“…WHAT IS BEAUTY AND WHY DO PEOPLE DEED IT?”

(According to the works of Russian literature)

Does humanity have a single true religion, which moves every particle of the universe? A force capable of rising above time and decay, inspiring a musician's bow, an artist's brush, a poet's lyre?

Yes, there is ... and will be forever. No one, nothing can resist her mysteriously magnificent attraction. She alone has been given power over the most beautiful feelings of human souls. This power is beauty.

Excites, excites the imagination of the labyrinth of the right

And torn lines, a gamut of sounds, a palette of colors... Everything that the universe consists of is seen by everyone through the prism of his inner world, refracted uniquely, like a sunbeam in a complexly cut crystal; but it is human nature to strive for beauty, for what seems perfect to him, for beauty that can be seen, heard, felt. Let there be infinitely many people on earth, let each of them understand beauty in his own way, - all of them, without exception, are united by one thing: the infinite, unlimited power of the beautiful, the deity of generations.

In search of perfection, a person spends his whole life.

How many great ones admired the wisdom of nature, the beauty of the surrounding space, the timeless harmony! Why did Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky paint their landscapes so carefully? Because they knew the connection between nature and the human inner world! In each of them, nature is involved in the action, in the plot, and is inseparable from the mood of the character. Boyishly, Arkady rejoices at the spring clear sky, driving with his father through the estate; with his arms outstretched, the mortally wounded Andrei Bolkonsky lies under the sky of Austerlitz overturned into eternity; Rodion Raskolnikov is suffocating under the oppressive, stuffy, yellow, dusty sky of St. Petersburg ... The human subconscious is drawn to the beautiful - to the May, clean, clear, to the fact that the hero himself will be cleaner, drive away doubts, calm, envelop with warmth and spring bliss ... People in love into beauty, looking for salvation from their sorrows, dissolving with a glance in the infinity of the horizon, thinking about the enduring natural harmony - nature is beautiful, because everything in it is eternal and natural. Tyutchev said this in his poem:

All your children in turn

Performing their feat useless,

She still greets her

An all-consuming and peaceful abyss.

It is precisely according to its own laws, according to special rules, that nature, beautiful and free, lives ... Its irregular lines, not geometrically verified, but calculated and predetermined from time immemorial, are true already because they are natural. The triumph of this naturalness over the mind and strength of man is the idea of ​​Zamyatin’s novel “We”… The Green Wall, buildings made of glass and concrete, the ideal geometric correctness of structures, life calculated and painted by the minute, the same slender ranks of “numbers” harmoniously marching along a linearly straight avenue, - all this violence against nature is ugly! Ugly - subject to all the laws of geometry and impeccably correct form! It seems that everything is correct, verified, checked, calculated, people are happy, but something still breaks the harmony ... Beauty is not necessarily and not only perfection. Beauty is something that touches the soul. What is missing in the kingdom of the Benefactor, and if it appears suddenly, due to an oversight, is it immediately amputated, cut out like a cancerous tumor? Soul!

So, beauty, in no way spiritualized and soulless, repels? And the unspiritual correctness of perfect forms bows before an inexplicable, illogical, free life? Beauty must have a fantasy, it must have a soul, there must be a lot more so that millions of people prostrate themselves in front of all this beauty ... Probably, beauty is the most relative of all concepts.

The magnificent Helen Kuragina, the heroine of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", appears in high society - and all those present are breathtaking with admiration! Is her face pretty? Incomparably! She really beautiful woman, everyone admits it. But then why is Natasha Rostova more successful at the ball? Natasha Rostova, yesterday's "ugly duckling", with the wrong mouth and prune eyes? Tolstoy explains why Natasha is one of his favorite heroines: in Natasha there is no beauty of features, no perfection of forms, as in Helen, but she is endowed with an abundance of other beauty - spiritual. Her liveliness, intelligence, grace, charm, infectious laughter captivate Prince Andrei, Pierre ... Again, the triumph of spiritual beauty! Natasha, natural, direct, it is impossible not to fall in love ... and people are drawn to her, because she is the embodiment of that true beauty that captivates, attracts, awakens feelings. Her beauty is charm, charm, sincerity. Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov ... You can’t call them handsome. But each of them is beautiful in its naturalness, inner freedom, simplicity, openness. Clumsy Pierre evokes sympathy, likes it; the short Prince Andrei seems to be an irresistible, brilliant officer ... they are such thanks to their spiritual beauty. For Tolstoy, the inside is more important than the outside! And his favorite characters attract the reader with their qualities, virtues of spirit, and not appearance.

