Malaspina's Meditation on Beauty in Nature - Article Example

? Malaspina’s Meditation on Beauty in Nature Malaspina’s Meditation on Beauty in Nature Alexandro Malaspina is remembered as an outstanding navigator. His writings represent the farthest bounds of Europe, a task no man could have imagined in his time. His thoughts and philosophical musings show us his maturity and steadfastness as an author. Malaspina wrote four of his essays while being imprisoned in the fortress of San Anton in La Coruna. These essays were in no way related to the science of navigation. Instead, they provided an insight into the thoughts and ideas of Malaspina, who on all accounts considered himself, a man of Enlightenment. The “Meditacion sobre lo bello en la naturaleza” or “Meditation on Beauty in Nature” is one of those four papers. By all accounts “The Meditation” would be considered an immature work as the discussions usually veer off-course and the arguments are left unfinished in pursuit of other thoughts. But still the essay presents many ideas and valid arguments that the author should have built on a bit more had he been in possession of more time and had been given a chance to prepare his work for publication. Malaspina was a well-read, intelligent man and having widely travelled, he had ideas and opinions of a great philosopher. It can be said that these works are a recollection of fine thoughts as the author waits in the confines of fortress of San Anton in La Coruna to be released. This particular essay provides a fascinating insight into the mind of an educated individual who agreed with and adhered to the ideas and opinions in his day. This essay is a means of examining the existence of unquestionable beauty in nature, the type of beauty which is present regardless of personal opinions and always flourishes. During the course of this essay Malaspina also discusses the true source of beauty, i.e. is it art or nature? The author, therefore, wants to examine the real foundation of beauty. The Meditation seems to be written in pursuit of the absolute and highest form of beauty or what the author calls the “Supreme Being.” This essay does not have a continuous philosophical argument; instead Malaspina has presented a series of ideas, sometimes unrelated, in “The Meditation”. Malaspina attempts to climb up the “Great Chain of Being” featured in the famous Plato’s Republic as “The Form of Good”. He introduces various links on the chain leading up to the Supreme beauty. These links are arranged in an ascending order based on their aesthetic values. For example the horse lies near the star of the chain, while the author believes human beings are closer to the Supreme Being in beauty and therefore closer to the top while the Supreme Being itself is at the topmost of the Great Chain of Being. The order of links on this scale of beauty is influenced by their lure and desirability to the readers. Other writers, mainly Hume, Saint-Pierre and Shaftesbury have also affected Malaspina’s opinions in this regard. The essay starts by asking if supreme beauty is found in the Nature or Art created by humans. After some arguments the author settles on nature to be the ultimate beauty and the source of all things beautiful. Here, Malaspina fails to recognize the vanity of this argument as humans and all of their works are also in fact sourced and inspired by nature thus rendering the argument completely invalid. He does argue that art imitates nature and the artists’ imagination is bound by the laws of nature. Arts can only mimic the physical, external appearance of nature and not its soft qualities. These internal qualities, according to the author, are more commendable and admirable than just the outwardly appearances. Once the author has firmly established the view that nature is in fact the most beautiful thing in the world, he proceeds to study the aesthetics of phenomenon that occur naturally. The wonderful organization of biology, astronomy and meteorology fascinate the author and rightly so! These natural phenomena are what constitute the beauty of the universe. The intricate order and mechanics of our world contribute to its beauty. According to the author, these natural phenomena can be ordered according to increasing beauty as mentioned earlier. Initially, he divides them on the basis of rationality and beauty. The three categories are: “the inanimate, the animate but non-rational, the animate and rational.” Human beings are the most beautiful, superior to all other beings and a part of the animate and rational phenomena. Therefore, the more complex a creature is, the higher it will be on the chain of being. But, according to the author, beauty also depends upon a beings ability to contribute to the universe and its beauty. In this regard too, humans have to be placed the highest on this ladder. Malaspina also writes that the human response to beauty is very subjective. Many react to their version of beauty with passion and pleasure, two feelings he clearly rejects as trustworthy guides to beauty. He argues that pleasure; passion and empirical perception can change into their negatives very easily. For example delight and excitement taken from love very quickly turns into hate when a person learns of their lover’s unfaithfulness. Therefore, the author suggests, that the only logical and proper way of judging beauty is by reason alone. Here, a question arises: how can rational understanding and reason be used to understand art when in fact art is produced for the sole reason of appealing to our intuition and passion for all the finer things in life? He writes that he aims to understand true beauty because only through this discovery can the writer get to the object that is most admired in the world. According to Malaspina, in order to be admired, an entity should be natural and adhere to its laws of organization and diversity. Here he implies that the Supreme Being possesses all these characteristics and therefore is worthy to be admired and praised the most. In fact, anyone who reflects over these characteristics is bound to realize that such a being really does exist. TheSupreme beauty is admired for its utility more than anything else. And Malaspina does seem to be right there because there is not a thing in this world that is not useful in one form or the other. Reason is the only human faculty that can decide whether something is useful or not and therefore, here too Malaspina seems to have arrived at a logical conclusion. Reason is in fact, the correct measure of beauty. Only reason can observe the slight nuances and differences in the beauty of the three classes of nature. The writer concludes this part by stating that the highest member of his scale is in actual fact, “the author” of the order of the Universe. Just like he measures the nature’s beauty according to the 3 categories, Malaspina identifies the human beauty on the basis of physical beauty and moral virtue. Here his obvious racist views come under scrutiny when he suggests that light skinned people are more beautiful and pleasing to the eye than dark skinned people. In fact, in his notes, Malaspina goes on to say that dark skinned people commonly acknowledge this as well. It can be safely argued that the author is merely conforming to the common thoughts and values of the time as he fails to provide a “reason” to go along with this biased opinion. So, no matter how “Enlightenend” he believed himself to be, Malaspina was not above the prevalent rituals, customs and ideas of his time. It is also sad to see that the author fails to reach to the top of the “Chain of Being” as he claimed to at the beginning of the essay. No discussion is to be found on the particular qualities of the Supreme Being. But there is a slight hint that this “Ideal Beauty” can only be understood by clearly studying the human qualities. During the course of this essay, Malaspina also seems to be adhering to the Christian teachings that “God is the cause of all beauty.” Does the author believe that humans were in fact modeled in the image of this Supreme Being? If it is true then why does Malaspina fail to describe this perfect entity in its entirety? It seems here that during the imprisonment his faith has dwindled and he lacks the necessary faith at the end of the essay. The essay lacks a clear ending and hurriedly details the elation this contemplation has brought to the author. But it can be believed that he was without a doubt trying to prove that beauty and reason are related to each other because of the Supreme Being. References Black, J. (2011, February). Malaspina’s Meditation on Beauty in Nature. Vancouver Island University. Read More