ST.

THOMAS ON BEAUTY

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1. BEING AND BEAUTY
= The concept of the beautiful is closely
related to the concepts of unity, truth,
and goodness, the transcendental
attributes of being. Beauty like all
fundamental and primary ideas, it is
more easily recognized in a concrete
experience than abstractly defined in
words.
= the best method of acquiring a
serviceable knowledge of the beautiful
will be to analyze our experience of the
beautiful and thus gradually come out
with a more formal definition.

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OUR EXPERIENCE OF BEAUTY
a. Beauty pleases
= Universal experience and judgment show
this.
= we do not consider that to be beautiful
which displeases and annoys us.
Ex. Poem, painting, a melody, a piece of
sculpture, architectural design…
= above examples are considered to be
such that it pleases, gratifies, and gives
enjoyment.
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b. Aesthetic pleasure
(requires contemplation)
= We do not consider our pleasure to be
aesthetic when our main concern on
seeing an apple is to eat it.
Ex. Painting – to sell for profit
House – to sell for money

Minimalistic – house – aesthetic pleasure

- for contemplation

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We experience aesthetic pleasure when we derive
pleasure from beholding it.
Ex. Seas, sunrises, rivers, stars, waterfalls, mountains
= there is beauty in them
Note:
= The primary object therefore of desire in beauty
is not the pleasure derived from profit,
consumption, possession or even use but the
pleasure around through the
CONTEMPLATION of the beautiful.
Ear, eyes, intelligence, imagination – are the sense
faculties properly engaged in the production of
aesthetic delight, and they mainly perceptive in
character. 5
2. BEAUTY AND GOODNESS
= Beauty can be considered as a special type of
goodness since it is the object of a certain
natural tendency (appetite) that is set at rest
by the contemplation of the beautiful.
Ex. A person who sees a land which is good for
farming, goes out his way to buy it and possess
that piece of land (profit).
Another person sees that same land and delighted
by the panoramic view, goes out his way to
buy it. He sees it beautiful and satisfied by
contemplating it (aesthetic pleasure).

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 QUESTIONS?
OR
CLARIFICATIONS?

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3. BASIS FOR BEAUTY
= Although the contemplation of the beautiful is
always accompanied by delight, beauty is not
the pleasure or delight itself, but rather those
properties which are pleasing to behold.
St. Augustine:
“…things please me because of their beauty.”
 As in the case of goodness and unity, the
characteristics which make something
beautiful arise, in the final analysis from its
ACT OF BEING or ESSE.
Therefore, God = ESSE Himself = Supreme
and Absolute Beauty
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4. BEAUTY AND PERFECTION
= It is true that things, by simply being, already
possess a perfection, which is the esse.
= This is the foundation of beauty, but it is not the
only aspect of beauty.
Distinguish:
a. Pulchrum simpliciter
= Something is beautiful in the fullest sense
(simpliciter) if it possesses all the perfections that
correspond to its own nature.
Ex. A carabao is a beautiful animal to the extent
that it has the harmony and perfection proper
to its nature.

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b. Pulchrum secumdum quid
= this is rooted on the act of being or
esse.
= as long as it has esse, it is pulchrum
secumdum quid.

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3 features of Beauty/Requirements for
beauty
i. Certain harmony or proportion in the
object itself and also with regard to its
surroundings (Proper blending)
Ex. Color TV, Universe, musical piece, living
organism
ii. Integrity or completeness of the object
with regard to the perfections required
by its substantial form or by its
accidental forms.
Ex. A colorful work of art - painting

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iii. Clarity
= both in the material and spiritual
sense.
 For the intellect, clarity means
intelligibility, truth, being.
 For the sense of sight, it means
light, color, brightness, limpidity
 For the sense of hearing,
arrangement or composition of
sounds that makes listening to
them more pleasant.
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Ex. Dull colors/objects in the dark
(blind people: perceives beautiful
because successive adds ups and
build-ups in their memory and
imagination.)

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 QUESTIONS?
OR
CLARIFICATIONS?

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5. DEFINITION OF BEAUTY
Beauty
= is a blending of the unity, truth, and
goodness in a thing, characterized
by completeness, proportion, and
clarity of presentation in an
intellectual-sensuous form, so as to
produce a disinterested emotional
pleasure in a rational perceiver.

