“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Those are the closing words on John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”.

All of the absurdity of that statement makes it more appealing and beautiful.

To begin by comparing beauty with God, we can expand our definition to the infinite of qualities. Modern humans tend to define God in human terms and imagine “Him” in an idealized human form. The Classic Greeks and Romans were polytheistic and had an unlimited number of Gods with an unlimited number of characteristics, but each God had a dominant character. However, if we expand our definition by adding more species beyond humans, we can include animals, other living things, and moving things like earthquakes and wind. To that list, we can add abstract things like squares and triangles, and as Montesquieu writes, “If triangles had a god, they would give him three sides.” But, of course, an equilateral triangle’s god would have equal sides and angles, and a right triangle’s God could not. Therefore, there would be an unresolvable conflict, which would result in a war of attempted extermination of the other, if it were between humans.

When defining beauty, humans come to similar problems, and they are founded in our genetic history because of our choosing beautiful mates for reproduction. For humans, there may be various specific qualities that are found attractive by different societies, but one that appears to be universal is left-right symmetry, like the equilateral triangle. The result of this can often be seen in two-dimensional art.

There are other symmetries such as the radiating form of flowers, and three-dimensional ones, such as fireworks explosions, and those seen in some stellar nebula explosions. Also, random Li patterns and textures can be appealing, and smooth fields of color, and fields of invisible transitioning of color.

There are many of these ideas I have been exploring with my camera as ends in themselves. However, there is also an intellectual-truth component of beauty, where we come back to the beginning quote. Those issues can be answered by the behavior of our ancestral fathers and mothers.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty! Or is it the reverse? Truth is beauty and beauty is truth.”