The Promise of Beauty and Why It Matters

The Promise of Beauty and Why It Matters PDF Author: Shakti Maira
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 935264168X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
'A concern for beauty would certainly make us better shapers of the world.' - Roger ScrutonThe idea of beauty is highly conflicted terrain. Does it only have to do with how things look? Is it merely prettiness? Is it entirely subjective? Does it serve a function?Historically, beauty has been held in high esteem: 'beauty is truth, truth beauty,' the poet Keats wrote. Why then do the high priests of the arts and the arguably progressive socio-political thinkers of the day shun it? Shakti Maira explains how the problem lies with the confused understanding of beauty and with beauty becoming superficially located: quite literally, on the skin. What would happen, he asks, if beauty were to become central to every aspect of our lives: environment, education, economics and governance? Maira engages eighteen eminent thinkers in a series of conversations around the difficult, enthralling notion of beauty.Scientists explore whether there is an evolutionary purpose to it. Philosophers examine its relationship to truth and goodness. Artists speak of beauty and its rejection. Brain-mind experts consider whether the experience of it strengthens certain neural pathways connected with the qualities of balance, harmony, rhythm and proportion. Activists probe how beauty works in the context of social systems. What emerges is a deeper understanding of beauty and how it is a key to our world: a radical new way of evaluating problems and finding solutions, from the personal to the political, the individual to the universal.

The Promise of Beauty and Why It Matters

The Promise of Beauty and Why It Matters PDF Author: Shakti Maira
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 935264168X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
'A concern for beauty would certainly make us better shapers of the world.' - Roger ScrutonThe idea of beauty is highly conflicted terrain. Does it only have to do with how things look? Is it merely prettiness? Is it entirely subjective? Does it serve a function?Historically, beauty has been held in high esteem: 'beauty is truth, truth beauty,' the poet Keats wrote. Why then do the high priests of the arts and the arguably progressive socio-political thinkers of the day shun it? Shakti Maira explains how the problem lies with the confused understanding of beauty and with beauty becoming superficially located: quite literally, on the skin. What would happen, he asks, if beauty were to become central to every aspect of our lives: environment, education, economics and governance? Maira engages eighteen eminent thinkers in a series of conversations around the difficult, enthralling notion of beauty.Scientists explore whether there is an evolutionary purpose to it. Philosophers examine its relationship to truth and goodness. Artists speak of beauty and its rejection. Brain-mind experts consider whether the experience of it strengthens certain neural pathways connected with the qualities of balance, harmony, rhythm and proportion. Activists probe how beauty works in the context of social systems. What emerges is a deeper understanding of beauty and how it is a key to our world: a radical new way of evaluating problems and finding solutions, from the personal to the political, the individual to the universal.

Only a Promise of Happiness

Only a Promise of Happiness PDF Author: Alexander Nehamas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691148651
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Neither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty to the margins, replacing them with the anemic and rarefied alternative, "aesthetic pleasure." In Only a Promise of Happiness, Alexander Nehamas reclaims beauty from its critics. He seeks to restore its place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life. Nehamas makes his case with characteristic grace, sensitivity, and philosophical depth, supporting his arguments with searching studies of art and literature, high and low, from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Manet's Olympia to television. Throughout, the discussion of artworks is generously illustrated. Beauty, Nehamas concludes, may depend on appearance, but this does not make it superficial. The perception of beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it. This hope can shape and direct our lives for better or worse. We may discover misery in pursuit of beauty, or find that beauty offers no more than a tantalizing promise of happiness. But if beauty is always dangerous, it is also a pressing human concern that we must seek to understand, and not suppress.

The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic

The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic PDF Author: Monique Roelofs
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472522249
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
Aesthetic desire and distaste prime everyday life in surprising ways. The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic casts much-needed light on the complex mix of meanings our aesthetic activities weave into cultural existence. Anchoring aesthetic experience in our relationships with persons, places, and things, Monique Roelofs explores aesthetic life as a multimodal, socially embedded, corporeal endeavor. Highlighting notions of relationality, address, and promising, this compelling study shows these concepts at work in visions of beauty, ugliness, detail, nation, ignorance, and cultural boundary. Unexpected aesthetic pleasures and pains crop up in sites where passion, perception, rationality, and imagination go together but also are in conflict. Bonds between aesthetics and politics are forged and reforged. Cross-disciplinary in outlook, and engaging the work of theorists and artists ranging from David Hume to Theodor W. Adorno, Frantz Fanon, Clarice Lispector, and Barbara Johnson, The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic lays open the interpretive web that gives aesthetic agency its vast reach.

The Promise

The Promise PDF Author: Nicola Davies
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536221716
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
“This tale is a sturdy one that is made even more emphatic by Davies’s terse writing style. The text is heightened in every way by Carlin’s outstanding mixed-media artwork.” — Booklist (starred review) On a mean street in a mean, broken city, a young girl tries to snatch an old woman’s bag. But the frail old woman says the thief can’t have it without giving something in return: the promise. It is the beginning of a journey that will change the girl’s life — and a chance to change the world, for good.

