Das Schöne am schönen England

by
Schön as schön can be
English Beauty
No staring so romantic
Glotzt nicht so romantisch

Bert Brecht

dsc_0084-2a.
Siri and Selma ask at the breakfast table: “What’s beauty, why do we call England beautiful?“
Oh dear, what a question! Beauty – an intimidating big field nearly every egghead thought about. Especially since the 18th c. masterminds like Hegel and Kant were trying to understand beauty.
Our Master: “But let us set limits first. Let’s talk about the beauty of nature only.“
Dina thinks that real beauty touches our heart, “as the green hills of England are seen with a romantic eye.“
“Of course!“, Selma heckles, “Beauty is massaging our souls.“
“And isn’t it strange?“, asks our dear Siri, “that beauty is so hard to grip. Who defines beauty? Nearly everyone thinks of something different as beautiful, because everyone perceives according their own concepts.“
Our Master: “What do think about this idea: beauty is what the media taught us to be seen as beautiful? That’s what Bishop Berkeley wrote about 300 years ago – said in modern words.”
Nature was seen as beautiful in England especially since the landscape artist William Kent “leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden” in the 18th c., but even before all the northern folks had a romantic passion for the rural, which was seen as innocent paradise as it was portrayed by the Swedish artist Carl Larsson.
 
Siri und Selma fragen beim Frühstück: “Was ist das Schöne am schönen England?“
Du lieber Himmel, was für eine Frage! Es ist ein einschüchternd großes Feld, die Schönheit, welcher Klugkopf hat sich nicht schon Gedanken drüber gemacht. Speziell seit dem 18. Jh. waren Denker wie Hegel, Kant und Co. am Schönen interessiert.
“Aber grenzen wir das Thema zunächst ein. Lasst uns über die Schönheit der Natur reden“, schlägt Masterchen vor.
Dina meint, dass wahre Schönheit uns emotional berührt “und in England ist es besonders die hügelige, liebliche Landschaft, die mit romantischen Blicken betrachtet wird, während es in Deutschland der Wald ist.“
“Klar doch!“, ruft Selma dazwischen, “Schönheit ist Seelenmassage.“
“Wisst ihr was?“, fragt die liebkluge Siri, “Es ist doch komisch, Schönheit ist gar keine richtig fassbare Qualität. Wer kann sie definieren? Fast jeder findet etwas anderes schön, denn jeder nimmt entsprechend seiner Konzepte wahr.“
Masterchen: “Was haltet Ihr davon: Als schön betrachten wir das, was uns allmächtige Medien lehrten, als schön zu betrachten. In ähnliche Richtung dachte bereits vor etwa 300 Jahren der anglo-irische Philosoph Bischof Berkeley.”
In England wurde die Natur besonders als schön betrachtet, als der Landschaftsarchitekt und Maler William Kent im 18 Jh. über den Zaun sprang und die gesamte Natur als Garten ansah. Allerdings bereits vorher zeigten die Engländer wie alle nordischen Völker eine Leidenschaft für das unschuldige Paradies, wie wir es aus den Bildern des schwedischen Malers Carl Larsson kennen.
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Our dear Master likes seeing a waving cornfield. He is not alone loving big free clearly arranged natural spaces homogenously grown or empty spaces like sand beaches bordering the sea or a wood. He also likes sunflowers and a big sky. Dear Dina as a photographer is looking for lines to lead our eye providing a certain security and structuring field of perception.
Calling something “beautiful” means an evaluation. Unfortunately beauty is a horribly abstract notion, a term which seduces the speaker to use it without any content. We call everything beautiful or nice, if we don’t find an appropiate adjective. To call something beautiful is often a sign of being too lazy to think. Besides beauty is always an ideological notion depending on history. 
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Masterchen findet es schön, über ein wogendes Kornfeld aufs Meer zu schauen. Große freie, einheitlich bewachsene, übersichtliche Flächen, die an Wasser oder Wald grenzen, gefallen nicht nur ihm. Sonnenblumen findet er schön und weite Horizonte. Dina als Fotografin hält nach Linien in der Landschaft Ausschau, die das Auge leiten, ihm Sicherheit vermitteln und das Feld der Wahrnehmung strukturieren.
Etwas “schön” zu nennen, beinhaltet eine Wertung. Schönheit ist ein fürchterlich abstrakter Begriff, der dazu verführt, ihn inhaltsleer zu gebrauchen. Was nennen wir nicht alles “schön”, wenn uns kein passendes Adjektiv einfällt? Etwas “schön” zu nennen, ist oft ein Zeichen von Denkfaulheit. Außerdem ist das Schöne stets ein historisch bedingter Begriff.
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Das _Schoene06.
Beauty doesn’t necessarily mean boring sunshine or roses – not only in the English nature. It seems, that beauty has to do with drama or at least a certain tension. Without this tension the beauty deteriorates to the nice. Therefore Dina loves dramatic light which is the daughter of the clouds.
“Does beauty means movement?” asks Siri.
Selma: “England can be eerily beautiful! Therefore those great crime-writing-ladies are all English and thrillers filmed in England are so much liked.“
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Schönheit nicht nur in der englischen Natur heißt keineswegs ständig langweiliger Sonnenschein oder bunt blühende Blümchen. Uns scheint, dass Schönheit mit Dramatik oder zumindest einer gewissen Spannung zu tun hat. Fehlt diese Spannung, verkommt das Schöne zum Netten. Deswegen liebt Dina das dramatische Licht, das mit ebensolchen Wolken verbunden ist.
“Gehört zur Schönheit die Bewegung?“, fragt Siri.
Selma darauf: “England ist schaurig schön! Deswegen sind die großen Krimi-Ladies alle englisch und in England gefilmte Krimis so beliebt.“
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Das _Schoene02.
Commonly beauty is seen as a function of symmetry, the Golden Section (simplified as the rule of thirds for photographers) or the Fibonacci Sequence. Whereas symmetry can appear boring and cold, the Golden Section and the Fibonacci Sequence have an inner tension which describes how nature is organising itself. Our Master thinks it is characteristic that both, the Golden Section as well as the Fibonacci Sequence, are expressed by an irrational number, meaning the irrational, which is the infinite, is typical for beauty.   
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Only through Beauty’s morning gate, dost thou enter the land of Knowledge.
Friedrich Schiller
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Landläufig wird Schönheit mit Symmetrie, dem Goldenen Schnitt (simpel die 1:3 Regel in der Fotografie) und der Fibonacci Reihe verbunden. Während Symmetrie oft kalt und langweilig wirkt, also unschön, steckt im Goldenen Schnitt und der Fibinacci Reihe eine anmutige Spannung, die allerorten in der Organisation der Natur auftritt. Charakteristisch scheint Masterchen, dass die Berechnungen vom Goldenen Schnitt und der Fibonacci Reihe zu einer Irrationalzahl führen, d.h. das Irrationale also das Unendliche scheint schönheitstypisch zu sein.
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Herdwicks_collage_Hanne_Siebers.
Spontaneously we Fab Four know if we see something as beautiful or not. Especially Gainsborough, Constable, Coleridge, Wordsworth and the pre-Raphaelite movement celebrated the beauty of the English landscape. But should we explain why we see landscapes as beautiful we are lost. This is astonishing, as beauty is that important in our life that everybody wants it. But maybe you, dear reader, can help and tell us what you see as beautiful in the English landscape. For us it’s the hedges, the coast lines and the big sky.
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“The love of nature is ever returned double to us, not only the delighter in our delight, but by linking our sweetest, but of themselves perishable feelings to distinct and vivid images, which we ourselves, at times, and which a thousand casual recollections, recall to our memory.“
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
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Wir können spontan sagen, ob wir etwas als schön oder hässlich ansehen. Zum Beispiel finden wir, dass Gainsborough und Constable wie auch teilweise die Prä-Raffaeliten in ihren Bildern das Schöne der englischen Landschaft vorbildlich präsentieren. Werden wir jedoch gefragt, warum wir diese Landschaften schön finden, stoßen wir erschreckend schnell an unsere Grenzen. Das verwundert uns, da Schönheit so wichtig in unserem Leben ist, dass jeder ein Bedürfnis nach ihr empfindet. Aber vielleicht könnt Ihr uns weiterhelfen und uns erzählen, was ihr als schöne Landschaft empfindet. Auf jeden Fall finden wir die englische Landschaft mit Hecken, Küsten und ganz viel Himmel schön.
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With warm greetings from beautiful England
Mit herzlichen Grüßen aus dem schönen England

