Emily Tucker- Beauty

     In Dr. Redick's lecture on the statue of St. Teresa of Avila, he brought up the idea of beauty. We all desire and follow after things we find beautiful. In relation to aesthetic experiences discussed in "Following the Uncharted Way", this desire for beauty draws us towards "the good". However, beauty is not necessarily objective. Different cultures, time periods, and people all have different standards of beauty. Nevertheless, beauty is related to our senses. It is an exterior desire, which incentivizes us to move towards the interior. For example, the beauty of the statue, draws one in to look deeper into the meaning of the art piece. The statue is an artifact created to portray St. Teresa's experience of deep feelings that are felt within the depths of her body, the "bowels of compassion". 

    Dr. Redick described these "bowels of compassion" as the feeling of "suffering with someone". You feel the feelings so deep that your body physically aches. St. Teresa explains how it's a feeling you can only relate to if you've gone through the experience yourself. You can't have the same experience by observing. However, if you have had these experiences, seeing the statue makes you yearn to become a part of the beauty created. 

    C.S. Lewis states, “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

    For me, I experience this when I go to a theatre and watch a ballet performance. Having trained in classical ballet for nearly my whole life, I 've experienced the joys and pain that comes from dancing. Every time I watch ballet, there is a calling within that my body yearns to be a part of it. My body desires to be a part of the beauty created through ballet. Sometimes it isn't enough to simply watch the beauty being created.

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