Napoleon in "War and Peace" is shown as a short little man, completely ordinary, nothing outstanding in appearance. Kutuzov - overweight, heavy, decrepit ... but he is beautiful in his patriotic impulse - and repels Napoleon, devoured by ambition, hungry for unlimited power and sole domination, ready to shed oceans of blood for this and destroy the world with war.

Beauty is determined by the soul. Inner entity. And how touchingly Natasha Rostova is described in the finale of the novel, despite the fact that she “gave weight”, “became ugly” ... The beauty of her soul is timeless, like any true beauty. And external beauty time kills ...

Of course, spiritual beauty is higher than external. But on the other hand, wasn't the creation of geniuses created for the glory of external beauty, for the sake of beautiful faces? People deify the beauty of their loved ones - those who, thanks to whom their soul came to life, who inspire them with their glance, word, gesture, mere presence, fill their life with meaning.

The brightest, spiritualizing, creative feeling on earth is love… but what is love? Admiration for beauty, admiration for the beauty of the body and soul. We love those whose spiritual and physical beauty we consider the standard. Intelligence? And that is the beauty of the mind. People who deify love cannot remain indifferent to beauty, because love is a hymn to it!

Alexander Blok. “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” ... Beautiful! - here it is, admiration ... A divinely inaccessible image, tremblingly kept, seeming infallible, sacred. For the sake of one smile of the Beautiful Lady, the knight will give his life without hesitation, drawing her initials on the shield with blood ... the poet will weave a wreath of words, immortal, shining like a halo, to put at the foot of her throne ... why? None of them are able to understand it intellectually.

Was in the shield Your face miraculous

Shine forever...

Mayakovsky, in contrast to Blok, sang. not the classical beauty of the Beautiful Lady - gypsies and actresses, not the languid Stranger, not Izora - no, his ideal of female beauty was different ... The times of “geniuses of pure beauty” are gone! - Mayakovsky proclaimed, asserting a new ideal, idolized by him:

I sing you

made up,

The brightness of colors, sharpness, courage, liveliness of the image ... In a nutshell - so much! He also “crowned” and “burned out the blossoming soul with love,” but in a different way. He glorified the beauty that brings him bursts of despair, jealousy, rage, insomnia ...

A crown has been prepared for you for centuries, and in the crown my words are a rainbow of convulsions.

Ragged rhythms, uneven lines, the highest tension of the nerves. And pain, and bitterness, and a jump of nerves around the room, as in “A Cloud in Pants”, - this is the fault of the beauty of his beloved ... She, who seemed to him a celestial, she, whom he loved, cursing, is dedicated to his best works, which enriched art, history , humanity! Beauty inspires even more beautiful and eternal – even when it hurts. Sergei Yesenin in “Persian Motifs” made the world admire: he was transported by imagination into an exotic, almost fairyland, to Persia ... The mysterious, mystical beauty of the East intoxicates, the aromas of saffron turn your head, the rustle of soft carpets under your feet. Women in Persia are beautiful, flexible and tender... and a look from under the veil silently promises something...

Month yellow spell

It pours over the chestnuts to lie down ...

Lale leaning on the shalwars,

I will hide under the veil ...

But "Ryazan expanses" Shirad Yesenina will not replace! And Shagane's love will not drown out the memories of the northern cold beauty of the girl left in Russia. Of the two beautiful worlds, Yesenin chooses “his dear land” - the beauty of the Motherland. The land of his ancestors is so dear to him, who knows how to see more beauty in it than in any other corner of the world ... Like Blok, Yesenin loves Russia, identifying it with a beauty in a patterned scarf ... But not even one native land - the whole world, everything beautiful in it praise Yesenin!

How beautiful

Earth and man on it!

Beauty for Yesenin is peace and harmony, nature and love for the Motherland, tenderness for the beloved. Beauty is everything that gives happiness ...

Beauty will always be. People will never be able to overcome the feeling of beauty in themselves. The world will change endlessly, but what pleases the eye and excites the soul will remain. People will, fading with delight, listen to eternal music born of inspiration, read poetry, admire the paintings of artists ... And love, worship, get carried away, be attracted like iron to a magnet, dreaming of someone near and far, unique, unpredictable, mysterious and beautiful.

