Six Names of Beauty

by Crispin Sartwell

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it's also in the language we use and everywhere in the world around us. In this elegant, witty, and ultimately profound meditation on what is beautiful, Crispin Sartwell begins with six words from six different cultures - ancient Greek's 'to kalon', the Japanese idea of 'wabi-sabi', Hebrew's 'yapha', the Navajo concept 'hozho', Sanskrit 'sundara', and our own English-language 'beauty'.



Each word becomes a door onto another way of thinking about, and looking at, what is beautiful in the world, and in our lives. In Sartwell's hands these six names of beauty - and there could be thousands more - are revealed as simple and profound ideas about our world and our selves.

Genres: Art, Philosophy, Nonfiction

171 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Crispin Sartwell was born 6.20.58 in DC. His Dad (and his and his) were DC newspapermen. His Mom and Step-pa were high school teachers and later organic farmers. He got kicked out of the public school system in tenth grade for fomenting revolution, and attended the New Education Project, aka Bonzo Ragamuffin Prep, then U Maryland, Johns Hopkins, UVA. He worked as a copy boy in 1980-81 at the Washington Star, where he started writing about pop music. He was a freelance rock critic through the eighties for, among others the Balt City Paper, Record Mag, High Fidelity, and Melody Maker.

He lives in Glen Rock, PA with his wife, the writer Marion Winik, and their five children. He's Visiting Associate Prof of Political Science at Dickinson College. He writes a weekly op-ed column, distributed by Creators Syndicate. He has also appeared in Harper's, the Washington Post, and on Weekend All Things Considered.

He is the author and editor of a number of books, and he's taught philosophy and communications at Vanderbilt, the Unversity of Alabama, and Penn State Harrisburg.

Reviews

[Kenny Kidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat-o!

I unfortunately had to cease my audit of Philosophy of Art and Beauty as a result of having an obscenely busy semester, but I’m still gonna read the books that are on the syllabus as they are, como se dice, rad.

This was a lovely little read! Sartwell gives the definition of beauty from six very disparate cultures/ideologies, exploring what they mean/what aspects of the nebulous, abstract concept are emphasized by each cultural definition (often with very loose, tangentially related examples to the definition written in what could be prose poetry).

The definition I related to the most instinctively was his English definition of Beauty as “The Object of Longing,” which I do think is the most comprehensive/inclusive definition of the concept in the book and what I relate to most experientially; the Japanese “Wabi-Sabi,” meaning “Humility or Imperfection,” and the Navajo “Hozho,” meaning “Wholeness or Harmony,” had the most beautiful reflections and emphasized my favorite aspects of ~beauty~ though. So yeah! Good read, do recommend for anyone those interested in pretentious reflections on Bueue Tee.

Also a Google search revealed to me that this author is also an anarchist? So I almost raised the rating to five stars out of solidarity with my dude Crispin 😤😎

[Troy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is another fun and anecdote heavy travelogue that zips through art history and aesthetics. If you want to read a fun jaunt through world wide conceptions of beauty, then this is the book for you. (Also check out The Accidental Masterpiece.)

But that isn't what I expected or wanted. The book advertised itself as a rigorous comparison of worldwide conceptions of beauty, specifically the beauty described by six words: English "beauty," Greek "kalon," Japanese "wabi-sabi," Hebrew "yapha," Navajo "hozho," and Sanskrit "sundara."

Sounds great, right?

But it isn't. Again, it's a travelogue throughout the author's various aesthetic experience. The author has a fondness for purity and simplicity, which is ok, except he applies that throughout the book, which makes me question his sincerity in translating and interpreting the various foreign words. Also, his take on the definition of "beauty" is retrograde and Puritan, and that made me question his intellectual sincerity.

But it's a fun read. Just don't expect a serious discussion of aesthetics. Expect an art travelogue and you'll have a good time.

___________________________________________________________________________

Don't read past here. These are notes I was taking as I was reading the book, and I doubt they're interesting to anyone except for me.

So far the book is off to a bad start. Sartwell defines beauty as "the object of longing." But that's obviously not true. Longing implies, as he says, desire, and it's not desire or longing I feel when I say a sunset is beautiful, or (typically) a song, or even a woman (which he says Western beauty is often about - and I agree).

I can look or listen or read or experience beauty without longing and without desire (as it is typically defined). Beauty can be an end in and of itself. Beauty can be the pleasurable thing without an object beyond itself, and without longing and without desire. There are plenty of times when the beautiful thing left me feeling content or happy or 'whole' or awed, but not full of longing or desire, so his definition is a little too narrow for the common definition of 'beauty.'
_______________

I couldn't disagree with this guy more.

He brings up the hoary separation of sublime from beauty, casting the stereotypical claim that beauty is light and frivolous and is only connected with (weak and obsolete) pleasures. He brings up mountains and storms and volcanoes as things that can't be beautiful, just as any art since 1895 can't be beautiful. See, a Picasso, a Pollack, a Warhol isn't beautiful - it's sublime.