The Fab Four of Cley

Dina’s and Selma’s addendum: No beautiful English landscape without sheep, as we posted already. And our Master: “No beauty without ugliness.”
Nachtrag von Dina und Selma: Keine schöne englische Landschaft ohne Schafe, aber das bloggten wir ja schon hier. Und Masterchen: “Kein Schönheit ohne das Hässliche.”

 

© Text and illustrations: Hanne Siebers and Klausbernd Vollmar, Cley next the Sea, 2016

154 thoughts

  1. Dear friends in Cley,
    like so many others, I just LOVE the English countryside. Beautiful and romantic, just as Dina’s photos. You are so very privileged and lucky to be right in the middle of all this cozyness, but I know you know you are … 🙂
    Kram,
    Annalena

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    Reply

    • Good morning, dear Annalena,
      yes, we know that we are kind of priviledged to be able to live here.
      We liked the cosyness of the rural landsape in Sweden as well – and rural living in Sweden, especially in winter, was for us a highlight in cosyness.
      KRAM xxxx
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  2. As always, you stimulate our minds to think. Then you also stimulate our eyes and hearts with vivid images.
    Perceptions of beauty do differ of course; but the beauty of nature, whether in England, Norway, or Arizona, is the true beauty.
    It has no need of the hand of Man to help it flourish.
    Love from Beetley. Pete and Ollie. X

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    Reply

    • Good morning, dear Pete,
      we just watched a mother with five chicks enjoying our garden. Beautiful! Even if they actually don’t belong here.
      ‘Pure nature’ is beautiful but it’s ugly and dangerous as well, isn’t it?! Plants fight against each other. You can see this best in extreme circumstances like in the Arctic. F.e. lichen try to conquer darker stones (as they are warmer) and then produces an acid to kill weaker lichens there and to keep this place for them alone. And everybody having a garden experiences how plants are trying to overgrow others. It’s like in the animal kingdom: eat or being eaten.
      With lots of love and all the best for this week to you and Ollie
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • Nature does have a cruelty, KB. But cruelty is the interpretation we give it. What they are doing is simply surviving, as you know.
      There is no supermarket for the lichens, or corner shop for the big cats in Africa. I am sure it is only humans who are deliberately cruel for the sake of it, and not just to survive.
      The sun is out in Beetley! X

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    • Dear Pete,
      cruelty is an interpretation as beauty is. That’s the problem, all these terms are historically and ideologically formed notions. They have a highly subjective and an objective side. Oh dear, as longer we think about beauty, nature and art as less we have the feeling to understand. But so understanding begins – we hope.
      Here at the coast it’s quite cloudy.
      Enjoy the sunshine xx
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • I was wondering if you still have that rifle, Pete … The pheasant with her 5 small ones in our garden are truly beautiful and they all bring so much joy. Not so much the sinister black cat chasing them every now and then though! This is truly the ugly side of Nature.
      Love from windy Cley,
      Dina

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  3. This is a lot to think about.It eventually boils down to the English saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.Perceptions of beauty are definitely influenced by things like harshness(desert landscapes ),poverty(an image of a shack),sadness(image of a crying child),cruelty(image of a lion catching its prey) and so on.But real beauty for me is the softness that colour brings to the eye.Your England photo’s are absolutely beautiful!