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COMMENTS:
i. If this definition seems complicated at
least it attempts to give justice to the
subjective and objective elements
involved in the perception of beauty.
ii. The reason for this distressing
deficiency in every definition of beauty
lies in the fact that we first intuitively
fell something to be beautiful and only
then attempt to discover the elements
which make it beautiful.

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NOTE:
= Aesthetic pleasure as a sensation is
an ultimate psychological
experience incapable of complete
analysis.
= the enjoyment of beauty is as much
as a subjective affair as it is
objective.
= It is precisely in the subjective field
of man’s emotions that so much
diversity occurs.

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 Individual temperament
 Educational standards
 Cultural environment
 Family orientation

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6. OTHER NOTIONS OF BEAUTY
A. “order of proportion” (Plato)
(limited to thing with figure/physical
form)
How about:
 panoramic view
 Beautiful sunset
 Beautiful musical composition
 Beautiful falls/rivers

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B. “the splendor of order”
(St. Augustine)
“Order is the distribution which allots things equal and
unequal, each to its own place.” In other words, the
degree to which things are in their proper place is
the degree in which they are beautiful.
C. “brilliant order” (Horace)
Notes:
Order here must not be restricted to the material
order of physical placement or arrangement of the
components, but should also cover and in a primary
manner the “formal order” which consists in the
excellent proportion of the components with
regard to each other and the whole that they
constitute.
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Example of not proportioned order:
i. Doll with arms and legs
interchanged
(wrongly positioned parts)

ii. A heap of rose petals is not

beautiful.
iii. Modern cubistic painting
(analogous comment)
= natural parts are shifted out of their
proper place and stretched out of
their proper proportions. 21
 QUESTIONS?
OR
CLARIFICATIONS?

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7. DEGREES OF BEAUTY
= Divine Beauty, which is unique and
supremely simple, is reflected in
creatures in varying degrees.
Because they only participate in
the act of being, creatures possess
a limited beauty.
A. Spiritual Substances
= whose forms are not limited by
matter, have the full beauty which
pertains to their degrees and mode
of being.
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= To the very extent that an angel has esse, is
good and beautiful.
= Consequently, there is gradation in beauty of
pure spirits, which is a faithful reflection of
the hierarchy formed by their degrees of
being (pulchrum secumdum quid)
B. Material beings
= Within this realm, beauty is more
fragmentary and scattered, because at this
level, the limitation of the substantial form
by matter hinders any individual from
possessing all of the perfections of its
species.

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God
Angels
Man
Animals / brutes
Plants
Minerals / elements
= It is possible that an inferior being is
more beautiful (proportioned order of
components) than a superior being
Ex. A beautiful rose – deformed horse

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Important notes and examples:
The Nude in Art
= Although the nude and the naked are
commonly taken as synonymous, it is
not so.
Ex. Monkey is naked but it is not nude and
so the majority of the animals
Nude in Art
= is the manifestation of the grace and
proportion of the human body,
symbolized in the virginal female form.
Ex. Rose - Titanic

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If sex is included, is not emphasized
but simply given its place as a
complement of the human body
and in order not to detract from
the delicate balance that is proper
to it.
NAKED
= as object of pornography is the raw
manifestation of sex.There is no
attempt to dissimulate it as in the
former.

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 QUESTIONS?
OR
CLARIFICATIONS?

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KINDS OF PORNOGRAPHY
Soft-core pornography
= is the raw manifestation of sex as the
primary object.
Ex. Picture (tabloid)

Hard-core pornography
= is the raw portrayal of sex in action
Ex. film./movies, descriptive writing

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We cannot just classify all frontal
portrayals of the nude female form
as soft-core pornography, because
not all of them have the projection
of sex as their primary objective

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8. KINDS OF BEAUTY
A. PHYSICAL BEAUTY
= is the blend of composition and
proportion of the material
components that constitute a
physical thing.

Ex. Human body – striking and

remarkable
Painting of human body

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Female – the strikingly
proportioned figure = beautiful

Male – the highly proportioned form

= handsome

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B. MORAL AND SPIRITUAL
BEAUTY
= is the blend of moral virtues in a
harmonious proportion, so that
there is no shortcoming with
regard to an important virtue and
no excess with regard to another.
= moral beauty of virtue is also
commonly called spiritual because
it is the beauty of the soul rather
than of the body.
Ex. Ruby, Sorayda, Melai (actresses)
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Loveliness – physical beauty

Lovableness – moral beauty of the

human personality

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 QUESTIONS?
OR
CLARIFICATIONS?

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