An Armenian In Paris

Rabbi Benn Weiss followed me close as we made for the exit. “ I love Art and I know what I like.” he had said while staring at the canvasses long and hard.
We came out. He asked, “What makes Beauty? Is it what is unattainable?” I nodded. “Is it because it speaks truth?”
“Oh yes!” I said appreciatively, ”Rabbi, you will be a professional art critic if you stick around long enough. I am going to teach you.”
As we crossed the busy street to the Metro in front of an art store, my companion was for buying a few books to get himself started. “Forget books. Forget what that guide at the Gallery was telling you.” I told him, ”She was far out Rabbi, but she was a peach.”
Rabbi Benn Weiss glared at me at which I suddenly stopped short. Next moment I called out, “See that old lady! See her back is curved and how she leans on her stick?”
“Is that beauty?” my friend was skeptical.
“Why not?” I asked, “Does beauty only reside in a fine form and youth?” “Or does it in my perception of it?”
I was in the mood to explain. “ Think Rabbi Weiss, I do not know her from Adam. How come I suddenly think of my grandmother who has been dead for ages?”
“ She was the most precious thing to me,” I felt a lump in my throat,” she is unattainable. Yet this frail woman down on her last legs brought her image to me. If it isn’t beauty I am ready to listen you for a change.”
“Yes, if you say so, if you say so.” he said impressed, ”why don’t you write to your parents for a change? They’ve almost given you for lost.”
* Beauty is truth. Isn’t what sets us off on a train of thoughts- it could be a frail old or young thing, be connected somewhere? In our mind’s eye. We see a seashell and we think of Botticelli’s birth of Venus. That shell may be dirty on account of being trampled under many. Yet it becomes connected in our mind with a work of art; does it really matter the circumstances of the seashell as much what it represents? It still wears a kind of beauty that has acquired its sheen by our experience. Being old or a baby must thus possess beauty that we can only by our experience really appreciate. Truth of experience.
There are many theories on Aesthetics but without this basic truth it falls apart.
benny