Quote:
|
Originally Posted by davem
I wouldn't claim that all 'Men' lack any sense of beauty. I do think beauty is out of fashion at the moment. The things we create are not designed to be beautiful - sometimes beauty is taken into consideration as an afterthought, but cost, functionality, & ease of production are foremost in the creator's & producer's minds. We live in a utilitarian age.
|
This is your opinion or interpretation of events, but much could be said about it. For instance, does this reflect your idea of a falling away of an ideal, a long defeat?
But opinion remains just that--opinion--without evidence. I know writers for whom beauty is an important consideration of their work, artists and architects as well as engineers. And even more significantly, I could provide examples from ancient history up to the romantic age where so called 'utilitarian' concerns governed the creation and building of things, even if they weren't consciously or specifically entered into in the process. I'm willing to bet that more people now have access to 'beauty'--however they choose to understand that concept--than ever had it in the past, in their private lives and personal habitat.
Also, it is sometimes easily overlooked that economy of material plays an important role in the creation of an aesthetic of beauty, as, in fact, can functionality. The demarcation between 'utilitarian' and 'beauty' is not such a simple division as you suggest here, for mathematics plays an important role in concepts of proportion as well as function. This is where I likely do not develope much sympathy for the elves, as I regard the notion that the past had a sense of beauty whereas we do not as a false notion, derived from Romantic concepts (you did quote Blake), but concepts which do not necessarily reflect our actual working efforts.
And, furthermore, in our recognition that some previous standards of "Beauty" represented class and race concepts, I would argue that we are closer now to an understanding that beauty arises from a kind of wholistic or integral quality. Even that the pursuit of beauty itself as an object falsifies the notion. Which is, again, why I dislike the emphasis on the elves's grace, height and proportions as reflecting their beauty as a race. It smacks of old European values. The hobbits might proudly proclaim their worth, and the story might reflect their value, but for the narrator to uphold the elves as an epitome of beauty reflects a notion of beauty which does not pertain in our world--or which increasingly does not. Tastes change.
called away before I can explain further....
Indeed, if there is "truth" in a design, then there also is beauty.