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January 6, 2008
unity and simplicity
All beauty is enhanced by unity and simplicity, as is everything we say and do: for what is great in itself is enhanced when realized and presented with simplicity. It will not be narrowly constrained or lose any of its greatness if our mind can survey and measure it at a glance, contain and comprehend it in a single concept. Instead, it is just this conceivability that enables us to imagine it in its full greatness, and our spirit is expanded and at the same time elevated by comprehending it.
According to this conception, beauty should be like the purest water drawn from the source of a spring: the less taste it has, the healthier it is seen to be, because it is clear of all the foreign particles. Just as the state of happiness, that is, the absence of pain and the enjoyment of contentment, is the easiest one in nature, and the path to it is the straightest and can be maintained without trouble or cost, so also the idea of the highest beauty seems the simplest and the easiest, and it requires no philosophical knowledge of man, no investigation of the passions of the soul and their expression. Yet as human nature has no state midway between pain and pleasure, to cite Epicurus, and as the passions are the winds propelling our ship on the sea of life, by which the poet sets sail and the artist elevates himself, so pure beauty alone cannot be the only object of our consideration; we must also put it in a state of action and passion, which in art we understand by the word expression.
Winckelmann
Posted by amin at January 6, 2008 12:18 AM