Beauty Inherently Felt

Beauty is many things to many people. It can more often than not be seen, but it can also be felt in a multitude of ways that manifest deep within one’s being. And it is solely discretionary, based largely upon one’s preferences and pursuits.

For me the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen is narrowed to three genres. I love art, I love music, and I love literature and prose. If I had to separate or choose one over the other, I fear it would be like an inner civil war and completely, undeniably impossible. It might be inherently easier for me to remove one of my extremities rather than to choose between the three. After all, aren’t the three one and the same? The beauty of art is music to the soul, music’s beauty is art redefined, and literature or prose is the inscription of both art and beauty.

Michelangelo. The mere name gives me shivers. I have had a love affair with this artist since I was only eight years of age. I recall seeing a picture of his Pietà and nearly weeping from the beauty he sculpted from one massive block of marble while only 24 years of age. It is said that Helen Keller, blind and deaf, was allowed to run her hands over the piece when she visited Rome many years ago. While doing so, she wept uncontrollably, so lifelike was the image and so moved was she by its intense portrayal of life, death, and sorrow therein. I cannot imagine what it would be like to actually feel this piece of marble when looking at it alone causes me to weep from the sheer beauty and emotion housed within it.

Chopin. The delicacy and haunting beauty of Frederic Chopin’s music is encompassing and overwhelming. I love all compositions of this great Polish composer, but if I had to choose only one, I would choose his Nocturne Op 48 No. 1 in C Minor. Whenever I listen to it, I am overcome with both the lovely beauty and the deeply penetrating, haunting sadness of it. It is a palpable thing, felt in the deepest recesses of the heart, body, and mind. Chopin’s life was a life ended way too soon. One can only imagine what other pieces of beauty he may have composed had he had the chance to do so.

Shakespeare. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Could William Shakespeare have been more wrong? I fear no other “rose” would smell as sweet as the writings of the Bard of Avon. And as cliché as it may be, his beautiful and heart wrenching story of young love written so eloquently in Romeo and Juliet never, ever fails to move me. Could anyone else lay a pen to such beauty in such a moving declaration of love, I wonder:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

(Romeo, Act 1, Scene V, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)

I could cite endless more accounts of such beauty in Shakespeare, but I think they stand well enough alone without the need for me to do so.

Are these three examples of art, music, and literature the only moving accounts of beauty I’ve ever witnessed? Absolutely not. These are merely three of the things that I find most beautiful while fully realizing others may not be inclined in the same respect. For me, however, the day is young and there are a multitude of new things awaiting the discovery of beauty in my eyes and lifetime. And it is without a doubt, for me, that they will likely be found in a piece of art, music, or literature.