The Mirror of Beauty

The Mirror of Beauty PDF Author: Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 8184759932
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1325

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Book Description
It is the sunset of the Mughal Empire. The splendour of imperial Delhi flares one last time. The young daughter of a craftsman in the city elopes with an officer of the East India Company. And so we are drawn into the story of Wazir Khanam: a dazzlingly beautiful and fiercely independent woman who takes a series of lovers, including a Navab and a Mughal prince—and whom history remembers as the mother of the famous poet Dagh. But it is not just one life that this novel sets out to capture: it paints in rapturous detail an entire civilization. Beginning with the story of an enigmatic and gifted painter in a village near Kishangarh, The Mirror of Beauty embarks on an epic journey that sweeps through the death-giving deserts of Rajputana, the verdant valley of Kashmir and the glorious cosmopolis of Delhi, the craft of miniature painting and the art of carpet designing, scintillating musical performances and recurring paintings of mysterious, alluring women. Its scope breathtaking, its language beguiling, and its style sumptuous, this is a work of profound beauty, depth and power.

Passport to Beauty

Passport to Beauty PDF Author: Shalini Vadhera
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1429973994
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Throughout the world, every country has age-old, time-tested secrets that women use for looking and feeling beautiful. Shalini Vadhera, celebrity make-up artist and internationally recognized beauty expert takes you on an adventure -- to Europe, Asia, Africa, the United States, South America, Australia and beyond - revealing secrets for luxurious hair, glowing skin, and more. Passport to Beauty features unique, yet simple beauty tips and techniques as well as instructions for creating cleansing masks, exfoliation blends, and moisturizers for hair and body. Learn how women around the world stay beautiful: · turn back the hands of time with a white clay mask like Australian beauties do · refresh your complexion with white tea – an ancient Chinese anti-aging secret · use coconut oil for glossy, shimmering hair as South Asian women have done for centuries A beauty treatment and make-over with an exotic flair is only as far away as your local grocery store – learn how to unleash the beatifying power of yogurt, lemon, olive oil, honey, and other surprising ingredients. Additionally, Shalini Vadhera will introduce you to the secrets of spices, natural remedies, and spa treatments from around the globe. And once you've got your skin and hair looking wonderful, Shalini Vadhera dips into her bag of international beauty tricks and reveals a multitude of techniques for selecting and applying make-up and always looking your absolute best. No matter your latitude or longitude on the globe, by using the information in this book you can truly become a global goddess!

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast PDF Author: Agnese BARUZZI
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788854410909
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
'Beauty and the Beast', by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, is told in this book in a modern, original and engaging way thanks to the drawings by Agnese Baruzzi, a versatile and creative artist who developed the laser cut pages in the story, obtained by carving the paper. By turning them on the drawings below, the characters in the tale will move as if they were on stage, making the story even more engaging for young readers. AUTHOR: Born in 1980, Agnese Baruzzi is graduated in graphic design of Urbino ISIA (Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche). Since 2001 she has worked as an illustrator and author: she has creat- ed forty children's titles published in Italy, the UK, Japan, Portugal, USA, France and Korea. She holds workshops for children and adults in schools and libraries, and she collaborates as illustrator with agencies, graphic design studios and publishers.

The Promise of Happiness

The Promise of Happiness PDF Author: Betty Neels
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1459205219
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
“I’M NOT ATTRACTED TO THIN MICE.” So stated the urbane Baron Tiele Raukema van den Eck—and as Rebecca Saunders was both thin and mouse-like, she knew exactly where she stood with him! But he had been very kind, rescuing her when she was virtually destitute. He had even found her a job—nursing his mother. The job was enjoyable and well paid, and it took her to Norway and Holland. The result was inevitable—Rebecca fell in love with the baron, and not even the presence of his girlfriend, Nina, could stop her from dreaming.

Queen of Beauty

Queen of Beauty PDF Author: Paula Morris
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
ISBN: 1742288332
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Spanning three generations of a large Pakeha/Maori family in a narrative that skilfully handles interwoven stories and multiple voices, Queen of Beauty explores the fragility of truth, the elusiveness of the past, and the transcendent power of love. Virginia Seton lives in rainy, seedy New Orleans, working as a researcher for a historical novelist with a 'strip-mined' imagination. On a brief trip back to New Zealand for her sister's wedding, Virginia is drawn into the family secrets, lies and tensions of both the past and the present.

The Promise of Amazing

The Promise of Amazing PDF Author: Robin Constantine
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062279505
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Robin Constantine's New Jersey romance The Promise of Amazing is a sexy, poignant, funny, and authentic debut novel that will appeal to fans of books by Stephanie Perkins, Sarah Mlynowski, and Jennifer E. Smith. Wren Caswell is average. Ranked in the middle of her class at Sacred Heart, she's not popular, not a social misfit. Wren is the quiet good girl who's always done what she's supposed to—only now, in her junior year, this passive strategy is backfiring. She wants to change but doesn't know how. Grayson Barrett was the king of St. Gabe's: star of the lacrosse team, top of his class, and on the fast track to a brilliant future—until he was expelled for being a "term-paper pimp." Now Gray is in a downward spiral and needs to change but doesn't know how. One fateful night, their paths cross at Wren's family's Arthurian-themed catering hall. What follows is the complicated, awkward, hilarious, and tender tale of two teens shedding their pasts, figuring out who they are—and falling in love.