Beauty as a Virtue: Between Suffering, Authenticity, and the Eye of the Beholder

As an abstract artist, I am always chasing something that can’t quite be held- something that resists language but insists on being felt. I think this is a kind of beauty. In smudges, textures, and asymmetries, I look for beauty not as decoration, but as a kind of truth. But what is beauty, really? And can we still speak of it as a virtue in a fractured world?

Do the strokes portray an authentic kind of energy?

Beauty in a World That Suffers

The world is not short on suffering. To paint beauty- to seek it- might seem indulgent or even blind. But I’ve come to believe that creating beauty is not denial. It’s defiance. It may feel almost irreverent to speak of beauty in the face of suffering. How can we justify celebrating aesthetics when the world is bruised by war, injustice, and grief? Yet, beauty has long been a balm for suffering — not an escape, but a confrontation. Dostoevsky wrote, “Beauty will save the world.” This wasn’t naive optimism but a recognition that beauty- in art, in kindness, in truth- awakens something in us that resists despair.

Beauty doesn’t erase pain; it acknowledges it and says, “Even here, something luminous can still exist.” In that way, beauty becomes moral. It is a force for preservation, a gentle rebellion against the nihilism that suffering can bring.

When I step into the studio, I bring the world with me: its grief, its joy, its noise, its wounds. And still, I reach for harmony, for composition, for form. Beauty, in this way, becomes an ethical gesture- not to ignore the uncomfortable, but to say: Look, something still lives here. Something still breathes.

This is not a shallow kind of pretty. It’s beauty as resistance. Beauty as mercy.

Instagram, Persona, and the Trouble with Surfaces

A seductive beauty distracts Narcissus above.

Today, beauty lives on screens. We scroll past polished lives and filtered bodies. Persona and defensive scripts have become performance, and beauty — in the social media sense — has become consumable, addictive, and often hollow.

As an artist, I often wonder: Can beauty still be trusted? It feels like social media has become the wolf in grandma's clothing- it whispers the promise of beauty but often hides deception in a seductive, and edited form of empty. Therefore, is it only real when it’s rooted in good intentions? Can we take it at face value anymore?

I don’t think beauty can ever be entirely separated from the soul of its source. A painting or photo may be beautiful, but if it’s dishonest, we feel the lack. The same goes for people. We instinctively crave authentic beauty — the kind that doesn’t just dazzle, but reveals.

What is an authentic beauty?

This is why the social media age can feel spiritually dissonant. Beauty divorced from sincerity is like light with no warmth — visually bright, but emotionally cold.

Art, Philosophy, and the Pursuit of the Sublime

Beauty has been the obsession of philosophers and poets since antiquity. Plato imagined it as a divine form — the soul’s memory of perfection. For Kant, beauty was an act of “disinterested pleasure,” something we love not for use, but for its essence. And for Rilke, beauty wasn’t comfort; it was almost terror — a glimpse into something vast, unknowable.

As an abstract artist, I often feel that tension. I’m not painting things. I’m painting questions. The canvas becomes a mirror, not of the world outside, but of the inner architecture — emotion, silence, uncertainty. When a painting works, it’s not because it looks “beautiful” — it’s because it rings true. Truth and beauty are not always twins, but they often walk in step.

The Beauty of the Mundane: Wabi-Sabi and the Sacred Ordinary

In Japanese philosophy, there is a term that reshaped my understanding of aesthetics:- Wabi-Sabi. It celebrates the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete. A cracked teacup. A weathered wall. A quiet shadow in a corner. This philopsophy influences my sculpture and ceramics.

An 'imperfect' ring jar.

Wabi-sabi highlights to me that beauty is not in what is flawless, but in what is honest. In art, I began to let go of symmetry, precision, polish and control- and in doing so, found more feeling, more soul. The stray mark, the unfinished edge, the smudge- these became invitations rather than errors.

Authenticity, then, is not just a style. It is a kind of integrity. It’s when the inside and the outside match. And when that happens- whether in a person, a brushstroke, or a moment — we feel it. And we call it beautiful. It just feels real- that moment of 'I know that you know'.

The Eye of the Beholder: Subjective or Real?

Is beauty only in the eye of the beholder? Or is there something objective, something eternal, that we’re tapping into?

As an artist, I think it’s both. The gaze matters — where you are, what you’ve lived, what you can see — changes what you find beautiful. But there’s also something underneath. Something that transcends culture, language, and even time. A kind of silent recognition.

Sometimes I’ll create a piece that just clicks, not because I planned it that way, but because it suddenly feels like it has arrived. It has become what it was always meant to be. That moment- when form meets soul- is not about preference. It’s about a presence.

Beauty as a Way of Being

In the end, beauty is not just a visual quality. It’s a mode of attention. A way of moving through the world with openness, reverence, grace and care.

To live beautifully- to create, speak, and love beautifully and openly- it is not superficial. It is courageous. Especially in times like these.

And perhaps, as artists, poets, or simply as people, our highest calling is not to chase beauty, but to embody it- to find it within. We all get carried away with cultural and anxiety driven scripts (I do), but it really is worth reminding ourselves that we are not here to decorate the world, but to deepen it and remind each other what life is really about.