Tender than tender

Your face.

Whiter than white

Your hand

From the whole world

You are far away

And all yours

From the inevitable.

From the inevitable

Your sadness

And fingers

never cooling down,

And a quiet sound

Resilient

And the distance of your eyes.

(O. Mandelstam)

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We live in a world woven from different feelings, states that help us perceive this very world in one way or another. Beauty is an extraterrestrial category. It's hard to say what beauty is. ? Because beauty is the achievement of the ideal state of the universe, the feeling that you are part of this divinely created world.
Nikolai Zabolotsky's poems about an ugly girl make you think about, huh? What is beauty? ? Beauty is a relative concept and, like all relative concepts, deserves consideration from different points of view.
Why do people deify beauty? Because beauty will save the world, beauty ennobles, even a simple contemplation of the beautiful gives positive perception peace, fills a person with harmony. Does this mean that beauty is harmony? Harmony is the highest point of being, maybe this is the answer to the question, why do people idolize beauty. External beauty attracts the eye and receives close attention, sometimes becoming a cause of envy. General beauty criteria can be distinguished when talking about the beauty that can be observed. They are depth, a good combination, symmetry ... To the question, why do people idolize beauty, you can answer by speculating on the topic of spiritual beauty, such a state of beauty, when inside it "shines". Like Zabolotsky: "fire flickering in a vessel." It is this kind of beauty that cannot be described in words, it can be expressed by works of art - poems, paintings, music... Beauty inspires and creates wings. Here why do people idolize beauty- it gives them the ability to fly, to be better, cleaner.
Are there criteria for beauty? It is difficult to attribute to signs that which cannot be seen, only felt. Why do people deify beauty- because the state of mere closeness to beauty gives sensations. Beauty can evoke the most varied feelings. And laughter, and sadness, and jealousy, and envy, and love, and worship. Beauty criteria exist- these are generally accepted stereotypes regarding the image, action and impact on a person. Something that appeals to his personality, inner qualities. But stereotypes are mundane concepts of beauty, the general criteria of beauty are precisely the accepted ideas about what is beautiful. The true essence of beauty cannot be described by criteria, because the divine comes from the soul and from the heart.
We have tried to answer the question why do people idolize beauty and Are there criteria for beauty? from different points of view and hope to be heard.

I read this note and ... did not agree with the conclusions of the statistics. Born in the Soviet Union, I always knew that beauty, especially female beauty, is not limited to the beauty of the body.

UGLY GIRL
N. Zabolotsky

Among other children playing
She resembles a frog.
A thin shirt is tucked into shorts,
Rings of reddish curls
Scattered, the mouth is long, the teeth are crooked,
Facial features are sharp and ugly.
Two little boys, her peers,
Fathers bought a bicycle.
Today the boys, not in a hurry for dinner,
They drive around the yard, forgetting about her,
She runs after them.
Someone else's joy, just like your own,
It torments her and breaks out of the heart,
And the girl rejoices and laughs,
Embraced by the happiness of being.

No shadow of envy, no evil intent
Don't know this creature yet.
Everything in the world is so immeasurably new to her,
Everything that is dead for others is so alive!
And I don't want to think, watching
What will be the day when she, sobbing,
He will see with horror that among her friends
She's just a poor bastard!
I want to believe that the heart is not a toy,
You can hardly break it all of a sudden!
I want to believe that this flame is pure,
that burns deep within,
One will hurt all his pain
And melt the heaviest stone!
And let her features are not good
And she has nothing to seduce the imagination, -
Infant grace of the soul
Already see through in any of its movements.
And if so, what is beauty
And why do people deify it?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,
Or fire flickering in a vessel?

The soul is the main beauty of a person! This is how my parents always taught me, my teachers, my books and films. And indeed, there are many examples when “beauty queens”, whether in Russia or abroad, having married, it would seem for love, then suffer all their lives with their once beloved husbands, or “go hand in hand”, from some husbands to others, the beauty has not yet faded. And vice versa: ugly girls and Cinderellas live surrounded by loving spouses children, and then grandchildren.

I myself have never shunned the physical beauty of a woman (that would have been unnatural), but she was not the main criterion for choosing my life partner.

I will not call her a beauty;
I will not lie with immodest verses,
That the skin smells of languid perfume,
And become like a god.

Her eyes are not stars, so what!
And her face is not a full moon.
And the hair color is not platinum, but flax.
And lips with rose petals are not similar.