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    Reply

    • Thank you very much for commenting 🙂
      When we think about beauty we soon meet the question “What’s real beauty?”
      You mention the softness of colour. There is even a physiological reason why this is that pleasing. As softer the colour as less action takes place in the eye and the brain. Our system is more relaxed. Maybe real beauty has a physiological background? But it has to do with the zeitgeist as well, what we are use to idealise – and that’s quite often something we have lost.
      All the best
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • Dear Anneli,
      our problem at the North Norfolk coast is no rain. But last night it rained and we are so happy because all our water butts are half way filled. Most of the spring and summer we are desperate hoping for rain.
      Thanks and enjoy this week
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • In fall and winter we also get some rain but quite often not enough for the whole summer. The pictures are taken in the Lake District and the Dales where it’s much more raining.
      Love from
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  6. Hei,
    when I’m in England, I think there’s no place nicer to be and when I’m in Longyearbyen I think there’s no other place as beautiful as the North.
    To me, the beauty of England equals lush green hills and dales, of course with lots of sheep! 🙂 cottages and old stonehouses, roses, cozy pubs, winding country roads and lanes; the perfect setting for any holiday abroad. But it’s more than that; including GBP, driving on the left side, tea and scones, ale & pie, a language I understand. I’m happy to reject a full English breakfast, but thats only because I start my day with coffee and little else.;-)
    Wishing you a great week ahead of you,
    btw, did Dina get her MacBook back?
    Per Magnus

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    • Good morning, our dear friend Per Magnus,
      concerning Dina’s MacBook we can only quote the saying:
      “Apple is double expensive and half reliable as a PC.”
      The Apple store in Norwich doesn’t seem to be able to find out what the problem is and their service is that lousy that we already have been three times to Norwich. And ironically they call themselves geniuses. Now Dina enjoys my old Vajo.
      Yes, we love everything you mention in England as well. Maybe it is that nearly everything has a tradition and a history in good old England.
      Lots of love to Longyearbyen, by the way, you know, we love Svalbard as well, very very much! Beautiful but in a total different way.
      XXX
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  9. Such a thought provoking post. Siri and Selma are such inquisitive little book fairies aren’t they? Perhaps I am lazy when I label something beautiful. It really is a word that encapsulates so much. I hate flies and yet when I look really closely at a blue bottle, I see beauty in the iridescent body, the perfection of the structure of the eyes. I see beauty everywhere and as a photographer I want to capture it, bottle it, keep it. Beauty feeds the soul and is to be found in the mundane, the ugly if one looks closely enough and of course in the landscape. The green fields of my homeland, the hedges, walls, the division of a landscape tamed by man over a millennia is beautiful in stark contrast to the wild untamed landscape of Iceland and yet even here, we see man’s attempt to tame it and to bring some sort of order to it. It is all beautiful and perhaps this tension between the natural, always just a season away from taking back control and the beauty derived from a lovely garden, so carefully tended, the landscaped gardens of the nineteenth century, Capability Brown’s idea of beauty being to tame and yet replicate the natural landscape. That old adage, beauty is in the eye of the beholder is of course so very true but as with emotion, we cannot have happiness without sadness and we cannot have beauty without ugliness and yet even in the ugly we can find beauty..
    One thing I do know for sure. I’m very much looking forward to enjoying the beauty of North Norfolk again this week and very much looking forward to catching up with the Fab Four! Another great post! 🙂

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    Reply

    • Dear Adrian,
      thanks a lot for your commentary.
      We are looking forward to your comming the day after tomorrow 🙂 And we already planned what we can present of the beauty of Norfolk this time.
      We find the tension, this connection of uglyness and beauty very thought provoking. Our dear Master told us, that without this tension an object will be perceived as kitsch. Ugliness and beauty are different sides of the same coin.
      Beauty is often produced but seems to be most beautiful if not seen as produced, like Brown’s, Kent’s, and Repton’s landscapes. In a time we have lost a lot of nature nature is closely connected with beauty. We idealise what we have lost, the Paradise Lost.
      Anyway we are looking forward to talks and a great time together
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  11. Beauty is subjective, isn’t it, that’s all there is to it. For me, a beautiful landscape can be rendered less beautiful by knowledge of how it came into existence by a historical process possibly unkind to others (a lot of Europe and certainly in today’s China). Currently, England is celebrating the anniversary of the great gardener Capability Brown, but some of his landscapes and lakes meant the destruction of villages, houses and the livelihoods of people. Everything has a price but if we can find a pure, unsullied beauty, then we could celebrate that as truly beautiful.