Bullshit. I can and do say that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is beautiful. Same with Guernica. Same with songs from Naked City, Boredoms, The Slits, Xenaxis, Legeti, and Jazz Composers Orchestra.

He also talks about "souls" being beautiful, to which I say, bullshit. Jesus is his example, and yes, the character of Jesus is fascinating but beautiful? Few people I know would say that. Few people would call characters beautiful. A created character is rarely called beautiful, even though it should probably be so. Now Jesus' words are a different story. They are wildly beautiful, as are the ideas behind them. But all of that is different from a "soul." When people say someone has a beautiful soul, they usually mean that they do amazing things, which is a far cry from saying that something in the world is beautiful. That is, actions can be beautiful, but usually actions are beautiful because of their astounding nature. Even so, a sports play can be beautiful, but usually because it takes the breath away - it seems impossible - it exceeds the boundaries of what is done and what can be done. But giving money to a poor child is NOT beautiful, nor is giving to philanthropy. In fact, I think most of the time the reference of a beautiful soul is often a separate use of the word beauty that is analogous to "nice" or "moral." People who say that are using beauty as a metaphor. They're actually imagining some corporeal soul that, if it could be seen, would be awe-inspiring and astounding and beautiful. But it's a far cry from the typical use of the word, which suggests that someone is obsessed with some thing, regardless of it's a face, a person, a song, a book, a painting, or some athlete's performance.

At one point Sartwell says that the language of pleasure and pain doesn't do justice to the intense experiences people have, from sex to eating spicy food, and there is truth to that, but the word "beauty" has traditionally encompassed those diverse experiences. It is only the philosophical definitions of the word that is laking, not the word itself. Most rarely use the word beauty for a meal or sex; it is reserved for extreme experiences that can not be shaken. It is reserved for INTENSE sex or a meal that you know you will never forget. Simple pleasure is not part of the word in relation to sex and food. The word DOES encompass basic boring pleasure (a flower is beautiful) but it typically encompasses an intensity of emotion that escapes pleasure and almost everything else (that was fucking beautiful! it's all I've been able to think about!).

Basically, I don't think the notion of the sublime is needed. Earlier Romantic paintings were considered sublime, but they are now simply pleasurable. Same with Impressionism. And it's true for Picasso and Pollack. Very few of their painting have the intense impact they had when they were unveiled. The sublime is merely describing a specific aspect of the word "beauty." It's describing the overpowering emotions that form an obsession from the person feeling "beauty" to the thing or event that inspired it.

Beauty, in this sense, implies not longing or desire, but love. That is, an overwhelming feeling that is brought about by engaging with the thing-that-is-beautiful. Beauty is subjective, even though it is in response to something in the world. If that is so, than the "sublime" is not necessary. If that is so, then we can describe punk as beautiful, or horror movies as beautiful, or aggressive avant-jazz as beautiful, and THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE DO. There's no reason to say, "That was sublime!" We can and do say, "That was beautiful!" And everyone understands what is meant when someone says that something ugly and intense was beautiful.
_______________

P.44-5
"Longing as a condition of the universe."
Really?

"The universe longs for itself thought us, in us."
What? Seriously?? So the universe is conscious? Is it kinda like Galactus?

"We could find in a return to... beauty a purification of ourselves as people capable of experiencing such things; it is a very innocent experience, fundamentally decent."
You've got to be kidding. So... wanting to re-experience beauty makes us pure. In the sense that we want to re-experience beauty. Yeaaaah.
_______________

Hope diamond, fireworks

Unfortunately he couples desire with longing, and longing with beauty. Unfortunately, that opening section on his version of the Western conception of beauty carries on throughout the following sections. Unfortunately, his conception of beauty is a hoary ideal that, as I said, couples desire with longing, and longing with beauty. It's an old, and dumb idea; an outdated idea that misses the vast common use of the word beauty; an outdated idea that casts beauty in the realm of the effete; an outdated idea that brings back discredited dualisms, in this case with the rough and hyper-masculine sublime as a ready (and Puritan) replacement for Rocco (and superfluous) beauty.
_______________

Odd... he talks about Protestantism's desire for a "spiritual aesthetic of minimalism." Does he not see that he is very much a part of that aesthetic?

He ends the chapter titled after the Indian/Hindu word for beauty with a long discussion of Shaker art, which is diametrically opposed to most Hindu art. It's a cool comparison. But I wonder if it's true. I know nothing about the last few words, but distrust the author after his depiction of beauty.

All this talk about simplicity and clarity. Yawn.

His true analytical nature comes out with a belief in Platonic Forms. Seriously??

I like the part about light gives rise to ontologies which give rise to ways of living. Awesome.

