"The beautiful is that which is desirable
in itself."
Aristotle (384-322 BCE),
Greek philosopher.
"Beauty in things exists in the mind
which contemplates them."
David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher and historian.
"The useful may be trusted to further
itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but
the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present
it, while yet all have need of it."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German author, philosopher,
scientist.
"We may. . . . begin at once by asserting
that artistic beauty stands higher than nature. For the beauty
of art is a beauty that is born — born again, that is — of the
mind; and by as much as the mind and its products are higher
than nature and its appearances, by so much is the beauty of
art higher than the beauty of nature."
Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher who proposed
that truth is reached by a continuing dialect.
"Never lose an opportunity of seeing
anything that is beautiful."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer. See transcendentalism.
"What is beautiful is a joy for all
seasons and a possession for all eternity."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish-born writer. A Picture of Dorian
Gray, 1891.
"The beauty of materials is my last
concern."
Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), Romanian modernist sculptor.
Sidney Geist, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture, 1968. See sculpture.
"Art is not the application of a
canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive
beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring
her limbs."
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. "Conversation
avec Picasso", in Cahiers d'Art, vol. 10, no. 10
(1935; translated in Alfred H. Barr Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years
of His Art, 1946).
"Art is the unceasing effort to compete
with the beauty of flowers — and never succeeding."
Marc Chagall (1889-1985), Russian-born French painter. See Jewish art and Surrealism.
"Every significant artist is a metaphysician, a propounder of beauty-truths and form-theories."
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), British writer. See artist, form, metaphysics, theory, and truth.
"When I am working on a problem,
I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem.
But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I
know it is wrong."
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect. See architecture and dome.
"When I think of art I think of beauty.
Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in
the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection."
Agnes Martin (1912-2004), American modernist painter. See mystery
and perfection.
beauty -
A delighting quality generally
associated with harmony
of form or color,
excellence of craftsmanship,
truthfulness, originality,
or other noble aspects of experience beyond superficial
appearance or mere prettiness.