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    • Thanks for your commentary which made us aware again why we love being in the high Arctic – like NE Greenland, Novaja Semlya, Jan Mayen, Bear Island and Svalbard – so much.
      The German philosopher Hegel made the difference beetween beauty in nature and man-made beauty. Man-made beauty follows a concept like Brown’s, Repton’s etc. and you have to like this concept. Beauty in nature is different. Hegel sees it beyond, meaning lower, as the man-made beauty (das Kunstschöne) because his hightest aim is the mind (der Geist) becoming aware of itself. Anyway, that’s German philosophy and philosophers like Kant and Hegel thought a lot about these problems.
      We have to admit, that we don’t like pure nature so much – except in Arctic and other deserts. For our perception ‘pure nature’ is too chaotic like in the jungle. We like seeing a (clear) structure and that’s what we like in the English man-made nature.
      All the best
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  12. Ideas about the beauty of the English landscape get more complicated when you move to the New World, I think – because what you’re illustrating here (with such “lovely” photos) signifies something we have left, we’ve broken from, yet it’s a part of our deep memory. At least for one segment of North American citizenry…certainly not for others. I agree, it’s a big, complicated topic, and I applaud you for throwing it out there. I resonate with the notion of the Golden Section and Fibonacci series boiling down to irrational numbers…that itself is wonderful. Happy end of August to you all!

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    Reply

    • We absolutely agree, that we see beauty in what we have lost, because we idealise it.
      Beauty was an important topic in the philosophical discussions of the Age of Enlightment. Mainly Kant and Hegel thought about the beauty in nature (das Naturschöne) and man-made beauty (das Kunstschöne). As we wrote above we don’t like pure nature as we don’t like 100% man-made nature. It’s something in between we like and this something is very well achieved in the English landscape, which is man-made nearly everywhere – but nicely made with integrating the past.
      Wishing you a GREAT week and thanks for commenting
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  13. ‘When old age shall this generation waste,
    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
    Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
    ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
    Fascinating post. I can’t wait to follow Per Magnus to Longybeargen next year to experience the far, frozen north. “When I’m in England, I think there’s no place nicer to be and when I’m in Longyearbyen I think there’s no other place as beautiful as the North.”

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    Reply

    • Hi, dear Cindy,
      Einstein and Wiles (who got the Nobel Prize in mathematics) both assured that the beauty of a mathematical formula shows if it’s correct or not. For them beauty is an objective measure having to do with symmetry or other basic geometrical structures. For the German poet Goethe beauty was connected with wholeness and therefore an objective notion (at least in his “Theory of Colours”).
      Anyway this are just some associations to your quote. Keats refers in a romantic way to the classic idea of beauty, which was quite normative as Goethe’s too.
      Thanks and all the best
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • Dear Cindy,
      I’m absolutely intrigued by the thought of you travelling to Spitsbergen next year!! I’m sure you are going to love the Arctic North. Do you mind telling us how you are travelling? Are you cruising from Europe or maybe America or do you go by plane to Norway?
      Warm greetings from North Norfolk,
      Dina

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    • I am just reading a book full of information about Svalbard and especially Spitsbergen:
      Corey Sandler: Henry Hudson, NYC 2007
      Sandler missed his topic Henry Hudson but writes a lot about modern Spitsbergen.
      And, by the way, I love Spitsbergen, especially the North, the seven islands (Sjuöjane), and Northeast Land.
      Have a great time there up North
      Klausbernd

      Liked by 1 person

  15. One really has to go there to appreciate England to its fullest. There are few other places that can match the gentleness of the rolling hills, the marvelous and meticulous fieldstone walls, the almost-watercolor pastels. Thank you all for your reminder of this serenity.

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    Reply

    • Good evening, dear Sue,
      thank you very much for commenting.
      Well, that beauty is subjective is a modern idea inspired by theories about perception. But for long time beauty was seen as an objective notion. It was seen as expressing a wholeness (Goethe), as following harmony expressed in geometrical terms (from the Greek classic to modern architecture of 20th c) or the physiology of perception (like in theories about seeing).
      As longer as we think about beauty we are not so sure if beauty is subjective. In a way it seems to us that is subjective by depending on the horizon of reception of the perceiver but on the other hand it follows archetypal and mathematical structure which are objective. Well, we have to think about it much more …
      All the best to you, warm greetings from
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

    • Actually we didn’t really see the whole dimension of BEAUTY before starting to answer the comments. We didn’t imagine that beauty is such a complex topic.
      And we are aware that we have to think about it much more.
      With love from Cley next the Sea
      The Fab Four

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Ah-ha, My Fab Four of Cley challenge me once again to actually use my brain for something other than a hat rack.
    I noticed in 3 of the photographs, we not only see the classic designs of the homes, but the ever-changing views of Nature that must occur as the sun settles and the seasons progress. The animals appear as content in their serene environment as their human caretakers, I imagine, to be. Perhaps beauty in Nature is where we see surroundings we would likely wish to be.
    Take care and have a Beautiful weekend! 🙂
    GP Cox

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    Reply

    • Dear Tiny,
      indeed, it’s the light and the shadow that brings a certain drama which beauty needs.
      Great, that you like our post and the pictures 🙂
      With warm greetings from the tiny (!) village next the big sea
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  20. Very nice essay and photos. Interesting that when we think to limit the discussion to the beauty of nature, some photographers would search out and edit scenes to ensure an absence of people, buildings, industrial objects, or any sort of landscaping, because they define natural beauty in part, as absence of people or objects they’ve made, but here, each photo has human elements visible, even the flock of sheep, with their dye-marks. Was it Gainsborough (?) who always included a human figure in his huge landscapes, not just for scale but maybe because we cannot conceive of “nature” without human beings in it. I personally like to see a house, of whatever style, that is situated with a genuine feel for the surroundings, so it seems to be perfectly comfortable in its natural setting.

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    • Good afternoon, dear Robert,
      we agree with you: beauty is always connected to the human world. Landscapes photographed without human elements are a romantic lie – at least in central Europe, North America, and most of Asia like we know it. Beauty nowadays is man-made and as we said before, we don’t like ‘pure nature’ (with the exception of deserts). We like the mixture of man-made beauty and nature, the charming combination.
      For us a house or a village, even a market town fitting in it’s landscape makes the whole setting beautiful.
      The photographer is alienated from it’s surroundings, hiding behind his or her camera, and when he/she then blogs out the human world (which is actually not possible in our areas) it’s for us a document of alienation which has nothing to do with beauty.
      Thanks for your comment making us aware of a new aspect
      The Fab Four of Cley

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  21. You always give me something to consider. For me, beauty tells a story – our individual narrative. And we each decide what that story will be!! We may borrow the ideas of others but to truly experience the depths of beauty is to embrace the full spectrum of life – joy, sorrow, hope, gratitude! Many hugs and lots of love to my dear friends the Fab Four. Thank you for a great conversation!

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  22. My mind immediately thinks of beauty as a positive expression (as opposed to thinking of ugliness being negative).
    While beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I think we all relate descriptions to the senses (regardless of who we are and what we determine might be beautiful).

    Just like there is no way to describe a perfume except on comparing it to a fruit or flower etc. e.g. citrus tang like an lemon or sweet as jasmine or woody (like pine).

    Errrrr……..same with food I guess.

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    Reply

    • Hi, dear Vicki,
      oh dear, it’s not easy to think and write about beauty. As you write, it’s hard to grasp. When we wrote this post we had long discussions with our Master and Dina. In the end we found this form to write our essay about beauty. But now answering the comments we are drawn deeper and deeper into the problem writing about beauty. Now we don’t even have a slightest feeling that we understand what beauty is.
      We agree it’s like food – food for our senses or, like Adrian and Su wrote above, for our soul.
      Lots of love
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

  24. Dieses Grün geht mir total schön auf die Sehnerven. Der Optiker rief gerade an: Die neuen Brillen sind fertig.
    Eine Lesebrille in Rosa-Magenta! Todschick! Dann werde ich mir diese Bilder im Detail anschauen, finden sie den Fehler?!
    Vielleicht hört man auch besser mit der richtigen Brille…
    Bis später!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Hi, liebe Pia,
      ja, das Grün, das Steiner “das tote Bild des Lebens” nannte. Immerhin mittig im Farbenkreis an der Genze von warm und kalt, hell und dunkel.
      Bis dann.
      Liebe Grüße
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • So, jetzt sehe ich auch wieder das Kleingedruckte!
      Beim Aufräumen der Bücher fiel mir John Michell´s “So ist die Welt gebaut” in die Hände, schön!
      Dass die Kreiszahl ins Unendliche driftet, hat sicherlich einen wichtigen Grund, oder?
      Manche finden Barbie schön, ist das hormonell bedingt?
      Über den Goldenen Schnitt lernte ich erst spät, denn Kunst viel weg, zugunsten von Musik.

      In England, so scheint es mir, wird die Natur geachtet, in die Architektur und den Lebensstil einbezogen. Es gibt bestimmt englische “Hässlichkeit”.
      Waren vorher auch schon rote Flecken auf den Schafen? Genial diese neuen Brillen!
      Ich befürchte, mir würde Schönheit nicht langweilig (allerdings ohne Hässlichkeit kennen gelernt zu haben??)

      Draußen wird mit einem Presslufthammer der Brunnen erneuert, durch geschlossene Fenster zu hören, grauenvoll!
      Dabei ruft der ach so schöne grüne Wald gaaaaaanz laut….

      Sende herzliche Grüße vom Schillerplatz nach Glücks-Cley

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    • Liebe Pia,
      Gratulation zur neuen Brille.
      Klar, es gibt England auch Hässliches speziell in den alten Industriegebieten, grauenvoll.
      Aber ansonsten, d.h. außerhalb dieser Gebiete ist England ziemlich idyllisch, da – wie du gesehen und geschrieben hast – alles anmutig zusammenpasst, wohl weil Altes und Neues oft harmonisch verbunden wird.
      Die Schafe waren auch schon vor der industriellen Revolution markiert, wir glauben, es war auch damals mit Farbe.
      Schönen Durchblick
      Vielen Dank
      Mach’s gut
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • Dear Jacqui
      actually we had not enough rain in Norfolk and the east coast like every year, but fortunately we had some rain in the early summer this year 🙂 It was enough for a lush vegetation and the flowers in Siri’s and Selma’s garden 🙂 🙂
      With lots of love from the North Norfolk coast to California
      The Fab Four of Cley

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    • Good afternoon, dear Jo,
      Dina loves the Herdwick-shep. She and Siri and Selma wanted to take two sheep home.
      We are enjoying a brilliant summer right now – actually it’s too hot especially for Selma and Dina. We hope you have a sunny summer as well 🙂
      With lots of love
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Lady Fi,
      thank you very much.
      Oh dear, right now we are hoping for rain. It’s hot, sunny, and terribly dry.
      Wishing you a happy day
      The Fab Four of Cley 🙂

      Like

  31. Yes, the photographs are excellent and capture beautiful scenes. But what do I mean by ‘beautiful’?
    I think there are some experiences in life that cannot be adequately explained – cannot be defined/constrained by words. Indeed, to try to analyse them – examining their component qualities or characteristics – reduces or dilutes their full impact At best we are focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause. When a person says something is ‘beautiful, we may not share their opinion but we can understand what they are trying to say, and that is what communication is about.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Dear Louis
      thank you very much for your thoughtful commentary.
      We have to admit we cannot decide if reflecting one’s feelings enriches them or reduces them. Especially Siri and our dear Master are convinced that you need to reflect your feelings otherwise you feel what your surrounding wants you to feel. Our dear Dina and Selma believe in the pure and un-alienated feelings, whereas Siri and our Master doubt that those feelings exist without reflection. They think reflecting is cleansing one’s feeling.
      Well, as we said, we four cannot agree and maybe one cannot decide such a question …
      Have a happy day
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

  32. Ja!
    England ist wahrlich schön! Nicht nur von der Landschaft her sondern auch vom way of life! Wir schwärmen immer noch von unserem Englandaufenthalt im Frühjahr.
    Manchmal ist Schönheit nicht zu beschreiben und eher subjektiv.
    Liebe Grüße von Susanne und Micha

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Guten Tag, liebe Susanne,
      schön, dass es euch so gut bei uns gefallen hat 🙂
      Als Intellektuelle können Siri und Masterchen es schwer nur ertragen, dass etwas nicht zu erklären ist. Wie in unserer Antwort gerade im vorigen Kommentar geschrieben, sind Siri und Masterchen der Ansicht, Reflektion reinigt die sonst manipulierten Gefühle und ist die Voraussetzung dazu, statt Kitsch echte Schönheit zu erkennen. Ganz anderes jedoch Dina und Selma, die auf das spontane Gefühl vertrauen, das, wie sie meinen, ihnen deutlich zeigt, was schön ist und was nicht.
      Der easy way out wäre nun zu sagen, da haben wohl beide Recht. Man würde damit die Dialektik der Wahrnehmung ansprechen. Ja, wir sollten einfach den Widerspruch stehenlassen und ihn als eine der Grundlagen der Spannung für den bewertenden Begriff “schön” ansehen.
      Ganz liebe Grüße vom hochsommerlichen England, das wir nur noch draußen im Garten im Schatten des Feigenbaums genießen.
      Und GRATULATION für das Bestehen deiner BA Prüfung 🙂 Daran haben wir nie gezweifelt, dass du diese Prüfung bestehen würdest.
      Mach’s gut
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

    • Guten Morgen, ihr Fab Four of Cley, das ist eine schöne Formulierung Klausbernd: “den Widerspruch stehenlassen”! Ich lese immer wieder gerne Aufsätze über die Ästhetik und bin erstaunt, dass es dazu auch immer wieder neue Gedanken gibt. Es ist ein weites Feld, die Schönheit!
      Herzlichen Dank für die Gratulation, ich bin schon bei der ersten Hausarbeit für den Master und werde schauen, was mir das weitere Studium an Erkenntnissen bereitet.
      Jetzt besuche ich gleich eine französische Künstlerin, die ich schon sehr lange kenne und die ich selten sehe. Ich freue mich darauf. Liebe Grüße sendet euch Susanne

      Liked by 2 people

    • Liebe Susanne,
      ja, ich finde die Ästhetik auch ein sehr spannendes Feld. Kennst du die beiden Bücher von Umberto Eco (ich bin ein Fan von ihm) über die Schönheit und über die Hässlichkeit voller Bildbeispiele?
      Also mach’s gut und fröhliche Erkenntnissuche und -findung 🙂
      Vom heißen Cley gaaaaanz, gaaaanz liebe Grüße von uns
      Klausbernd und der Rest der Gang
      Wir gehen jetzt in den Garten und pflanzen einen neuen traditionellen Kräutergarten.

      Like

    • Thank you very much for your kind commentary 🙂
      Now the grass is brown here, it’s too hot and dry. We are desperately waiting for rain to come.
      Love from the little village next the big sea
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

  34. Hach, bei diesen Bildern geht mir mal wieder das Herz auf! Danke, liebe Dina! Und danke den beiden Buchfeen und dem Master für den Text!
    Liebe Grüße an Euch Fab Four im ach so schönen England,
    Pit

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  35. Thank you for the “beautiful” post. 🙂
    One interpretation of the the Tao Te Ching states “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” Perhaps we all know beauty when we see it, but when we speak of it, it is lost.

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    • Good afternoon, dear Thorsaurs,
      thanks for quoting the Tao Te Ching. This quote always reminded us on the Jewish and Islamic prohibition to picture and describe god. And in a way one could see “beauty” as a kind of god or at least god-like, as a highly abstract notion …
      On the other hand, what cannot be named cannot be integrated in our consciousness. Or the other way round: What we are not willing to name is mostly the reproduction of what we are made to see and think by the media and peer groups, or what Louis Althusser and other French structuralists called “ideology”. We wrote in the answers above about this challenge with pure feelings and reflected feelings.
      As intellectuals Siri and our Master stress the reflection for cleansing the feelings, whereas Selma and Dina see it more like Taoism, Judaism, and Islam.
      Maybe we have to think about it a little more – but that’s what blogging is about (for us) to make us think more and deeper. Thanks for your impulse 🙂
      Lots of love
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 2 people

  36. THIS was fabulous: Calling something “beautiful” means an evaluation. Unfortunately beauty is a horribly abstract notion, a term which seduces the speaker to use it without any content. We call everything beautiful or nice, if we don’t find an appropriate adjective. To call something beautiful is often a sign of being too lazy to think.

    Sometimes, perhaps, beauty is just simply beyond our ability or comprehension to describe?

