oethe said that few can make beauty but that many need it. We all of us know that he was right. What the long, tedious months of Covid have shown us is that we can live pretty easily without the latest It handbag, we survive pretty well without another gewgaw or yet another fancy frock, but what the human spirit cannot do without is beauty. All through those dire times those inspiring spirits whose life’s work is creating beauty in the arts, whether in music, or the figurative arts, in dance or in literature, were thinking up ever-more innovative ways to keep their art alive. Like those brave spirits who were playing their violins and cellos in the extermination camps; they knew that to emerge psychologically whole some kind of beauty in their lives was not a luxury – it was a necessity. Beauty comes in many forms. It has always been elusive, mysterious, compelling. Most of us recognise it when we see it and it has the capacity to evoke in us deep and powerful
emotions. Not long before lockdown shut down our major artistic institutions, I was at the Royal Opera House where one of the most ravishing productions of The Sleeping Beauty was playing. In the interval I turned round to talk to two young girls, one of whom I knew and who had brought a friend who had never seen a ballet before – tears were streaming down her face. “I have never seen anything quite so beautiful,” she whispered through her tears. It takes great art – and great beauty – to move people this deeply. This need for beauty clearly lies deep in humankind’s DNA. If we look back into the mists of time, we see many different peoples from all around the world who clearly believed that there should be more to life than mere survival. We see that creating beautiful things – whether it be Mayan or Cambodian temples, Egyptian pyramids, Aztec pottery, Benin bronzes, Japanese Yayoi pottery or bronze swords, decorating ostrich shells in the deserts – was somehow essential for their psychological survival. In the strictest functional sense none of these things was necessary. Superficially they appear to be indulgences, luxuries even, but to those who made them they were clearly, for spiritual and psychological reasons, deeply necessary.
w LUCI A VA N DER P OST
In Support of Beauty It can inspire us, give us hope and make us better people – and is essential to our happiness Lucia van der Post ► Lucia van der Post is the former editor and main feature writer on the How To Spend It pages of the weekend section of the Financial Times, which she turned into cult Saturday reading, and was the launch editor of its award-winning monthly colour supplement also called How To Spend It. She still writes regularly for How To Spend It where she is an associate editor.
Opposite ► A defining moment in the history of beauty on the runway – Christian Lacroix’s AW 2003 haute couture collection. Left ► Craftsmanship that stirs the soul – from an ornately decorated ostrich egg to a hand-illustrated Sabina Savage silk gown.
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