N Series

Posted by: Aditya Rajaraman, Dated - 07.08.08
This post is to simultaneously appear on both my blogs, for in one I want to state and in the other I want to open it for discussion with Suchitra. Therefore, from this moment on, if I think that a topic is worthy of discussion, you will find it on both the blogs.

Beauty - The qualities that give pleasure to the senses. Man has forever been on a search for beauty. Even Keats could not get to what it meant and gave up when he said, 'Beauty is truth, and truth beauty. That is all ye need to know'.

I would agree with the definition, for beauty is something to please the senses. It does not have to be just sight. For example, even a nice pot of mellagu rasam is beautiful as it gives pleasure to my nose. A rough surface to me is beautiful, for I gain pleasure from touching the surface. To each sense, its own.

My question at this point of view is there should be something that sets beauty apart from the other things that are not beautiful. Please do realize that when I mean beautiful, it is from my frame of reference, it is from my perspective. It is not universal. The one thing that is necessary for something to be realized as beautiful is for that thing to be in sharp contrast to the surroundings, for that thing not to belong. Only then does that thing stand of being considered for beautiful. I will see if I can give a few examples to drive home the point.

Let us take the most general of all things that is considered beautiful, a rose. A rose alone, is beautiful. If that rose were to be placed on a pile of garbage, the beauty of the rose is enhanced, for it is in sharp contrast to the garbage. Now if we place the rose along with other roses, what will happen. The rose stops looking beautiful? Well not really. What happens is that the roses as a set become beautiful, for they are in sharp contrast with the surroundigns and the individual roses lose their identity. It goes from being a beautiful rose to being a bunch of beautiful roses. Now if we have a rose garden, then it is a beautiful garden of roses, no more bunch.

Beauty is uniqueness,
For one is more beautiful than two.
Two are beautiful too,
When they are not one.
I stand out,
In contrast, I am seen.
For me to be beautiful,
I need to be alone, I need to be free.


I will keep this short, for there is a lot to go on from here and I will address any questions or views that Suchitra has on this in later posts.

Authored by: Suchitra R

I could probably question almost every statement on that post, but let me start off with your basic definition. Beauty - The qualities that give pleasure to the senses. One, not everything that gives pleasure to the senses can be exactly said to be 'beautiful'. It seems a rather obvious conclusion to me, and I will leave you to do the homework. Two, even if you can say that 'All beautiful things please the senses' (taking that as an assumption that is) I would not accept that because beauty is definitely more than just the sum of its parts. The function of beauty (I am not sure how to phrase that better) is not just to pamper the senses but to put the mind in a higher frame, and beauty does exactly that. The other thing I want to talk about today is the example...single rose on garbage.If that rose were to be placed on a pile of garbage, the beauty of the rose is enhanced, for it is in sharp contrast to the garbage. Is the beauty of the rose enhanced? Isn't the beauty of the garbage enhanced because of the presence of the rose? Please realize that I am talking your language when I talk about the beauty of the rose and garbage as separate entities; for me there is but one beauty, no matter what inspires it...that perception in my head that I call 'beauty'.I guess that is enough to chew on for a day.