When our heart and our eyes align the beauty of  the  world reveals itself.    

Aesthetics is said to be about the study of beauty. It is concerned with the nature of art and the interpretation of art works in terms of judging their value.  An artist named Barnet Newman who was part of the Abstract Expressionist movement  once said  “aesthetics is to artists as ornithology is to birds.” 

However, beauty has been important to artists since Greco Roman times when Plato believed that contemplative focus on beauty would cause “the soul to have wings.” Beauty has the power to move our emotions. Suddenly, we are in awe and transformed, uplifted, and taken away from our ordinary lives and put in places that are enriching and more inspiring than what we usually know.  Call it an enchanted sense of harmony and a heightened awareness of wonder. 

When we come under the spell of beauty we are propelled into a timeless place, and the experience feels as if everything we need has been provided.  You could say it is a spontaneous attraction.  Everyone has stood before a sunset and fallen in love with it’s captivating beauty.  Or been in a location that emanates a sense of being in a scared place that inspires us because of it’s natural beauty.  This uplifting sense comes to creative people as a mysterious muse. 

Creative souls often yearn for beauty in their lives. It can be a sustaining part of artists lives and is somehow recognized when it reveals itself. For me, beauty has me marveling at how my heart’s been affected and I am stopped in my tracks by beauty in all it’s many forms. There is no greater source than nature. Beauty provokes the senses which is not always pretty. Some may ask the question_ “Do we need beauty in our lives?” My answer is that beauty matters in order to feel fully alive.  Without beauty our time on the beautiful earth would be quite ordinary and uninspired. Let us give thanks for this precious earth for providing such as abundance of beauty.