James ... you really do your homework. And .. to be honest, I have always believed peace is a state of mind. Everything that surrounds you may be in total chaos
but yet beauty and peace can be found. Not going to lie and say that I am always successful at this, but
that does not mean it does not exist... I just cant see it in the fire
What a wonderful essay. So many profound instances where beauty does indeed save the world. Solzhenitsyn connected it to Truth -- not ordinary, changeable truths, but eternal ones, truth for all people, all times. In that same address, he repeated a Russian proverb -- 'One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World.' Perhaps we cannot by ourselves stop madmen from mass murder, or bring wisdom to those who seek to be fooled, but we can refuse to participate in lies.
Nihilism, dictatorship, demagoguery -- all need the lie to thrive. They cannot live without lies and work assiduously to force people to comply with their lies. Maybe we lack the artistic skills and faith to paint a Sistine Chapel, but we can -- each of us -- refuse to lie for them, refuse to engage in lies to make their job easier, refuse to cooperate with them as they seek to re-write history.
Not through me. Not with my consent. See you all at No Kings Day, March 28.
I make a clear distinction between beauty and art. Beauty exists whether we experience it or not.
Beauty doesn’t work for us.
Art, on the other hand exists more than ever when cruelty and injustice prevails. It’s the balance that keeps us sane. Hind Rajab was beautiful, and would have continued to be beautiful, in anonymity, had she not been murdered. The film about her death, “The Voice Of Hind Rajab”, would not have existed had that voice not cried out to the world, calling attention to her story.
I’m writing about women artists who may be known in certain circles but not widely know. And, they all created art while their worlds burned around them. And, when you consider how often the world is at war … The great Renaissance’s and artist periods are born of it. I’m looking forward to the next Renaissance! It’s probably already started!
A very encouraging essay, thank you so much ! There is a copy of Guernica in my house, thanks to you I will look at the print with even more compassion. There is one version of Guernica in the UN Security Council meeting room, the Bush administration had it covered went they went for the Iraq war. They feared the power of art and beauty.
War will never be able to stop the beauty that exists in world,It may even destroy and annihilate whit infernal devices,but as long as there men who have made art an integral part of they lives, beautifull things whit be kept alive. And will flourish again,so that they may console the hearts of others people,whit theyr beauty,lifting their spirits and giving them confidence in tomorrow.
It’s curious to me that we have a word for dismantling—entropy—but no common word for what gathers things into coherence.
Perhaps it isn’t reality that is lacking, but our way of seeing it. Our human umwelt—our small, filtered world—tends to notice what breaks down more easily than what quietly holds together.
And yet something is always gathering. Always integrating. We feel it most clearly in what we call beauty.
Lao Tzu says we recognize beauty only because there is ugliness. The two arise together. Not as opposites to be resolved, but as movements to be seen.
Life, it seems to me, is lived between these two.
So maybe the question is not whether beauty can exist in a world at war, but whether we’ve learned to notice it—not as decoration, but as the quiet work of integration holding its shape within what would undo it.
I've been thinking all this year about the victims of the holocaust, and the prisoners who formed small orchestras while being beaten and starved, with hell all around, making beautiful music.
Thank you for this amazing collection and reminder.
James ... you really do your homework. And .. to be honest, I have always believed peace is a state of mind. Everything that surrounds you may be in total chaos
but yet beauty and peace can be found. Not going to lie and say that I am always successful at this, but
that does not mean it does not exist... I just cant see it in the fire
of the moment. Thank you. 🕊
Amy, I’m working on it daily, with God: Mastery of Self…what a test!
Thank you James for a magnificent reminder.
I’m in the trenches with you! Keep on, keeping on!
What a wonderful essay. So many profound instances where beauty does indeed save the world. Solzhenitsyn connected it to Truth -- not ordinary, changeable truths, but eternal ones, truth for all people, all times. In that same address, he repeated a Russian proverb -- 'One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World.' Perhaps we cannot by ourselves stop madmen from mass murder, or bring wisdom to those who seek to be fooled, but we can refuse to participate in lies.
Nihilism, dictatorship, demagoguery -- all need the lie to thrive. They cannot live without lies and work assiduously to force people to comply with their lies. Maybe we lack the artistic skills and faith to paint a Sistine Chapel, but we can -- each of us -- refuse to lie for them, refuse to engage in lies to make their job easier, refuse to cooperate with them as they seek to re-write history.
Not through me. Not with my consent. See you all at No Kings Day, March 28.
I am an artist, new to your writing and I am in breath lock resonance with this writing. Breath love. Pati.
Thank you! Learned so much over and above what I knew a out the artist and authors.
Other than in a few cases I did not connect it turbulent times.
Russian authors are amazing.
The best was Picasso’s answer to the German.
Please keep these insightful essays coming our way, it will help us understand today’s world so much better,
along with what inspires to see beauty.
Thank you!
I am reminded of the butterfly that floats through the frame during a battle sequence in Terence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”.
And the birds frantically scattering in the air when a bomb explodes ....
I make a clear distinction between beauty and art. Beauty exists whether we experience it or not.
Beauty doesn’t work for us.
Art, on the other hand exists more than ever when cruelty and injustice prevails. It’s the balance that keeps us sane. Hind Rajab was beautiful, and would have continued to be beautiful, in anonymity, had she not been murdered. The film about her death, “The Voice Of Hind Rajab”, would not have existed had that voice not cried out to the world, calling attention to her story.
In a sense, Gaza is our Guernica.
I’m writing about women artists who may be known in certain circles but not widely know. And, they all created art while their worlds burned around them. And, when you consider how often the world is at war … The great Renaissance’s and artist periods are born of it. I’m looking forward to the next Renaissance! It’s probably already started!
Thank you James,..for this.. and all the hard work that helps to lift us on a dailybasis.
Thank you!
Switzerland ? Let's not forget William Tell. There is beauty in the perfect firing of an arrow in the rescue of an innocent.
A very encouraging essay, thank you so much ! There is a copy of Guernica in my house, thanks to you I will look at the print with even more compassion. There is one version of Guernica in the UN Security Council meeting room, the Bush administration had it covered went they went for the Iraq war. They feared the power of art and beauty.
War will never be able to stop the beauty that exists in world,It may even destroy and annihilate whit infernal devices,but as long as there men who have made art an integral part of they lives, beautifull things whit be kept alive. And will flourish again,so that they may console the hearts of others people,whit theyr beauty,lifting their spirits and giving them confidence in tomorrow.
It’s curious to me that we have a word for dismantling—entropy—but no common word for what gathers things into coherence.
Perhaps it isn’t reality that is lacking, but our way of seeing it. Our human umwelt—our small, filtered world—tends to notice what breaks down more easily than what quietly holds together.
And yet something is always gathering. Always integrating. We feel it most clearly in what we call beauty.
Lao Tzu says we recognize beauty only because there is ugliness. The two arise together. Not as opposites to be resolved, but as movements to be seen.
Life, it seems to me, is lived between these two.
So maybe the question is not whether beauty can exist in a world at war, but whether we’ve learned to notice it—not as decoration, but as the quiet work of integration holding its shape within what would undo it.
Oh, great article by the way!
I've been thinking all this year about the victims of the holocaust, and the prisoners who formed small orchestras while being beaten and starved, with hell all around, making beautiful music.
Thank you for this amazing collection and reminder.
This is a beautiful essay!
I can see this is an excellent essay James, thank you for your thoughtfulness. I will read it through
Later.