Beauty and Function

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

– William Morris

 

William Morris, an English textile designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and English Arts and Crafts Movement.

I am on this kick right now to rid my home of anything I’m not using. For too long have I been lugging around baggage from years gone by that is only collecting dust. Therefore, when I came across this quote today I had to post it as a record of this season in my life.

It’s lovely that Morris connects the ideas of useful (or functional) with beautiful. I believe true beauty must be functional. Otherwise beauty is mere vanity.

True beauty serves a very important purpose as it warms and uplifts the heart in remembrance of the Creator of beauty, even if it’s on a subconscious level of thought. When I see true beauty it resonates with my soul, brings me peace, and merriment of heart, without me even realizing it’s happening sometimes.

It has been written, “a merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones” {Prov 17:22}. I wonder if the writer of those words ever connected beauty with it’s merry-heart-function? If we surround ourselves with true beauty, I wonder if we will notice a difference in our countenance.

I find it intriguing that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” so they say, but the merry-heart-function of beauty is the same for every beholder, regardless of what they consider beautiful. Don’t you think?