Beauty

Patti is challenging us with a very important thing – to find beauty where we might not immediately think we could. Because, there is beauty everywhere if we just look for it! Please visit Patti’s inspiring post for more!

This is Highgate, London. Below the massive growth of ivy, this beautiful statue of a resting woman had just been rediscovered when we visited in 2014. We admired every detail – the artist made her look so real, just sleeping -about to wake up any minute.

In Tblisi, Georgia, 2019, most buildings and open places were dilapidated or worn down. Walking past this yard, I was really taken by the shadow and reflections, the tranquility, and the lovely cat.

More Tblisi. After a climb up one of the hills, three resting beauties awaited us in this yard. So calm and relaxed as only cats can be in the sun, they even let me take some photos.

A burnt down house lent some of its books to a beautiful photo. (An exhibition by Helene Schmitz) I often find great beauty in old and worn things, but these books sent an ache in my heart. Books should never be thrown away or burnt. This artist really found a way to make the disaster in her own home into something beautiful.

Finally, a stinging nettle in evening light – a dangerous beauty!

A special thanks to Tina, who invited us to explore our neighborhoods last week. Thanks for sharing your “world” with us. Next week it’s my turn, Leya, to lead. Until then, be safe, stay curious, and be kind!

I hope you will join this challenge – as we search for beauty in surprising and unexpected places. Beauty is seen in a wider context–beyond the typical. For an added challenge, Patti suggests us to come up with a surprise – something that you find beautiful but other people might not. Show us your beautiful and unexpected finds and tell us where you discovered them. Be sure
to link to Patti’s original post and include the “lens-artists” tag so we can enjoy your images.

According to Wikipedia, Beauty is ”a characteristic of an animal, idea, object, person or place that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction.”

The experience of ”beauty” is also connected to being in balance and harmony with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being.

Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco wrote On Beauty: A history of a Western idea (2004) and On Ugliness (2007). A character in his novel The Name of the Rose declares: ”three things concur in creating beauty: first of all integrity or perfection, and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light”, before going on to say ”the sight of the beautiful implies peace”. (Wikipedia)

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express

Francis Bacon

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old

Franz Kafka

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

(The first person to use it in the form we know today.)

It is unknown exactly where or how this idiom originated but it has been used in different forms since 3rd century BC when it first appeared in Greek.