Soul she is not an angel in the flesh.
Her character is an explosion, a volcano, Vesuvius.
But her passion without sweet madness
And vulgarities: if you slept - pay!

I'm also far from Apollo,
In bed - what to hide - not Casanova.
And fully endowed with arrogance,
And the genius of the patient's vanity.

And if time turned back
And, counting the prescribed years,
We were told to start over
A joint path through troubles and hardships -

Having lived with me all my life, I'm sure
That the wife's view of her husband has changed -
She wouldn't marry me.
And I probably wouldn't marry her.

However, if you think seriously,
What more could we want from each other?
We appreciate joy more after tears,
A warm shelter - when a blizzard rages.

And so we have been together for many years.
Our path is thorny - sometimes steeper, sometimes easier,
We live as God puts on our souls.
... And there is no happier couple on earth.

* "Her eyes don't look like stars..." (Marshak's translation)

Sometimes we hear that beauty is the only force capable of conquering space and time, inspiring musicians, artists and poets; that no one can resist her mysterious attraction. Following F. Dostoevsky, we say: "Beauty will save the world." So shall we make beauty the universal true religion?

But if we think about it, we come to the conclusion that such a religion is impossible. Just the same for the simple reason that ideas about beauty have changed not only over epochs, but also over countries and continents. When we, amazed by what we see, exclaim: “Beauty!”, We most often mean: “Gorgeous!”. But how would an Australian aborigine, a Chinese, an African or an American Indian react to the same spectacle? How would our own ancestors react? After all, when we turn on a tape cassette with modern youth songs, we hear something like the following from the lips of our grandparents: “Ugh! Some kind of devilry!

And this is the reaction of people with whom we are separated by only one generation - our parents. What then to say about the ideas of beauty that existed in different eras?

For example, at the dawn of civilization, the meaning of beauty consisted in the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. ancient man has not yet turned into a warlike conqueror. He lived a natural life in a natural environment, and in this, I think, he saw beauty.

Was there an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bfemale beauty in those days? If so, then the cult of female beauty consisted in the ability of a woman to correspond to the fertile earth. This is evidenced by the obese forms of ancient women in the rock paintings, and figurines with their image.

Ideas about perfect beauty, which is close even to our time, arise in antiquity. Harmony, proportions, correct lines of male and female silhouettes. But all this is beauty perceived visually. But to me, the beauty embodied in the word seems much more perfect. It cannot leave you indifferent, cannot but amaze thought and imagination. I have in mind the singer Homer, who in his immortal "Iliad" gives, in my opinion, a brilliant description of the feminine beauty of Helen the Beautiful. He does not say how tall Elena was, what her hair, eyes, lips, smile or something else was. Homer, through the lips of the wise elders, says that it was beauty worthy of an exhausting ten-year war.

The ideal of beauty, close to the antique, arises in the Renaissance. At this time, in a man and a woman, they again begin to appreciate the flowering power, which is perceived as the most important prerequisite for creative power. The perfect beauty of the Renaissance implied the categorical elimination of femininity from the male image, and masculinity from the female image. A man was considered handsome if he developed signs that characterized his sexual activity: strength and energy.

Those women who possessed the data necessary to fulfill the role of motherhood had perfect beauty. In contrast to the Middle Ages, which preferred a woman with narrow hips and a slender waist, a woman began to appreciate wide hips, a strong waist, thick buttocks and magnificent breasts.

But then the age of Enlightenment came, and with it new ideas about beauty arose. Strength and power began to be perceived as aesthetically ugly, because physical labor became a disgrace. The ideal of beauty becomes a pampered, idle person. Admiration is caused by women with painful pallor, small legs, narrow brushes, and a slender, thin figure. material from the site

The next change of epochs made a change in the ideas about beauty. The bourgeois age has come, which proclaimed as the ideal of beauty a clear, energetic look, a direct, tense posture, gestures and expressions filled with willpower, hands capable of not only grasping, but also holding what is captured, legs that step energetically and stand firmly in the position taken. These qualities were equally valued in both men and women.

However, the bourgeois age brought spiritual beauty to the ideal of beauty.

Reflecting on the beauty of the human soul, the Russian poet N. Zabolotsky wrote:

… what is beauty And why do people deify it? Is she a vessel in which there is emptiness, Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

A look at ideas of beauty through the ages leads to the conclusion that beauty is a relative concept. Every person spends his whole life in search of perfection. And in this search, he is drawn to the beautiful, because only "beauty has the power and gift to bring peace into the heart" (M. Cervantes).

