Piękno jawne i piękno ukryte
Open and Concealed Beauty

Summary/Abstract: Today, the process of embarking upon the theme of beauty resembles setting off on a journey to Atlantis or some other legendary land about which we know only that, which had been written in ancient tomes. (…) Beauty has become unreliable and thus relegated to the shadows. Some find this relegation to their liking, while others are troubled by it. Such polarisation is the reason why a debate about beauty assumes an ideological hue, and instead of observing and testing the credibility of the arguments we often find ourselves on a battlefield where it is so easy to lose one’s head. I wonder how to find myself since I feel that important arguments are arranged equally on both sides and, in addition, incessantly pass from one camp to the other. How is one not to share the doubts voiced by Yeats, namely, whether a work of art, regardless how proportionate and luminous it might be, can become a gate open to the extra-sensual world? On the other hand, how is one to trust those who believe upon an unknown basis that beauty always lies – as if the crisis of metaphysics would perforce deprive it of all meaning?

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