Valentine’s Day is next Sunday, so I think it would be appropriate to talk about love and beauty. The following is an edited exerpt from an e-mail I sent to a friend talking about beauty.

“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.” – Pablo Picasso

I’m not exactly sure if I understand that Picasso quote, but I think it’s basically saying that art is beyond what we think is beauty. I think he’s basically attacking the fundamental concept of beauty, in that it’s often screwed up. Just look at what magazine covers tell us is beauty. If beauty were a constant, it wouldn’t change. But it does. The swimsuit models of today (and those that wear less) are ten times skinnier then the nude (or close to it) paintings we see in all of history. My point being that the ideal of beauty has changed over the years. Therefore I don’t think society has a very keen sense of beauty. (this gets clearer, don’t worry) So when you say a women is beautiful, it is “what the instinct and brain conceive beyond any canon.” We don’t measure a woman up to the standards of beauty, you just know that she is beautiful. You don’t “measure her limbs” as Picasso puts it. I think a lot of people miss this. I know my girlfriend is beautiful by looking at her. I don’t compare her to today’s standard of beauty, she is beautiful in her own right. When you are in love with someone (what ever you want to define that as) you see beauty in them. Their face is beautiful to you. It doesn’t matter what they look like. You will have looked past any outward “flaws” and seen their character. It is through loving this character that you have fallen in love with whatever face is attached to that character. Love isn’t skin deep. In fact, love is anything but skin deep. It ignores the outward appearance (hopefully).

What I’m trying to say is that you can see beauty in someone no matter what they look like. I’m not trying to degrade the statement that someone is beautiful, but I’m trying to give it meaning. It is because of this concept of beauty that my girlfriend doesn’t need to put on makeup to be beautiful. Her hair doesn’t need to be combed, she doesn’t have to be wearing a fancy dress, she doesn’t even have to be smiling (she can be bawling her eyes out). She can be so tired that she can’t keep her eyes open, her hair can be “gross” (as she says), she can be in her pajamas in the middle of the day, and she is still beautiful.

There’s just something about starring into the face of someone you love. It’s precious. It’s soft. It’s beautiful. If a person can’t see that, they have no reason to be dating. It’s the age old question of love. If the person you love was horribly disfigured in an accident, would you still love them? If you truly love them, it wouldn’t matter at all. But if you compare one’s beauty to the conventional standard, pity would be about the only thing keeping you there. I think Annie Dillard has a story about that in her essay, “Holy the Firm” (It could have been Brennan Manning’s “Ragamuffin Gospel,” I can’t remember). But the story was about a couple, and the woman had some kind of reconstructive surgery after an accident. Her face was disfigured, and her mouth was horribly twisted. After she saw her husband after the bandages were removed or whatever needed to be done, the husband kissed her, and twisted his own lips to fit her crooked mouth. He was showing her that their kiss still worked. That is love.