Malaspina's Meditation on Beauty in Nature - Article Example

Download file to see previous pages 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 ...Download file to see next pagesRead More