beauty

Photograph from Edward Streichen

This photograph is among my favorites. There's something about it that's almost eerie. Its imperfection in the lack of clarity of focus is something that speaks to its pure beauty.
I don't want to say too much about this photograph, only that it is one with which I can connect.

What has me tangled in thought these days is the concept of beauty itself... It's impossible to really get to the matter of what it means to be beautiful for all things and all people because it is so highly subjective. I know this is a thought that most people have had, and I'm not saying anything truly mind-blowing, here...but I think it's worth saying again; it's worth another thought.
Since we cannot simply define beauty in abstract terms accurately (i.e. ...something that is aesthetically pleasing or as oxford English Dictionary online says: "Such combined perfection of form and charm of colouring as affords keen pleasure to the sense of sight."
But what of something that is not necessarily the most aesthetically pleasing? Can an action possess beauty? A non-conventionally attractive person be beautiful? I think most people would respond in the affirmative.
And what of art that depicts horrible events? Pictures of the holocaust that are aesthitically ideal in composition, but reveal death and killing? Can that be beautiful? Or must we choose another word?
The question is really rather pragmatic, to me: what are the effects on a viewer or an observer of something that possesses this abstract quality that we call beauty?
I am not sure that I can define my response succinctly to all that I find beautiful. Sometimes I am moved to tears, I am moved to outrage, silence, gasps, vocal affirmations... My reaction has never twice been the same to different possessors of beauty, for each has been unique. What is not individual, however, is the ability of all things that I dare to call beautiful to instill some sort of personal, emotional reaction. But the problem is that not all personal or emotional reactions are caused by things that I would call beautiful...and there I am blockaded from further inquiry. I can only conclude that beauty is not a quality that is inherent in objects; it is not something to either be acquired or had. It truly does exist in the eye of the beholder. Maybe beauty is something like an emotion, a specific physical response of the body to objects we perceive. Yet, I would like to look at specific things and proclaim with a sense of certainty that these objects were created beautiful, have always been beautiful and will always be beautiful.
It seems that things are never as simple as I would have them be.

I can't wait until someone actually wants to debate these things with me. There's nothing worse than having ideas against which no one will fight. I want someone smarter than I am to tell me I'm wrong and make me work for my thoughts. I have so many new ideas recently, and I'm bleeding for a challenge...or a challenger, at the very least. Wo bist du, eigentlich?

Paul Klee, a well-known German artist said about art:
"Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar."
(Something to the effect of...Art doesnt recreate the visible, but rather makes things visible.)
What does art make us see that we couldn't see before?