The topic that we covered in class today was interesting. After the readings and what we discussed made me realize that there are many definitions for beauty, and there is no right answer. Beauty is definitely what the eye of the beholder believes to be. For example, I am from Las Vegas, Nevada, and my wife is from Alaska. There are definitely stark differences in our perception of beauty. I think 100 degree hot August nights are beautiful when the sun goes down. The sky is orange on the sunset, and you can feel the warm air driving with the windows down. My wife on the other hand is from Alaska with disgust that I think the desert is beautiful. She cannot stand the desert, and the heat consumes her. Alaska is definitely gorgeous with desolate mountains of green trees, snow, and glaciers with abundant wildlife. Our views of beauty are completely different, and neither view is right. We need to understand for ourselves what beauty means and what it does for us as what we associate it with.
In class on Thursday we went over architecture which is to be my favorite of the arts. It is very interesting how ancient cultures built massive buildings without modern technology as we have today. It is fascinating that many of these buildings still stand today hinting us what it was like living amongst these ancient people when these buildings were built. Seeing pictures of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian buildings entice me to go there. Unfortunately I have never been to these places, but someday I will. While I was serving in Bulgaria (which is bordered with Greece) it was tempting to hop the border for a day to check out Ancient Greek ruins. Unfortunately that never happened. However, I did have the opportunity to see Byzantium buildings and a couple ancient Thracian or Roman structures. I was amazed that they were still standing. I also saw other different types of buildings that drew my attention. The spaceship looking building was on top of the tallest mountain used by the Communists. It had an eerie feeling to it. I believe each and every building has a certain feeling to it whether it's bad, good, happy, sad etc. I hope to learn more about architecture in this class.
I liked what you said about every building having a particular feeling about it and to it, given to it by the architecture. I noticed strongly when visiting a concentration camp in Austria a few years ago. I had never been anywhere where I felt such a somber feeling; it was strongly negative, even evil. This is partly due to the architecture; no ornamentation, only function, and an evil function at that, and partly due to what took place there. This was a camp where many Jews and others were exterminated.
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