Physical beauty

“ The various pleasures we receive from an object may count as ‘feelings’ when we take them singly, but when they combine in a total richness, we call the result the ‘beauty’ of the object, and treat it as an outer attribute which our mind perceives. We discover beauty just as we discover the physical properties of things. ”

“ It is only in the perfection of the human system, in the age when the form has assumed all its powers, and the mind is awake to the consciousness of all the capacities it possesses, and the lofty obligations they impose, that the reign of physical grace commences; and that the form is capable of expressing, under the dominion of every passion or emotion, the high and habitual superiority which it possesses, either to the allurements of pleasure or the apprehensions of pain. ”

“ I do not suppose that I am exceptionally endowed because I have all my life enjoyed a keen perception of the beauty offered us by nature and by art Now physical science may and probably will, some day, enable our posterity to set forth the exact physical concomitants and conditions of the strange rapture of beauty. ”

“ But when the physical appearance evades the scrutiny of our senses and enters the sanctuary of our hearts, then it can forget itself. I know, from my childhood's experience, how devotion is beauty itself, in its inner aspect. ”

“ In hundreds of pieces here we see the suggestion of beauty put forward in every movement and exercise of the human body, and particularly when the frame is being brought to some considerable physical effort, when the limbs are being placed upon the strain, are grace and rhythm and style exhibited to us, and with them there is the suggestion always of the extreme of power. ”

“ To trace the connexion of beauty with, and its dependance on, anatomical structure and physiological laws—to show how it may be modified by causes within our control—to describe its different forms and modifications, and defects, as indicated by certain physical signs—to analyze its elements, with a view to its influence on individuals and society, in connexion with its perpetration in posterity—all these were novel topics of vast and exciting interest, and well adapted to the genius, taste, and research of our author. ”

“ Nature had enriched him with many gifts—a strong and active physique, a mind open to any and every simple pleasure and joy that a bountiful Providence could offer, and above all, and greatest of all, a rare appreciation of beauty. ”

“ Beauty expressed by the artist cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic or a sensation which is purely physical. It awakens, or ought to awaken, or induces, or ought to induce, an esthetic stasis, an ideal pity or an ideal terror, a stasis called forth, prolonged, and at last dissolved by what I call the rhythm of beauty. ”

“ There is in objects a kind of beauty which is intrinsic and physical, which belongs to them in every association, and whether at rest or in motion; such is the beauty of color, and that of configuration. The contemplation of the beauty of coloring and of form gives physical pleasure, i. ”

“ His genius grasped this, that beauty, perfect beauty, is the typifying not of one passion, one phase of human nature, but of the aggregation of all the moods which sway the human mind. There is a great thought in that. It is 'the healthy mind in the healthy body,' as the sculptor feels it. And 'the healthy mind in the healthy body' is one of the great thoughts of the past. ”

“ Listen to my distinction;—good features, and a fine complexion, I term bodily beauty. Like the streaks in the tulip, they please the eye for a moment; but this uniformity soon tires, and the active mind flies off to something else. The soul of beauty, my dear children, consists in the body gracefully exhibiting the emotions and variations of the informing mind. ”

“ The beauty of the human body is supreme, and when we add to it the flow of color, the ripple of fluent motion, that comes of a soft, light garment over free limbs—it is a new field of loveliness and delight. ”

“ We, on the other hand, have studied Nature—taken the human frame as our standard, and in all our labours have attempted to perfect that accord­ing to our ideal of its particular type of beauty: hence, instead of displaying fashion we display the human figure, and by giving freedom to every organ and support where it is needed, are enabled to impart all the advantages which can result from the addition of another muscular envelope to the figure. ”

“ The more we learn about the marvellous mechanism which performs our vital functions, the more wonderful and beautiful does it appear—beautiful, I say, for true beauty is the perfect adaptation of the means to the end, and the organs of the body are by nature perfectly adapted to the production of healthy life. ”

“ Are not all young men ready to trust the promise of a pretty face and to infer beauty of soul from beauty of feature? An indefinable impulse leads them to believe that moral perfection must co-exist with physical perfection. ”

“ A light shape, supple movements, whence spring brilliance and grace, are qualities which please, because they announce the good condition of the individual who possesses them, and the greater degree of aptitude for the functions which that individual ought to fulfil.
Beauty, then, of the nutritive system in woman, depends especially upon these fundamental facts, and those tendencies of structure which thus distinguish her from man. ”

“ For given space-perception and empathy and their capacity of being felt as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, the aesthetic imperative is not only intelligible but inevitable. Instead therefore of asking: Why is there a preference for what we call Beauty? we should have to ask: why has perception, feeling, logic, imagination, come to be just what it is? Indeed why are our sense-organs, our bodily structure and chemical composition, what they are; and why do they exist at all in contradistinction to the ways of being of other living or other inanimate things? ”

“ What is it then, which causes bodies to appear fair to the sight, sounds beautiful to the ear, and science and virtue lovely to the mind? May we not enquire after what manner they all partake of beauty? Whether beauty is one and the same in all? Or, whether the beauty of bodies is of one kind, and the beauty of souls of another? ”

“ Thus, while muscular pleasure originally prompts to the observation of the Creator’s works, this observation is rewarded and subsequently prompted by a pleasure of an incomparably higher order, of a character purely mental, by the discovery of moral beauty, which in rank and refinement surpasses all others. Still, the muscular pleasure of the eye strongly incites to the examination of the numberless forms of beauty in the organic and inorganic kingdoms, such as the symmetrical leaf, the bending bough, the symmetry of the tree itself that of inferior animals, and of the human form. ”

“ Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall adopt the course that nature herself follows with man considered from the point of view of aesthetics, and setting out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise to the idea of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on man by the gentle and graceful beauty when its springs of action are in full play, and also those produced by energetic beauty when they are relaxed. ”

“ He is to point out the conditions on which we depend for health, strength, long life, and beauty—all the perfections of the body—the way to live so as to keep a sound spirit in sound flesh—handsome and strong. ”

“ What is the cause that certain bodies seem beautiful, that our ears listen with pleasure to rhythms judged beautiful, and that we love the purely moral beauties? Does the beauty of all these objects derive from some unique, immutable principle, or will we recognize some one principle of beauty for the body, and some other for something else? ”

“ Yet, so does my nature act and react, ever tumbling from the sublime to the ridiculous, that I had hardly realized the perfect human beauty before me when my mind began to drop down into one of its most annoying analytical moods, tearing, as it were, all soft and delicate covering from the face, and pointing mockingly to the hollow skull beneath, the framework alike of beauty and ugliness. ”

“ We would urge him to follow them also into their details, their involved graces, the texture of the skin, the indication of a vein or muscle, the waving line of beauty, their calm and motionless expression; into all, in which they follow nature. But to do this, he must go to nature and study her more and more, in the greatest and the smallest things. ”

“ Let us, then, turn to the psychological effects of that which appeals as beautiful to some individual mind, leaving on one side, for the time, all consideration of the reason why a particular object should rouse a sense of beauty in a particular mind. ”

“ And if we avoid what is unseemly, both in the condition and motion of the body, why may we not on the other hand pursue beauty? And we also desire health, strength, and freedom from pain, not merely because of their utility, but also for their own sakes. For since nature wishes to be made complete in all her parts, she desires this condition of the body, which is most according to nature, for its own sake: but nature is put into complete confusion if the body is either sick, or in pain, or destitute of strength. ”

“ We still, therefore, repeat the question, What is the beauty of bodies? It is something which at first view presents itself to sense, and which the soul familiarly apprehends and eagerly embraces, as if it were allied to itself. ”

“ To this purity of aesthetic pleasure must be added its refinement, which implies not merely a certain remoteness from the bodily needs, but the effect of a union of sense and mind in giving amplitude as well as delicacy to our enjoyment of beauty. Marked off from practical activity, As the region of most pure and refined feeling, aesthetic experience is clearly marked off from practical life, with its urgent desires and the rest. In aesthetic contemplation desire and will as a whole are almost dormant. ”

“ The natural features themselves must be the basis of any satisfactory treatment, and they are to be made the most of, not only with regard to their intrinsic beauty, but also any material advantages they may offer. ”

“ If we consider all the hypotheses, which have been formed either by philosophy or common reason, to explain the difference betwixt beauty and deformity, we shall find that all of them resolve into this, that beauty is such an order and construction of parts, as either by the primary constitution of our nature, by custom, or by caprice, is fitted to give a pleasure and satisfaction to the soul. ”

“ The study of these forms of harmonious functioning of the human organism has its roots, of course, in the science of psychology, but comes, nevertheless, to a different flower, because of the grafting on of the element of aesthetic value. ”

“ Is it like a human body? The answer is: Yes, but of a perfection of shape, symmetry and beauty, with which no human body can be compared; it is the Original Body, of which the human body is a poor imitation. ”

“ My notion of nature comprehends not only the forms which nature produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organisation, as I may call it, of the human mind and imagination. The terms beauty, or nature, which are general ideas, are but different modes of expressing the same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or pictures. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental deviation from her accustomed practice. ”

“ But, first of all, we have to ask how the aesthetic pleasure even in formal beauty is constituted, and to what extent expression belongs to the beauty of pure form. Form is impressive, or directly beautiful, through its harmony with the conditions offered by our senses, primarily of sight and hearing, and through the harmony of its combinations of suggestions and impulses with the entire organism. ”

“ And this value, although not associated with the image of the monotonous object, lies there in our mind, like all the vital and systemic feelings, ready to enhance the beauty of any object that arouses our attention, and meantime adding to the health and freedom of our life — making whatever we do a little easier and pleasanter for us. ”

“ But the sense must be cultivated through the mind before we can perceive those inexhaustible treasures of Nature—for such they truly are—without the least necessary reference to the utility of her productions, or even to the laws whereupon, as we learn by research, they are dependent. Some are of opinion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising, is inevitably unfavourable to the perception of beauty. ”

“ There we perceive the same line of beauty, which is the source of so much delight, whilst reflecting on the shape of the world, the fashion of the sun, the moon, and their starry children. We admire the structure of the various organs which minister to our existence, intelligence, and life ”

“ Instead of these being incompatible with beauty, they are directly accessory to it. "Elegance of form in the human figure," says Emerson, "marks some excellence of structure"; and again, "Any real increase of fitness to its end, in any fabric or organism, is an increase of beauty." ”

“ The interest which we take in natural and artistic forms, and which has for thousands of years prompted men to reproduce the former in the latter, depends for the most part, if not altogether, on their beauty—that is to say, on the feeling of pleasure we experience in looking at them. The causes of this pleasure and joy in the beautiful and the naturalness of its development are explained in æsthetics. When we combine this science with the results of modern cerebral physiology, we may distinguish two classes of beauty—direct and indirect. ”

“ If we have petty, meagre souls we shall find little in common with the great soul of Nature, and consequently see only shallow Beauty. If we have great souls we shall have more in common and see more Beauty. But to arrive at a full understanding of the real Nature we must observe her from every point of view and see her in all her aspects. Only so shall we be able to understand her real self and see her full Beauty. ”