Beauty is not caused,
It is.
Chase it and it ceases.
Chase it not and it abides.
Overtake the creases
In the meadow when
The Wind
Runs his fingers thro’ it?
Deity will see to it
That you never do it. *
The search for truth is always at the heart of a poet’s spirit
Talking about beauty is complex.
I recently read a book by Alan Moore, in which he talks about beauty as the key to everything we do. I agree with this idea, and in my whole artistic life I try to follow an ideal of beauty. Utopian, probably, certainly personal and subjective. Close, but unattainable.
It makes me smile when people talk about objective beauty. Attributing the adjective “objective” to an entity is a natural contradiction. As Nietzsche suggests, there are no facts, only interpretations.
So pursuing beauty, as Emily Dickinson sings in the poem you read earlier, can be dangerous.
In our artistic practice, letting it manifest itself seems to be the best way forward. In this sense, it was enlightening for me to read Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, a German philosopher who moved to Japan during his lifetime and learned the art of archery.
Art, ritual, a real struggle with one’s own being, one’s own breath, one’s own slightest movements.
There are many similarities with musical performance. The arrow must leave the bow as naturally as possible and the shot must almost happen by itself, without any apparent will on the part of the archer, a bit like when we play. It is tremendously easier to perform without thinking, in total abandonment. Obviously, this is very difficult to do, especially for the most passionate, sensitive and intelligent people.
Zen practices and the ritual of archery make me reflect above all on the unconscious mechanisms that come into play when performing music and thus restoring the intrinsic beauty of the great masterpieces we perform.
Perhaps beauty should not really be pursued?
I return to my previous point, talking about Moore’s book.
He talks mainly about beauty linked to design, and one of the short chapters in the book is entitled “The search for truth is always at the heart of a poet’s spirit”. For me, in the end, it all boils down to this. When a person does not seek the truth, their own personal truth, with conviction and strength, it is very difficult for them to achieve beauty.
Being able to express something that others cannot see and make it understandable to the public, to listeners, to readers, to art lovers is one of the essential prerogatives in the journey of life, which for me coincides with art.
It would be easy to seek the truth by being honest.
A mirage?
A fantasy?
A dream, perhaps?
Short excerpt from the programme of the Classiche Armonie 2024 festival
*From The Further Poems of Emily Dickinson (Little, Brown, and Company, 1929), edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leete Hampson. This poem is in the public domain.
umberto beccaria 