Roger scruton why beauty matters summary

Scruton suggests that great art has always shown the real in the light of the ideal and that in doing so it is transfigured. Rembrandt shows this with his portraits of crinkly old women and men or the compassion and kindness of which Velazquez paints the dwarfs in the Spanish court.

Modern art often takes the literal subject matter and misses the creative act. The subject matters are the same. The unmade beds in all of their sordid disdain. Delacroix brings beauty to a thing that lacks it through the considered artistry of his interpretation and by doing so, places a blessing on his own emotional chaos.

Emin shares the ugliness that the bed shows by using the literal bed. According to Emin, it is art because she says that it is so. Philosophers argued that through the pursuit of beauty, we shape the world as our home. Traditional architecture places beauty before utility, with ornate decorative details and proportions that satisfy our need for harmony.

It reminds us that we have more than just practical needs but moral and spiritual needs too. These are not necessarily useful but are needed. We have all experienced the feeling when we see something beautiful. Since the beginning of western civilization, poets and philosophers have seen the experience of beauty as a calling to the divine. Plato described beauty as a cosmic force flowing through us in the form of sexual desire. He separated the divine from sexuality through the distinction between love and lust.

To lust is to take for oneself, whereas to love is to give. Platonic love removes lust and invites us to engage with it spiritually and not physically. We can do nothing with it save contemplate its pure radiance. Art and beauty were traditionally aligned in religious works of art.

Science impacted religion and created a spiritual vacuum. Normally they like it, even those that are not "converted" from their preference of modern aesthetics by it. Like the other reviewer I mentioned who is thoughtful and interesting in most of his review, but not all, and not in the rating given , I too am biased: I think Scruton is mostly right about what he says, and I think he is a really stylish guy.

Details Edit. Release date November 28, United Kingdom. United Kingdom. Technical specs Edit. Runtime 59 minutes. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content. Top Gap. See more gaps Learn more about contributing.

Edit page. See the full list. The Rise of Will Smith. Watch the video. Pythagoras 8, views. Bryan Magee talks to Myles Burnyeat about Plato 16, views. The First World 10, views. L' Avocat de la Terreur [Terror's Advocate] 11, views. Anderson 11, views. Anderson 10, views. Descartes: Architect of a New Era 13, views. Anderson 12, views. All external videos in CosmoLearning are merely links to outside video hosts that make available embed codes to be used by external websites or blogs.