J. B. Phillips on Beauty

In his 1966 book, Your God is Too Small, the Oxford educated clergyman and translator J. B. Phillips wrote, “True beauty always seems to bear with it a note of gentle sadness, sometimes very poignant; and it may well puzzle us why this should be so. If the beautiful is so desirable and so welcome it should surely bring unqualified joy. There is rarely accompanying sadness in other earthly joys. In the enjoyment of a hearty meal, in the successful solving of a difficult problem, or in the fulfillment of a creative activity, there is joy, but no melancholy. Is it possible that beauty is a hint of the real and true and permanent, so that we feel without conscious process of thought: ‘This is what life should be, or what it is in reality.’ And therefore to compare that with our ordinary everyday experience with all its imperfection and ugliness gives rise to the poignant pain?”

Millenia of philosophical thought has been produced over the nature of beauty. I’m not going to wade into that ocean. The reason this quote struck me is because it rings true to my experience. I’ve not sensed this melancholy when observing a man-made object, but rather when caught by the beauty of the natural world. As Phillips suggests, there appears to be a subtext held in the beauty of nature that states all is not (yet) as it should be. And this subtext isn’t an empty statement; its a yearning, a pointing, a signal of hope. As Phillips suggests, this subtext is an invitation and welcome from The Creator. As David wrote in his psalter, the heavens declare the glory of God.