Beauty is in the Light of the Beholder

Eyesight, of all our senses, is the most far reaching in that we don’t have to be close to an object to make sense of it. Our eyesight is many hundreds of times more powerful than that of hearing and smell, while taste and touch had to be up close and personal.  Sight is powerful indeed that first impressions are largely through our eyes and even after a time when we change our initial assessment the metaphor we use is still visual when “someone shows his or her true color”. “As far as the eyes can see” is a phenomenal superscription of that ability but what we see and how we see is probably the most disputable of all human experiences.  Courtrooms attest to that when witnesses to a crime or accident give varying accounts of the same event.  And what about the seeming universality of disagreements that occur when we put together referees/umpires and athletes and fans watching the same game? Then we have this mysterious appraisal of beauty that not only confounds ordinary people but poets and philosophers as well.

“Did my heart love till now?

Forswear it, sight!

For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night”

-  Romeo and Juliet.

While browsing in an arts and craft store in a small town somewhere in Texas my eyes came upon a plaque, hanging by a wall that proclaimed, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder”. I asked the sales lady if they sell a lot of the plaque and who buys them?  She said they do sell a good number of it but surprisingly it is wives buying them for their husbands’ man-caves.  Perhaps, as a reminder to the men that beer, lots of it in most cases, is nothing more than calorie-laden beauty enhancer.

While Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God", Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny" and Theophrastus has a different idea all together because to him beauty was apparently "a silent deceit”.  I don’t know what Benjamin Franklin meant when he said, “Beauty and folly are old companions."  The most intriguing quote I’ve read is that of Kahlil Gibran with this, “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror”.  I don’t know how to even begin to decipher that one unless by someone who is a lifetime subscriber to narcissism.

Sometimes when I muse on any subject I can’t help but include when appropriate the perspective from some of our animal friends which, by sheer power of imagination on my part, acquire the ability to talk.  We need that because animals see the world differently.  I mean, literally some animals see what we, humans, have no ability to see.  From the time Isaac Newton split ordinary white light into its various wavelengths it followed quickly our discovery of the limitations of our vision.  We see only in the middle range of the spectrum of light. From both ends of the spectrum the short wavelength of ultraviolet and the long infrared are invisible to us. 

A viper, specifically a diamond back rattle snake, was accused of killing and consuming an endangered field mouse somewhere in California.  It acted as its own lawyer and this was her defense. Addressing the judge, a javelina, which the snake respects because it is too big to be its prey, “Your honor, with all due respect to the prosecutor who should know better, I had no way to know it was a field mouse that I ate because I could not have recognized it since I only see in the infrared.  I cannot distinguish in detail the features of the field mouse from that of an ordinary one.  They both look like red blobs as they move.  It was at night too when it happened and if I may mention I am carrying eggs that will need nourishment.  The prosecutor, your honor, is a cayote, so he too would not have been able to recognize the difference because he only sees in black and white as all other canis species, to wit dogs and wolves, who cannot perceive color”.

The judge had its own visual limitation of nearsightedness as all javelinas have, so it was oblivious to the flicking forked tongue as the viper slithered to and fro as it made its closing statement, presenting only a bluish/green silhouette to the judge. The viper’s eloquence won. Not guilty.

The training manual for some birds of prey include recognizing the urine trail of rodents which become visible in ultraviolet.  Here is what one raptor said to another, “That field down there across the stream has got to be littered with voles. Do you see the whole place is practically a quilted patchwork of ultraviolet? Let’s go swoop”.

 The question then is why we who have a very sophisticated brain and the extraordinary physiology supporting it cannot see in all the spectrum of light.  I’m sure many would like to see in infrared and ultraviolet giving us a full range of visual capability.  

Actually, we should be thankful for the limitation of our vision because a full range of the spectrum will actually overwhelm us.  Just imagine trying to admire the beauty of a garden full of roses of various colors.  Along with the yellows, pinks and, of course beautiful red roses, our field of view will include infrared blobs of bees and butterflies hopping from one bloom to another and tracks of all rodents like squirrels and even rabbits the night before will further muddy the view with all kinds of ultraviolet patches on the ground.  Campers who seek the darkness of night to contemplate the vastness and wonder of the universe will be denied the view of countless stars that form the band of our Milky Way galaxy extending from the horizon diagonally upwards into an endless blackness of space.  Instead, their eyes will see blobs of insects flying above and around, bats and migrating birds and even fireflies – anything that has body heat – will register their presence in infrared and don’t forget anything that reflects ultraviolet.  The beauty of the night sky as we know it will not appear as such because seeing the full spectrum of light will make individual stars smudgy and blurry.  Even a crackling camp fire will not be so inviting when everyone around it will appear like ghostly apparitions from Hades, exuding with the redness of infrared reflecting the energy of the fire and the human body itself.  Oh, and those meat eaters among us may not find it so appetizing if their preferred rare or even medium rare steaks glow in ultra-violet.  Hot soup and warm desserts like bananas foster will luminesce in infrared.

Great renaissance artworks by Rafael and Boticeli would not have been possible because how will those artists have painted them had they seen everything in full spectrum?  Why our eyes are sensitive to red and yellow is supposedly part of our evolution so that our ancestors could recognize ripened fruit and berries.  Green is pleasant to us because vegetation is a welcome cover, let alone it is the color of fruit bearing plants.  Paul Cezane made a living painting apples and oranges when he put to good use bright reds and yellows in all kinds of lighting themes.

In a small seaside community where I grew up there was a man who was born blind.  His eye cavities were completely shut at birth, eyelids permanently closed, devoid of eyelashes even, and if he had corneas behind the skin we could not tell.  He goes around the neighborhood, walking but not using a cane.  He walked by sliding forward one foot at a time to “feel the ground” and warn him of any obstruction, including potholes.  What I remembered most was that he never seemed to show any self-pity and the people in the community treated him almost like everyone else.  I mean people, younger or older alike, would listen to him and respected his opinions on a lot of subjects.

I marveled at his eloquence in conversation and his grasp of the world from local to national politics and social issues.  He never did go to school so he could not read or write obviously, but he listened.  He listened to radio and to every conversation within hearing distance.  He had an uncanny ability to remember voices which was how he recognized everyone.  He “saw” and remembered people through their voices as normally sighted folks would recognize faces.  He also had the ability, as if he can see the people in conversation, to know how many were there and he could respond specifically to whoever was speaking or making a point.  I met him for the first time one day and it was several days later when I talked to him again and he effortlessly remembered who I was just from my voice.  I asked him how he would remember.  He said, “The same way you remember someone you met last week”.  That was the first time I realized that if vision had its limits the mind didn’t seem to have one.

What we lack in our inability to see in full spectrum is more than made up for by this one faculty that no other creatures have.  It is our ability to see the inner beauty of another human being.  We can see character that is behind the façade of skin and clothing; look deeply into someone’s eyes and see the true meaning of his or her true feelings; and we can feel the depth of expression when someone looks at us with pride, sympathy, happiness or sadness.

Physical beauty that our eyes can see is all reflected light. True beauty is one that penetrates through to our mind where there it will reside for as long as we live.  Memories are the paintbrushes of true beauty because with them we are able to touch up, refresh, even change the tone and color of the images of our youth and experiences that may have faded can be restored to even brighter hues.  Beauty then are in the mind’s eyes of those who remember.