Six Names of Beauty

by Sartwell; Crispin

• ISBN13: 9780415979924
• ISBN10: 0415979927
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-06-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it's also in the language we use and everywhere in the world around us. In this elegant, witty, and ultimately profound meditation on what is beautiful, Crispin Sartwell begins with six words from six different cultures - ancient Greek's "to kalon," the Japanese idea of "wabi-sabi," Hebrew's "yapha," the Navajo concept "hozho," Sanskrit "sundara," and our own English-language "beauty." Each word becomes a door onto another way of thinking about, and looking at, what is beautiful in the world, and in our lives. The earthy and the exalted, the imperfect and the ideal: things, spaces, high art, sounds, aromas, nothingness. Sartwell writes about handfuls of beautiful things - among them, a Japanese teapot and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel, the pleasure in a well-used hammer and in pop music and in Vermeer's "Girl in a Red Hat." In Sartwell's hands these six names of beauty -and there could be thousands more-are revealed as simple and profound ideas about ourworld and our selves.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Foreword	xi
Beauty
English, the object of longing	1	(26)
Yapha
Hebrew, glow, bloom	27	(30)
Sundara
Sanskrit, holiness	57	(28)
To Kalon
Greek, idea, ideal	85	(24)
Wabi-Sabi
Japanese, humility, imperfection	109	(24)
Hozho
Navajo, health, harmony	133	(19)
Coda	152	(1)
Notes	153	(6)
Illustrations	159	(4)
Index	163