We’re artists here-even if we are not particularly experts at our medium. Beauty is our pursuit, our dream, our love, and our friend. This being the case, we have come to realize that the majority of the word really doesn’t see eye to eye with our definition of the term, and so we would like to have everyone take a seat and gather round as we lean back in our large armchairs, puff on our pipes, and discuss the finer intricacies of what beauty really is.
First off let’s see what the world is trying to sell as beauty.
Well first off we have one major problem with all of this—there sure seems to be a lot of clothes everywhere. What’s up with this whole clothes obsession? But seriously, there’s more missing here then has been added. The models are all sporting a single human figure, the scenery is missing the majesty of nature, and the clothes (since I suppose they have to be worn) are missing the basic simplicity of utility. I mean high heels that are more useful at breaking ankles then supporting them during a hike, big gaudy jewelry that would choke a person, and then what is up with that intricately shaved pubic hair anyway? We’re going to do what I like to do when I want to bring some historic reference to conversation—we’re going to look at some crap that an old white man wrote several hundred years ago.
There was an art critic in the 18th Century in England by the name of Edmund Burke who wrote a rather long and cumbersome treatise entitled A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Now, as you might assume by the bombastic title of his treatise, Burke was a bit of a prat. When it comes to the beauty half of the treatise, he came off as a modern sexist bigot, not too unlike the ones who came up with those fashion ads. He claims that “beautiful objects are comparatively small.” Now if that isn’t a precursor to anorexic models, I don’t know what is. Nevertheless, the man has some interesting things to say about the sublime, which are more pertinent to our understanding of beauty (no we’re not talking about Sublime the band, but as far as beauty goes I’d give them full props).
“The passion caused by the great and sublime […] is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended.” I know: “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” It simply means that those things which are sublime—or rather that possess the beauty that we all see in our NaturalNatures pictures—are that way because when we see them we pause without any physical reason to do so. Now this old Englishman is a bit long winded, it was difficult enough to get this one quote parsed down, so I’m going to put the rest of his ideas into modern English.
Burke’s “sublime” is all about majesty that nears God and godliness, seemingly transcending the expected mortal existence. It seems unlikely that anorexia, high-rise buildings, heels designed to break ankles and knees, interestingly shaved pubic hair, or overly expensive clothing gets past the average mortal experience, instead it tries to glorify it and make it seem less average than it really is. Now instead we’ll look at something a bit different.
That, my friends, is Everest. Words are inadequate for describing such a sight. If some English dude in the 1800’s were to see this he would either think that it was a picture painted by a witch or that the peak was the gateway to the very presence of God. So we reach an interesting conundrum with that particular definition of beauty—those things closest to God are also those majestic pieces that make us marvel at the beauty of this mortal world. It’s not just the mortal earth that leaves us marveling.
“For ye are created after mine own image.” “Man is the very image of God.” I could go on—one too many Sunday school classes in my youth. But regardless of religion, or whether or not a person even believes in the existence of a God, there is still something utterly fantastic about the human body. What land mammal is naked (or free of a coat of fur if you’d prefer), bipedal, giant brained, an owner of very dexterous hands and clumsy feet, and experiences an obsession with sexual intercourse?
The answer to that question is humans, and only humans. Why have that body be naked anyway? According to evolutionary biology the answer would be something along the lines of it being an adaptation to the heat of the equatorial climate. Which perfectly explains why chimps and apes also are naked, along with cheetahs, zebras, giraffes… oh wait… yeah, only humans are naked among all of the land mammals from the equatorial climate (well, the hippo is pretty bare too and the naked mole rat of course). In the mind of an artist there is really only one reason for the human nakedness. The human body is uniquely beautiful: the musculature, the way fat is deposited on the body, the lines of the face, the uniqueness of the bipedal structure (which includes the butt, if you know what I’m getting at): all of it is awe-inspiring.
A human is naturally a walking piece of art—an example of beauty epitomized. Note that we are not claiming one specific type of human body, and that’s because every human body is beautiful. The variance in structure--the uniqueness that is somehow displayed despite our remarkable genetic similarity to one another--is one of the great hallmarks of beauty. We do not stop and gasp and contemplate the mundane and often repeated, but that which is different catches our eye.
At the moment you’ll notice that we’ve had a rather small range of bodies to work with and showcase for NaturalNatures, but that doesn’t mean we are trying to do that. In fact, if you would like to be a part of the movement and contribute your own body of beauty to the project, please Contact Us. You don’t need to show off your body for it to be beautiful though. We don’t just believe in a love for the Earth at NaturalNatures. It’s clear that every person needs and wants to not only be loved, but to love others-- and part of having a true unconditional love for the humans around you is loving and appreciating every body, no matter the shape, size, color, abilities, nationality, or anything else that might make a body different.
You might have noticed that all of those pictures at the beginning of the post (as to what society considers “beautiful”) came from advertisements. It’s the quest for money that establishes the need to create a single ideal, because if there is a single ideal and we are all naturally different, then we better spend some money in order to look more the same. Honestly though, there is no reason to spend that money. To quote a great modern philosopher, “I call that getting tricked by a business. That shirt’s hella dough, and having the same one as six other people in this club is a hella don’t.”
I’ll have to stop myself here before I descend into a rant. Just know beauty is what inspires awe, and as far as we can tell here at NaturalNatures, Mother Earth and each unique human body are just about as beautiful as things can get.