She's a bit smaller than I had previously expected. Oh well. Her reputation has maintained itself regardless. I find it interesting that, despite the immense influence of the piece, it's not exactly clear what emotion she is trying to evoke; It would be too presumptuous to say the Mona Lisa is smiling, and equally as bold to say that she is frowning. I found myself wanting to understand what it is that earns the attraction of the world? Beauty?
I feel that beauty is actually quite impalpable. We fool ourselves thinking that it is something easily understood. Even further, some tend to believe that it can be constituted and therefore represented by a quantitative value. From the children beauty pageants to fashion magazines to the talk show persona, we're taught that beauty is comprised of this or that. We're told that it has existed long before we are around, and that we had better start paying attention in order to understand the ways of attaining it.
Socrates even took a go at defining beauty (I should note that he was wise enough to tell us that he didn't believe he could truly have Knowledge of it, but insisted that philosophy is fun and why not pass the time doing it). Anyways, he thought it was a form. Something that existed before we did--something celestial and abstract. In fact, for him, the forms (they included Beauty, Justice Happiness, etc) that we perceive in the world are not entirely the form of the abstract "thing" but rather a blurry reflection of it. He felt that we live without actually seeing the real existence of this things.
Something along the lines of:
1) Molecular Biology exists
2) Molecular Biology is an explanation of events occurring in matter
3) These events are part of the human experience
4) Molecular Biology is unperceived by the human eye
5) If there exist a system of events outside of human perception, then it is possible that others systems exist
6) There exist a system of events outside of human perception. (Molecular Bio)
7) Thus, the abstract form of Beauty
can exist.
Awesome Socrates. So can unicorns.
She's a bit smaller than I had previously expected. Oh well. Her reputation has maintained itself regardless. I find it interesting that, despite the immense influence of the piece, it's not exactly clear what emotion she is trying to evoke; It would be too presumptuous to say the Mona Lisa is smiling, and equally as bold to say that she is frowning. I found myself wanting to understand what it is that earns the attraction of the world? Beauty?
We wandered around the tiny medina of Essaouira for about a half hour until we met some Brits who had been staying there for two weeks already. They showed us around the narrow streets, greeting the locals and telling us little bits of history about the town. It's an incredibly old ville--at about 5th century BCE it was developed into a trading post. After that, it had been claimed, captured, reclaimed and recaptured about a dozen times by numerous civilizations. The city (more so a village) is encased by a 15 meter wall that bears the gashes and holes from ancient invasions. Rows upon rows of cannons line the perimeter of the wall, especially the walls facing the sea.
