The Beautiful

— Cornelis de Bondt

Parable of ‘The Deserted Island’


Imagine the following: you find yourself on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, on a beach with almost pure white sand, palm trees gently swaying in the evening breeze, the water at the shore deep blue, a flock of pink flamingos skimming low over the water, with the bright red setting sun as a backdrop. Is this not the epitome of beauty? ‘Yes,’ you would answer, ‘this is indeed an image of overwhelming beauty!’ But then I would say that there is no beauty here at all, after all, the island is completely deserted, there is no one to perceive that beauty. ‘But of course, that beauty does exist,’ you might counter, ‘even without us being there, the image is present, I just imagined it!’ ‘Indeed,’ I would then say, ‘you imagined it, you created this image of ultimate beauty in yourself in your mind.’

Does this mean that beauty is exclusively, and always, generated in the observer’s mind? Is it therefore a completely subjective experience? 
 The above Parable of ‘The Deserted Island’ only illustrates how beauty is formed in our brains, but it doesn’t make a statement about the object of that beauty. Of course, every object of beauty contains a quality that allows us to generate that beauty, which may not be the case with any random object. But the object we judge as ‘beautiful’ can only be judged as such through this judgement, the beauty becomes manifest in that statement. Without a taste-judgement, beauty does not exist. 
 The question, however, is whether the above parable refers to the sublime. Beauty and sublimity are certainly related, but not identical.

— Cornelis de Bondt, Loosduinen, March 17, 2024