Synopses & Reviews
The introduction of this book reads, "Beauty, like every other quality courage, fear, ugliness, trust, truth, wisdom is a part of us and apart from us, inside us and outside us, personal and impersonal. Beauty invites us to build bridges and make connections between the senses and the soul, between contemplation and expression, between ourselves and the world."
In this wide-ranging and deeply felt book, artist and writer J. Ruth Gendler invites us to reclaim and celebrate the often misunderstood quality of beauty as one of the most profound and essential forces in our lives. Drawing upon observations from art and mythology, science and nature, contemporary culture and personal experience, the author looks at her subject in its most generous implications not simply as a reflection of surface and image, but as a pathway to wholeness, integrity, coherence, and ultimately, to love. Written with curiosity, courage, a discerning eye and a lyrical sensibility, and illustrated with evocative line drawings by the author, Notes on the Need for Beauty displays the strong personal voice that has made her previous book, The Book of Qualities so beloved. It is a work to savor and to share.
Synopsis
Notes on the Need for Beauty is an artist's reflection on the complex nature of beauty and our unique relationship to it. In this lyrical and lively exploration of the soulful aspects of beauty, Gendler describes how beauty gives meaning and purpose to our lives. She makes a plea for our fast-paced, progress-driven society to slow down, to reflect and to engage the senses, so that we can begin to cultivate and nurture the beauty around us. To be deprived of beauty is to be deprived of our essence, Gendler says, but to be reminded of beauty is to become awake.
For the most part our culture trivializes beauty, assigning it to picture-perfect women and places, not recognizing its deeper and more healing aspects. Beauty and its sister qualities of inspiration, delight, and harmony become lost in the frantic materialism and efficiency of our time. Notes on the Need for Beauty celebrates beauty in the human and natural world. It includes artistic, spiritual, ecological and cross-cultural perspectives.
About the Author
J. Ruth Gendler is an artist, writer, and teacher. She is the author of
The Book of Qualities and the editor of
Changing Light: The Eternal Cycle of Night and Day. The Book of Qualities, now in its thirty-fifth printing, has been adapted as a two-act theater piece and translated into German, Japanese, and Chinese, as well as being widely excerpted in literary, psychological and educational publications. In addition to personal essays and poems, Gendler writes about the arts, education, health, and books. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally.
Gendler has taught writing and art in a variety of settings for twenty years. She has been an artist in residence with both California Poets in the Schools and Young Audiences of the Bay Area and leads writing and creativity workshops nationally. She received her B.A. in English and Communications from Stanford University, and she now resides in Berkeley, California.