 |
| Francisco Goya Boy on a Ram ca. 1786-87 oil on canvas (tapestry cartoon) Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Francisco Goya Portrait of Félix Colón de Larriátegui 1794 oil on canvas Indianapolis Museum of Art |
 |
| Francisco Goya Repentant St Peter ca. 1820-24 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
"They also say that the soul does not become beautiful through the acquisition of anything external to it, but by purifying itself as the fire is purified in the flame, and the human virtues, which seem so beautiful, are nothing other than a purgation of the impurity which has fastened onto them as a result of their being accompanied by the body. The virtues are then natural to the soul, just as beauty is native to it, but ugliness is foreign, and derived from contact with the body."
 |
| Edward Lear Abu Simbel 9 February 1867 watercolor Yale Center for British Art |
 |
| Edward Lear Abu Simbel 10:30 a.m., 9 February 1867 watercolor, gouache Yale Center for British Art |
 |
| Edward Lear Boat on the Nile 1867 watercolor Yale Center for British Art |
"I remember having read something of these things and heard them spoken about, but I find myself with the same doubts. For if beauty is an ornament of the soul imparted to the body or a victory of form over matter, then it must exist in bodily and material things, in which there is perhaps no beauty at all, or not the kind we are seeking. And I wonder at Nifo and the other Peripatetics, who have located beauty in the body and in matter, because by its nature matter is ugly and deformed in the extreme, or rather is ugliness itself, so that the beautiful would be found to exist in the ugly as its proper medium, which is not at all fitting, for the beautiful should issue from the beautiful as flower issues from flower."
 |
| Pieter Jansz Saenredam Interior of the Buurkerk, Utrecht 1645 oil on panel Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
 |
| Pieter Jansz Saenredam Interior of Nieuwe Kerk in Haarlem 1653 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
 |
| Pieter Jansz Saenredam Interior of St Antoniuskapel in St Janskerk, Utrecht 1645 oil on panel Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
"As for me, I am inclined to the belief of those who understand beauty as a proportion or measure of things that have dissimilar parts, so that neither earth, water, air, fire, nor heaven itself is beautiful, for it does not have parts dissimilar in shape or nature, even though it is sculpted and adorned – for this is why, if we are to believe Pliny, it is called caelum. I will not speak of the angels and of God, who in the opinion of some is neither beautiful nor perfect because He is not made . . . "
 |
| Honoré Daumier Family on the Barricades 1848 oil on panel Národní Galerie, Prague |
 |
| Honoré Daumier Orchestra Stalls ca. 1860-70 oil on canvas Cincinnati Art Museum |
 |
| Honoré Daumier A meeting of Lawyers ca. 1858-62 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
"For if it could be defined, it would have a limit, but perhaps it is impossible to describe or circumscribe the beauty of the soul in place, time, matter, or in words, and to seek more than this is perhaps too daring and presumptuous, or a sign of too audacious a faith, as with those who go beyond the curtain in a temple and enter the sancta sanctorum. There one may recognize the soul's beauty and there contemplate it; there only may one know what it is. But those of us on the outside of the curtain walk about admiring the columns and the beams of cedar and scented cypress, the arches, the vault, the capitals and the statues that support them, and call beautiful whatever we see, or rather what seems beautiful to us and flatters our senses."
– quoted passages from Minturno, or, On Beauty, written in Italian around 1593 by Torquato Tasso, published in Tasso's Dialogues, translated by Carnes Lord and Dain A. Trafton for University of California Press, 1982
 |
| Hugo van der Goes Adoration of the Kings (Monforte Altar) ca. 1470 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
 |
| Hugo van der Goes Fall of Man after 1479 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
 |
| Hugo van der Goes Adoration of the Shepherds, from the Portinari Triptych 1477-78 oil on panel Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |