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Nourishing The Capacity To Cry In Front Of Beauty
Being susceptible to art protects us against the dangers of reason
Sometimes, art moves us in a way that drives us to tears. It might be the content of a story, our connection with the characters or the sheer execution of the work of art. It can be happiness or sadness or fraternity. The reason can also be within us: the same piece of art that makes us kneel in reverence today might have left us indifferent last week. Regardless, some tears are brought by beauty alone, and they are happy tears.
In his novella Memoir Of My Melancholy Whores, García Márquez depicts the pure joy of a centenarian who finally finds love. The old man rides a bicycle around his village, tears streaming down his face. Incidentally, the Colombian’s masterpiece One Hundred Years Of Solitude was responsible for one of the first times art genuinely shocked me. I remember finishing the book and being aware that I had experienced something extraordinary. Architecture has had that effect on me too. And songs, of course.
Indeed, music has a particular way of fiddling with our heartstrings. Nietzsche wrote that music was at the core of creation, the closest a human being can be to the essential truth of reality. Regardless of whether we understand the lyrics or whether there are any to understand…