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"Ugly girl" Nikolai Zabolotsky

Among other children playing
She resembles a frog.
A thin shirt is tucked into shorts,
Rings of reddish curls
Scattered, the mouth is long, the teeth are crooked,
Facial features are sharp and ugly.
Two little boys, her peers,
Fathers bought a bicycle.
Today the boys, not in a hurry for dinner,
They drive around the yard, forgetting about her,
She runs after them.
Someone else's joy, just like your own,
It torments her and breaks out of the heart,
And the girl rejoices and laughs,
Embraced by the happiness of being.

No shadow of envy, no evil intent
Don't know this creature yet.
Everything in the world is so immeasurably new to her,
Everything that is dead for others is so alive!
And I don't want to think, watching
What will be the day when she, sobbing,
He will see with horror that among her friends
She's just a poor bastard!
I want to believe that the heart is not a toy,
You can hardly break it all of a sudden!
I want to believe that this flame is pure,
that burns deep within,
One will hurt all his pain
And melt the heaviest stone!
And let her features are not good
And she has nothing to seduce the imagination, -
Infant grace of the soul
Already see through in any of its movements.
And if so, what is beauty
And why do people deify it?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,
Or fire flickering in a vessel?

Analysis of Zabolotsky's poem "Ugly Girl"

The question of what constitutes human beauty is quite philosophical. For some, appearance is of paramount importance, while others, on the contrary, appreciate the spiritual qualities and actions of people. However, our world is arranged in such a way that it is much more difficult for people with unattractive facial features and an awkward figure than for handsome people to prove to themselves and others that they really deserve love and respect. It is this aspect of human relationships that Nikolai Zabolotsky's poem "The Ugly Girl", written in 1948, is devoted to. At the heart of this work is a scene seen by the author from ordinary life, the main character of which is an ordinary Moscow girl. Nature did not endow her with the beauty that children at her age can boast of, and among her peers "she resembles a frog."

Describing the appearance of this girl, the author does not use hyperbole, but tries to convey what he saw as accurately and truthfully as possible. And he managed to notice quite a lot - and the fact that the young lady has a “long mouth”, and “crooked teeth”, her red curls are scattered in disorder over her shoulders, her “facial features are sharp and ugly”, and the stranger is dressed in a “thin shirt ". However, this is not at all what attracts the author in the girl. Local boys, who were given bicycles by their parents, immediately forget about their girlfriend and selflessly “drive around the yard”. It would seem that in such a situation, any girl should be offended, hiding her envy behind this feeling. But the heroine of the poem by Nikolai Zablotsky is completely different. She runs after her friends on the heels, and "someone else's joy, just like her own, torments her and breaks out of her heart." The feelings and emotions of this little "frog" are so pure and sincere that they arouse the author's undisguised surprise and curiosity. He realizes that this child is not yet aware of such concepts as hatred, envy, anger and disappointment. She perceives the happiness of her friends through the world of inner sensations, pure and surprisingly harmonious. In her soul "everything that is dead in others is so alive" that in the eyes of the poet this ugly and clumsy girl turns into perfection itself.

However, Nikolai Zabolotsky understands that very soon the illusory and childishly naive world in which this ugly girl lives will be destroyed by the cruelty of people. Moreover, it is precisely those whom she voluntarily lets into her heart, considering herself close, reliable and devoted friends. The author notes with regret that he would not like it if one day the heroine of his poem suddenly realized that "among her friends she is just a poor ugly girl." The poet wants to believe that in the human world the heart is not a toy that can be ruthlessly broken.. But even if this happens, the author really hopes that the “pure flame” that burns in the soul of this ugly girl, “one will hurt all his pain and melt the heaviest stone.”

Nikolai Zabolotsky is aware that it will be very difficult for his heroine to become happy in this cruel and uncompromising world. However, he sees that "the infantile grace of the soul is already visible in its movement." And if so, then for sure there will be people in her environment who can appreciate these qualities. At the end of the poem, the author again asks the question, what is human beauty, and what is more important - a vessel in which there is emptiness” or “fire flickering in a vessel”? The poet offers to find the answer to it independently for each person and decide what is more important for him - external attractiveness or spiritual purity, which can make this world a little brighter, brighter and happier.