    Fantastic photos. Love the sheep!

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    Reply

    • Thank you very much, dear Julie 🙂
      those sheep are Dina’s friends 😉 she loves the Herdwick sheep like Beatrice Potter.
      Lots of love from the sunny Norfolk coast
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

    • Our dear friend
      thanks a lot for your kind commentary 🙂
      We really do love the English countryside as well, therefore we like to travel rural England and Norfolk of course. Those pictures are from the Lake District and from Norfolk.
      Wishing you a happy day
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

    • Guten Morgen, liebe Ruth,
      ja, der arme BB hing Schilder mit der Aufschrift “Glotzt nicht so romantisch” in seinem Theater auf. Im gewissen Sinne steht dahinter die ganze Idee des “epischen Theaters”. BB war eben sehr edukativ eingestellt, die Betrachter sollten mitdenken, statt mitfühlen (wie es heute bei Hollywood-Filmen mit ihrem Method Acting üblich ist).
      Kram und Dank fürs Kommentieren
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

  40. Test, test, wollte nur mal testen warum meine alten Kommentare jetzt wieder in grüner Farbe erschienen…..grübel….
    Bei dieser Gelegenheit: Herzliche Grüße, hier wird wieder viel getanzt und dazwischen gequasselt….”Dornröschen träumt” kommt demnächst zur Aufführung, oje, habe ich noch viel zu tun!!!
    Schöne Zeit im schönen England!

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    • Hi, liebe Pia,
      bei uns kommen deine Kommentare nicht grün an.
      Puh, ist es heiß hier! Wir genießen den tollen Sommer, aber laufen ständig in den Garten, den armen Pflänzchen ihren Drink zu geben.
      Feines fröhliches Tanzen
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

    • GRÜN passt doch bestens zu Thema und als beruhigende Farbe ist es passend.
      Es gibt einige edle, meist fein handgesetzte Bücher, die in Reseda-Grün gedruckt wurden. Ich habe eine Parzival-Ausgabe, die von Franz Greno, einen tollen deutschen Drucker in Nördlingen, produziert wurde.
      Alles Liebe
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

    • Siri, Selma, ich höre gerade wieder Bonni Swans, wollt ihr mit mir tanzen, zum gefühlt 1001sten mal? Oder noch öfter…
      sagt bloß dem Masterchen nix…Geheimnis! Sonst will der noch mittanzen…ok, wenn er unbedingt will…..

      Liked by 1 person

    • Voll schön das Interview! Und dieses Gefühl von Entspannung! Träumend den IQ entfalten..,das klingt ja wunderbar!
      Leider, draußen wird es gleich laut, heutsamerwiederlustig, auf dem Schillerplatz ist Kerwe, traditionell am ersten September Wochenende. Wir gehen noch eine Runde Himalaya fahren mit den Feen, dann schicke ich sie wieder heim, versprochen!
      Liebste Grüße!

      Liked by 1 person

  41. I believe no one who sees Dina’s photos can deny the beauty of the English landscape!
    Eftersom jag alltid har varit en anglofil – I love England and its rolling hills, its grazing sheep and the England of Turner and Thomas Hardy. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I agree, and there are many brilliant definitions and explanations given in your essay as well as in the comments. It often comes natural to human beings to think of the landscape we grew up in as beautiful. You give us many thoughts to reflect upon…as usual. Some thoughts:
    I would like to add the beauty of language. The way authors write to sweep us off our feet and just…enjoy the flow. The use of words, the magical words, the dangerous words. Pictures is the way we communicate mostly in modern society, and words are not that important any longer…at least that is what I, sadly enough, have learned. This is one of the main reasons to why I finished my job as a teacher.
    I am an advocate of both pictures and words. I once wrote an essay on the similarities of Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Turner’s paintings. I still find the connection/mirroring fascinating. If you have the ability of using words to create live pictures in the reader’s mind – you are indeed gifted.
    “A Beautiful Mind” is an astonishing movie – and I appreciate the choice of words for a movie title…Lazy I am in the sense that- maybe I use the word “beautiful” too much, but I do find many things in life just – beautiful. In Swedish I more often use the word “underbar”. Do you, Dina, see a difference between these two words? And what is the most used word for it in German?
    Thank you for a brilliant essay that made my morning!

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    • Good morning, dear Leya,
      thank you very, very much for your GREAT commentary 🙂
      We love the beauty of the words very much as well and we especially like if there is a certain rhythm of the language or special metaphors and pictures. By the way we think words are still very important not only in poetry and novels but in politics too.
      “underbar” is “wunderbar” in German, a word which was much more used in former times than today. In “wunder-bar” you find the word “wunder” which means “wonder” or “miracle”. That means the connotation of “wunderbar” has to do with something miraculous, something beyond human doing which is astonishing.
      Typically for German is the most used verb which is “arbeiten” (to work). The most used word of all words in the German language is “du” (you) followed by “ich” (I).
      Dina will surely write how it’s in Norwegian – but we suppose it’s very similar to Swedish as both languages share the same roots (in a way even German does).
      Of course the German language has changed quite a lot within the last twenty years, especially there are new expressions and the meaning of old words has changed. An example is “geil” which meant “happy” during the Middle Ages, “horny” for a long time then, and “great” today and it became a word much more used today than ever before.
      Your commentary made us think about if we could see a text as a landscape?
      The best texts describing landscapes, at least for us, were written during the Age of Romanticism and Neo-Romanticism – at least in German (and in the Fayrie language as well, as Siri and Selma told us).
      Wishing you a great weekend
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Like

    • Thank you for an interesting answer – and yes, the change of meaning is significant in Swedish words too. The English influence is of course very obvious. For example the word “simpel”was a negative word in the old days – almost meaning “bad”. Today it is used more in the English meaning, and that I find hard to take into Swedish… Our old texts will easily be misunderstood or even not understandable anymore with the extensive sliding of meaning. “Gay” is of course the traditional example, where in the old texts it means happy and joyous.
      I am convinced texts could be seen as landscapes and I agree on the ages you mention as nursing the best descriptions here. And in the Fayrie language of course!
      Thank you for another interesting topic. Have a great Sunday, all Fab Four!

      Liked by 1 person

    • Good afternoon, dear Ann Christine,
      I’m currently reading an interesting book by Bill Bryson; “Mother Tongue”, a book about the English language. First of all, I have to say, it was first published in 1990 and it has not aged very well. Some statistics are well out of date, from before the internet and all the new ways of communicating via pc-smartphones changed our language. But if you like grammar, you’ve got love this work about the origin of the language. Do you know it?

      As for your question about the Norwegian language, I’m not very updated on my mother language. I have lived abroad for 35 years and if I see something that strikes me as outstandingly beautiful, I say “vakkert!” Vakker/t is for me crisp, clean and arctic sober like a spring stream with clear water. I love the Swedish “underbar”, it contains magic and a profound satisfaction, the more I appreciate what I see, the longer I stretch the uuuuuuunderbart! Sweden is close to my heart, et vakkert land with lots of underbare places. ❤

      Wishing you a great Sunday too!

      Like

    • Good evening, dear Dina, and thank you for informing about the Bryson book – I am not familiar with it, but I will certainly go to the library and try to find it. And “vakkert” said in your mother tongue is really “vakkert”!

      Liked by 1 person

  43. I’ve never had the opportunity to fall in love with the English countryside, but one line in here really resonated with me “a romantic passion for the rural, which was seen as innocent paradise”. I suspect that is why some of us – like me – feel a bond or kinship with being in the country, while others – like my husband – do not. He fails to see its ‘romantic passion’.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Dear Joanne,
      thanks a lot for commenting.
      Most of the people we know here feeling a bond with the countryside did live in big cities before. F.e. we used to live in New York City, Montreal, Berlin, Stockholm and Hamburg before we moved to Cley next the Sea. People who have grown up in smaller towns or in villages usually don’t have this romantic passion.
      All the best
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

    • Interesting – I think that as we age, the pace of the city starts to grind us down.
      In our case, it was the opposite. I’m originally from a small rural community but have lived in a large city for a long time now.
      My husband has lived his life in a city. The countryside holds no appeal for him.

      I suspect our hearts pull us towards happy memories of our childhood. For many people that likely includes the gentle spaces of the great outdoors.

      Liked by 1 person

  48. Yes, the hedges, the coastline, the sky. Also the hills, the cliffs. I like the questions you ask about beauty and can’t answer any of them. But something about the English countryside touches me in a way that goes beyond the rational. As if there’d always been a hole in me of exactly that shape.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Dear Ellen,
      thank you very much. We feel the same. It’s really hard to analyse what makes England so beautiful – but nevertheless we know that it is beautiful.
      We wish you a happy Sunday
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

  49. When I was young I used to daydream about living in the English or Scottish countryside. I was obviously influenced by pictures and TV shows depicting the beautiful and serene villages, etc. But now I have settled in north Georgia (USA) amongst the green hills and woods. This will be as close as I get but I love it! 😍

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Good morning, dear Linda,
      living in the English countryside is great. And it’s not the nature and architecture only it’s the people as well. There are these eccentrics everywhere. Quite often we have the feeling being in a time machine ended up in the 19. c.
      North Georgia – that sounds great to us as well and what matters most is that you love it!
      Have a happy week
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 1 person

    • We love England and we are happy to bring this part of the world a bit closer to you.
      Thank you the follow!
      Warm greetings from one expat to another! 🙂
      All the best for you and Biene in Canada,
      Dina and Klausbernd, Siri & Selma

      Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you, Dina! Your kind comment and warm greetings are very much appreciated. My wife’s name is Biene (bee in German). As a little girl she was afraid of bees, hence her nickname. Greetings from Fauquier, BC!

      Like

  52. How, How did you capture these shots, there is depth, colors look perfect, there is no over exposure, even the sheep are happy to get themselves clicked. The situation I am in is , when you see a painters work and you just keep looking in silence. Keep Clicking…

    Liked by 2 people

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  53. Good Post. Congratulations! …It must be because I am too lazy for it, that I Never have questions like ‘What is Beauty?’ etc. …For me at times even a twig is beautiful, but I spend my time on Enjoying Beauty rather than thinking about that. I think about Other things, though, as must be apparent from my blog.

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    • That’s maybe a cultural difference: We feel European deep in our hearts and that means that we stand under influence of the age of enlightenment from the philosopher Kant and Hegel to French structuralism f.e. We, at least we Fab Four, experience the world by thinking about it. Our thinking gives us security and an insight in the nature of all things. But, of course, thinking is always influenced by feelings. Actually the ideal would be if mind and feelings would merge (what they quite often do, but mostly unconsciously).
      It’s a daring idea: We have the feeling that in Asia to understand oneself and the world around the stress is on the feelings whereas in Europe it’s on the thinking. And from this background you can understand our reflections about what’s beauty. Beauty is an analytical description of a relation and a kind of feeling at the same time.
      With lots of love from the Nort Norfolk coast
      The Fab Four of Cley

      Liked by 2 people

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