Beauty as inspiration

“What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.”
—Scott Westerfeld, Uglies

I find immaculate inspiration in beauty. And I don’t find beauty. I seek beauty. As Haruki Murakami once said “What we seek is some kind of compensation for what we put up with.”

There is beauty everywhere. On the net, I find it in some of my favourite sites. For beauty of wisdom, I go to brainpickings.org every day. It is peppered with poise and garnished with grace. It forces you to contemplate. And marvel at the minds that have given us so much. Read Susan Sontag there. Read Alain De Botton. Their writing radiates.

For beautiful product design, I go to minimalissimo.com. It is achingly poetic. And covers the loveliest products and concepts. Sometime simplicity and sophistication bring a certain serenity to the mind. This site does that. It has a quaint quietude. Look at the Heike Concept there. Look at the Loup Fruit Bowl. It is so sanative.

I find amazing beauty in architecture. I am a devotee of Tadao Ando. See his Church of Light. It is a sonnet of splendid simplicity. I am a slave of the philosophy and work of Kerry Hill. Hear his lecture called Footprints. It is a call to prayer. Look at The Crystal Cathedral by Philip Johnson. It is glass ruffling the hair of grace. Spend a few hours looking at Renzo Piano’s design of Kansai Airport, widely considered to be the prettiest airport in the world.

Music has always had its bewitching beauty. A few minutes of listening to Kishani Jayasinghe are equivalent to therapy. Ave Maria by Juliette Pochin is eternally beautiful. Hear Gregory Porter sing Hey Laura. Charlie Siems playing The Four Seasons at Night Of The Proms. It is invigoratingly mesmerizing. Hear him play Canopy. O Re Piya by Shankar Tucker and Rohan Kymal is good enough to make a grown-up man weep.

I see beauty in fashion. In the weave and pattens of Anavila Misra’s saris. In the shoes by Corthay. In the tees by Handvaerk. In the pocket rounds by Alexander Olch. In the ballerina shoes by Repetto. In the simplicity of COS.

In the socks by Gammarelli. In the lingerie by Myla.

Finally, I see beauty in fragrances. In the Pondichery Candle by Cire Trudon. In the EDT, Sienne L’Hiver by Eau d’italie. In Ambre Nuit by Christian Dior. In the room spray by Hotel Costes. The Garden Party Wistaria by Ten Party, unarguably amongst the finest fragrances for women.

The point is there is beauty in everything. In the way the flowers were wrapped at a charming store in Singapore. In the J Herbin ink bottle. Even a Blackwings pencil.

In his brilliant essay in The New York Times, Lance Hosey wrote, “We think of great design as art, not science, a mysterious gift from the gods, not something that results just from diligent and informed study. But if every designer understood more about the mathematics of attraction, the mechanics of affection, all design — from houses to cell phones to offices and cars — could both look good and be good for you.”

“The mathematics of attraction.” How utterly beautiful is that.

Swapan Seth is a writer, a columnist, an art collector, wine collector. His interests vary from pencils to fragrances. Salts to soaps. Music to movies. If you feel inspired, send in your entries to dnafaithpage@gmail.com