People inhabiting different parts of the globe differ substantially from one another in respect of language, food habits, dress code and social manners. However, they show remarkable similarity in their love for beauty, both of nature and of human form.
Right from the times when man lived in the caves, he had developed an eye for the beauty of shapes and forms. The earliest extant cave-paintings depicting animals and trees are a standing tribute to caveman’s love for beauty. History of civilization is not only the history of scientific discoveries and inventions which progressively reduced man’s drudgery and enhanced his comforts, it is also the history of development of his aesthetic sense which gave to mankind the Tajmahal in architecture, ‘Mona Lisa’ in painting, Bethoven’s Symphonies in music and numerous sweet songs and lilting lyrics in all languages of all people spread over the length and the breadth of the world. Artistic creations are man’s attempts to eternalise the joy evoked by sights and sounds of beautiful things.
There are moments of life which we cherish. Confrontation with a beautiful thing may be of a short duration but its memory lasts for a long time. A rose seen for ten minutes gives instantaneous delight for ten minutes but if that scene is remembered twenty times, the joy becomes twenty fold. It requires gift of imagination to revive and relive the happy moments spent in the company of beautiful things.
Beautiful things evoke different responses from different types of personalities. A man of acquisitive instincts would like to possess beautiful things. Man’s fascination for gems and stones and precious metal demonstrates his irrepressible desire for acquiring things of lasting beauty.
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Resourceful men perpetuate their happiness by winning over beautiful women with gifts of gems and gold. Diamonds are said to provide a sure access to the heart of a charming woman. The adage ‘Diamonds are for ever’ signify the eternal charm these beautiful stones exercise on the fair sex.
An aesthete abandons himself to the disinterested contemplation of the beautiful object. Beauty induces a sense of self forgetfulness in such a sensitive person as has been aptly brought out by John Keats in his inimitable “Ode on a Grecial Urn”.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! With brede of marble men and maidens overwrought, with forest branches and the trodden weed Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought as doe’s eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Nature provides an unending feast of beautiful objects to the onlooker. The sun¬rise, the sunset, the full moon, the rainbow, the cyclical alteration of seasons – all these aspects of nature delight the senses and inspire a host of painters and poets to celebrate beautiful phenomena of nature. The contagion of joy spreads from the artist to the readers and onlookers unobstructed by time and space. Things of beauty cap¬tured and enshrined in art truly become joy for ever.
Beautiful sights and sounds of nature not only provide immediate pleasure to man, they leave indelible impression on his mind. Recollection of these impressions becomes a constant source of joy.
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English romantic poet, Wordsworth, used to travel extensively in the beautiful Lake Districts of England. The rivers, the forests, the moun¬tain peaks, the rainbow and the flowers he saw during his travels became the central figures in his poems. The dancing and swaying daffodils seen by Wordsworth during his travels left an indelible impression on his memory as is evident from the following lines of his poem:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash across thy inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude?
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils
Beautiful aspects of nature have a remarkable power of curing man of pessimism and uplifting his spirits.
That is the reason people take a break from the soul killing environment of big cities and flock to hill stations. The sight of lakes, trees and moun¬tain peaks refreshes the mind and reinvigorates the body for performing one’s life- tasks more efficiently than before.
Life is full of misery. Ups and downs of life dishearten not only the poor and the weak but also the rich and the strong. All the riches and luxuries of life fail to console the suffering humanity.
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Only the selfless contemplation of beauty of nature provides solace as an imaginative individual identifies him with a beautiful object and forgets his petty self and petty problems. John Keats has referred to the healing power of beautiful objects of nature in the opening stanza of his long poem “Endymion” in the following words:
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness: but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health and quiet breathing.
Yes inspite of all Some shape of beauty moves away the pall from our dark spirits”.
True beauty takes man away from the transient reality and links him with eter¬nity. A beautiful thing shares its essence with the essence of Cod which is eternal and everlasting.
The beauty of a natural scene or a face fascinates a person so much that he forgets himself and merges with it completely. He loses himself in the object. The duality of the watcher and the watched is abolished.
The onlooker experiences oneness with the supreme and is in a state of Bliss. Beauty of a thing is perhaps an aspect of the divine in a thing or person. That is why it compels attention and exercises fascination.
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If is the pursuit of beauty which motivates millions of tourists from all over the world to visit the Taj Mahal in India, the Pyramids of Egypt, the hanging Gardens of Bobylon. The tourists willingly part with their hard-earned money to see Mona Lisa of Leonardo the vinci in Louver in Paris or the Statue of Liberty in New York.
In short, they want to see the beauty and wonder of the world in whichever corner of the globe they may find these. It is a pleasant experience of find people of different nations united in their admiration for beautiful sights of the world. Beauty brings people of diverse nations together and creates a bond between them. Great art and architecture of the world is a testimony to the universal love of beauty among human beings.