Reflection 50 (understanding beauty)

The beauty of not understanding beauty

I can truly enjoy a night sky full of stars. The heavenly lights make a visual spectacle more beautiful than any painting can be.  Often I wonder whether I would enjoy the nightly skies as much if would know all constellations of stars. Somehow I think I my mind would be busy looking for patterns rather than just soaking in the beauty of the whole sky. 

When we were in Oslo, I had an experience that perhaps could answer at least to a certain extent this question. We went to visit Vigaland park. A beautiful park with wonderful trees, large areas of grass and 200 granite statues all made by and under the supervision of the artist Vigaland.

In the morning we went to visit the park by ourselves and we truly enjoyed the beauty of it all. We did not fully understand the meaning of it all but still had a very good time in the park

In the afternoon we had a guided tour in Oslo and the park was part of the tour. The guide was explaining the concept of the artist and was really passionately explaining all emotions that the artist had expressed through his many works that were shown in the park. It gave a new dimensions to it all. It was a completely different experience.

I had enjoyed both, the morning visit and the afternoon visit but the two visits were completely different from each other. So I think now that understanding and knowledge of things of beauty is resulting in a rich experience but is not essential to let us enjoy the beauty.