The Pinnacle of Beauty

Pacific_Victory said:

Sculpture: The Pieta, Michelangelo

IMO, this is perfection in sculpture. The accepting but heartbroken facial expression of Mary, the unbelievably intricate folds of cloth, and the beautiful contours of the body which make it look as if these are real people frozen in marble.

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“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." - Carl Sagan

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The Alchemist said:

Beauty is not something transient, it is eternal. A woman or a man might be beautiful for sometime before they get old.

So, you need to find something eternal and yet beautiful... I can't think of anything as such.

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“For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves…. I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.”

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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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Gile na Gile said:

Stunning selections, All too Human.

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Pacific_Victory said:

This thread is a place where you can show us what you consider to be the highest artistic achievement in a number of fields. In other words, for you, what is the pinnacle of beauty?

For me:

Painting: ".... with a Pearl Earring", Johannes Vermeer

I've spent so much time starring at this incredible work, that I feel as if I have a personal relationship with the sitter. Something in the eyes and the lips, she seems human rather than just a picture of a human.

. . . .

So if you had to pick one from each category, which would it be?

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Ighayere said:

This stool is from the Duala of Cameroon, from the end of the 19th century:

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All too human said:

Cheers.

I keep staring at that Joseph Wright painting you posted. You can look at it endlessly. I wasn't familiar at all with this bloke's work but I'm an immediate fan. Sort of like an English Caravaggio.

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