A face that shines, like that of Moses, from communion with
the Highest, is more truly beautiful than the most faultless features
without moral expression. But there is a beauty which does not reveal
emotion, but only thought,--a beauty which consists simply in the form,
and which is admired for its form alone.
Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited
species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only.
This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been
resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others
into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early
pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the
subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation.
Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they
must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the
artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to
need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this
embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the
mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature
of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the
nature of beauty.
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