more interesting perhaps to talk about hard-won beauty.
why not simply beauty, why this `hard-won' adjective?
to me, it is what distinguishes great art. when i'm walking in the forest, i come across all sorts of plants and trees which i find utterly beautiful and amazing. daily, i see people whom i consider very beautiful, each in their own way. i find many beautiful wonders in this world, all created by nature. zebras, swans, snakes, you name it. the sea, the forest, rolling grassy hills, the sun, the stars,...
and i would not trade this type of direct beauty for all of the world's greatest art works. but still, these (what i consider great) art works do have something special, something that their makers have worked extremely hard for, a different type of beauty...perhaps i should call it conceptual beauty, because these art works refer to our very deepest concept of beauty.
and other emotions as well.
anyway, here below a most remarkable painting which i consider to fulfill all of the above:
salvador dalí, christ of st. john of the cross (click on the image for an enlargement).
perhaps i will discuss it a little bit in the next post.
