will hate it. Some will not care at all.

 

Now, I’m fine with that. I paint and draw to the appreciation of those who respond well to the things I respond well to. For other people, there are other artists : )