He sees longing in everything.
_______________

And the end, our conceptions of beauty aren't so different, but he has to limit the Western conception in order to falsely expand it by exposing it to foreign conceptions of beauty. It's not a technique I like. The foreign conceptions of beauty should be interesting on their own, without limiting our own Western conception of beauty.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to just pick up and read in pieces as mini-meditations on beauty in all its innumerable, miraculously simple manifestations. He is striving to restore a depth to beauty and its meanings, in the face of the cliches and superficialities that seem to hold it hostage.

[Christy Bartel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When our light was provided by flame, the sight of jewels must have been truly haunting and lovely, as the play of moment over eternity, of life over perfection.”

Sartwell writes in a perfect mix of anecdote and lyrical nonfiction that borders on poetry. About pretty much every topic. Because it turns out, humanity is varied and beautiful, and it’s beautiful the way that different people perceive beauty. The Greeks thought of beauty as something perfect while the Japanese word examined in the book is the appreciation of imperfect things. Contradiction? I don’t think it has to be. Beauty is everywhere if you just take the time to find it.

Here’s a paragraph about clouds. Have a nice day.

“The sky is both a symbol of the eternal end of the ephemeral, and the cloudscapes that constantly cross our vision would be immensely impressive if they were more enduring, like a mountain ranges. As it is, their constant metamorphoses both constitute and compromise their beauty. They lend the sky its allusiveness. This is a function not only of the fact that clouds consist of whimsical concatenations of water vapor, but of the endlessly varying conditions under which clouds can be illuminated— conditions that they themselves help to create and altar. There are Dutch landscape paintings in which four-fifths of the canvas is landscape: of necessity idealized because no actual cloudscape will sit for a painting.”

[Bessie Prior · Rating 3 out of 5]

history readingggg putting this on here to get my books up 💀 did read most of it feeling educated

[Stefania · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro interessante, che ti spiega come un concetto, in questo caso la bellezza, possa variare in base alla diversità culturale e geografica.
Il concetto di bellezza varia così dalla definizione più occidentale che lo identifica come oggetto del desiderio, a quella orientale, giapponese, dove wabi-sabi connota invece qualcosa di imperfetto.

Molto interessante, una scrittura molto semplice e a tratti colloquiale.
Lo consiglio.

[Mary Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it's also in the language we use and everywhere in the world around us. In this elegant, witty, and ultimately profound meditation on what is beautiful, Crispin Sartwell begins with six words from six different cultures - ancient Greek's "to kalon," the Japanese idea of "wabi-sabi," Hebrew's "yapha," the Navajo concept "hozho," Sanskrit "sundara," and our own English-language "beauty."

Each word becomes a door onto another way of thinking about, and looking at, what is beautiful in the world, and in our lives. The earthy and the exalted, the imperfect and the ideal: things, spaces, high art, sounds, aromas, nothingness. Sartwell writes about handfuls of beautiful things - among them, a Japanese teapot and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel, the pleasure in a well-used hammer and in pop music and in Vermeer's "Girl in a Red Hat."

In Sartwell's hands these six names of beauty -and there could be thousands more-are revealed as simple and profound ideas about our world and our selves.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

In one of the opening passages, Sartwell mentions that his father lived by EB White and Strunk JR's 'Elements of Style.' Sartwell makes good on this, writing concisely on profound abstracts, leaving enough room so that no thesis iz dogmatic.

A quick, insightful read for anybody interested in the history of Aesthetic thought across different cultures. It's no surprise that so many reviews on here mention reading this as part of a class curriculum; Sartwell namedrops often, connecting art movements and their relation to labor, effort and craft, in neat lines across so many eras that I almost started to take notes myself!

[Hecka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find it interesting that two books I've read about the philosophy of aesthetics have bird eggs on the front cover. Is it as simple as that? Fertility, Legacy, Eternity? The only way to defy death. I love two sentiments expressed in this book; the idea that no culture has/can grow without being exposed to other cultures, and the idea that beauty is a temporal awareness, awe, fear, and respect of DEATH. THUG LYFE BAYBEE!

[Paolo Zagheni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un testo che non affronta il suo tema di petto, ma che ci gira in torno, alle volte dando per scontato il proprio tema. Ciononostante, per la sua strenua difesa dell'idea che l'idea di bellezza appartenga intrinsecamente al mondo e all'essere umano getta una luce di piacere in un mondo in cui anche un concetto basilare come questo sembra una conquista da dover difendere.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Analog aesthetics for a digital absurd world

[Melina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will brb for this, lol.

(I read this for my Philosophy: Aesthetics of Art and Beauty class...!)

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truely beautiful experience as part of one's search for beauty at every turn. Afterall, you want your heart to skip a beat...

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

turning the mind around to see beauty in different ways--like entering a new culture and finding cold is hot

[Iftekhar Mallick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it during my Undergraduate Psychology classes. It gave me some good insights to prepare my course project paper, "What is Beauty: I’ll Eat You Orange Lips".

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philosophical musings on aesthetics and the meaning of beauty.