Create according to the laws of beauty. Electronic Library of the International Center of the Roerichs
BEAUTIFUL- the most significant and broadest aesthetic category. The term beautiful sometimes acts as a synonym for aesthetic. It is no coincidence that aesthetics is often defined as the science of beauty. In Russian, beauty is close to the term beautiful. Unlike the beautiful, beauty characterizes objects and phenomena mainly from their external and not always essential side. The beautiful refers to concepts in which the object and phenomena are revealed from the point of view of their essence, the regular connections of their internal structure and properties. The category of the beautiful, however, reflects not only its objective foundations, but also the subjective side, expressed in the nature of the perception of these objective foundations, in relation to them, in their assessment. In this sense, one speaks of the beautiful as a value, because it is perceived as positive a phenomenon that evokes a whole range of feelings, ranging from calm admiration to stormy delight.
The struggle between materialism and idealism in aesthetics is primarily a struggle between the materialistic and idealistic understanding of beauty, since it occupies a central place in the structure of aesthetic consciousness. The sense of beauty, that is, the sense of form, volume, color, rhythm, symmetry, harmony, and other elementary manifestations of objective aesthetic consciousness, has developed as a result of human labor activity on the basis of his psychobiological evolution. Chronologically, this refers to the Middle and Late Paleolithic (more than forty thousand years BC). This conclusion is made by historians, archaeologists on the basis of an analysis of the beginnings of the artistic and aesthetic activity of a person of that time. The genesis of the sense of beauty cannot be represented as the emergence of the most beautiful. Its objective foundations and laws existed even before a person acquired the ability to perceive, correctly realize and evaluate them.
The first attempts to comprehend the category of beauty are found among the peoples of Ancient Egypt, Babylon, etc. However, only in Ancient Greece there are scientific ideas about beauty. In the epic, the terms "beautiful", "beauty", "harmony" are found. Further, these concepts are operated by the Pythagoreans. For them, harmony acts as a "consent of those who disagree." It is identical to the concepts of "perfection" and "beauty". Harmony is a universal category, since it is manifested in the structure of the cosmos, in all objects and phenomena of reality and in art. It rests on regular quantitative relations, which can be calculated strictly mathematically. They illustrated their idea by the example of the analysis of the mathematical foundations of musical intervals.
The founder of ancient dialectics, Heraclitus of Ephesus, like, sees the objective basis of beauty in harmony, but he does not reduce it to numerical relations, but sees it in the objective properties of material things. Beauty, according to Heraclitus, is a relative property. Thus, the most beautiful ape is ugly in comparison with the human race. The relativity of the beautiful is determined by belonging to different kinds. The naive-materialistic nature of this concept is obvious. Democritus, the founder of materialistic atomism, has an even more distinct materialist tendency in the interpretation of beauty. In his opinion, the essence of beauty lies in the measure, symmetry, harmony of objects and phenomena of reality.
Starting from , in the interpretation of beauty, relativistic and subjectivist tendencies are found. For Socrates, the beautiful is no longer an absolute property of an object and phenomenon. Beauty appears only in relation, in particular in relation to the purposeful activity of man. A beautiful thing is a thing suitable for something. “Everything is good and beautiful in relation to what it is well adapted for, and, on the contrary, bad and ugly in relation to what it is badly adapted for” (Xenophon).
The objective-idealistic theory of the beautiful is formulated. Beautiful for him is absolute, that is, it is “beautiful for everyone and always”, does not change, does not decrease and does not increase. This is something supersensible, a certain idea, and therefore it is comprehended not by the senses, but by the mind. There is a metaphysical-idealistic approach to this category. The philosophical and aesthetic theory of Plato was criticized by Aristotle. Aristotle considers the main signs of beauty to be "coherence, proportion and certainty." Among the signs of beauty, he also includes integrity and "the size is easily visible." Here, for the first time, the conditions for the perception of beauty are taken into account.
Further V relativistic and idealistic tendencies are intensifying. Mystical ideas were especially clearly manifested by Plotinus, who influenced the aesthetic thought of the Western Middle Ages. According to the medieval thinker Augustine, God is absolute beauty. In the sensory world, it manifests itself as unity, proportionality, correspondence of parts, together with a certain pleasantness of color (the question of color is raised for the first time). Thomas Aquinas, like Augustine, sees the source of beauty in God. He considers the following as its sensually perceived signs: wholeness, or perfection, for a flaw makes an object ugly; due proportion, or consonance; clarity is that which has a brilliant color. It is easy to see that Thomas follows in the footsteps of Aristotle, but unlike the Greek thinker, he interprets this category from purely theological positions.
representatives of the arts and aesthetics of the Renaissance, despite the well-known differences in approach, on the whole give a materialistic interpretation of the category of beauty. So, L. Alberti sees the objective foundations of beauty in consonance, agreement of parts, harmony. The latter is conceived by him as the primary, absolute principle of nature. Similar views are held by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, L. Ghiberti and others.
Beauty, therefore, is regarded as an objective property of the real world.
IN aesthetics of classicism we are witnessing a departure from the materialistic traditions of the Renaissance. So, Poussin directly points out that the beautiful has nothing to do with matter. Harmony, which streamlines matter - the spiritual principle, is introduced from the outside. This harmony is absolutely invariant. Idealistic normativism in the interpretation of beauty is also characteristic of other representatives of the aesthetics of classicism, especially Boileau.
During the Age of Enlightenment various concepts of beauty are put forward. The English Enlightenment is characterized by a sensationalist-empirical interpretation of this category. True, the speculative tendencies that found expression in Shaftesbury also persist here. Form as an ordering principle is understood like Platonic ideas. Beauty appears in three forms: dead forms (statues, buildings, human body); forms that create forms (mind); forms that create form-creating forms. The latter are something analogous to the ideas of Plato.
E. Burke shows the most consistent materialistic line in the interpretation of the category of beauty. He denies those views that the foundations of beauty see in proportionality, usefulness, perfection, etc. The true foundations of beauty, in his opinion, are:
1. comparative smallness of objects;
2. smooth surface of objects;
3. gradual transition of changes in subjects;
4. objects should not be angular;
5. delicate structure;
6. clean, light, but not sharp coloring of objects.
Beauty Burke, thus, identifies with the specific material properties of objects and phenomena.
The famous theorist of painting and artist Hogarth considered the basis of beauty harmonic combination unity and diversity. He saw an example of this unity in the serpentine line.
That., in the aesthetics of the English Enlightenment materialistic tendencies were clearly manifested in the interpretation of the category of beauty. But idealistic views on this category were also formulated here. Indicative in this regard are the concepts of D. Hume and D. Berkeley. Hume denies the existence of c.-l. the objective foundations of beauty, it is nothing but human experience. A similar position is taken by Berkeley, one of the founders of the subjective idealism of modern times.
From the French Enlightenment D. Diderot expresses the most consistently materialistic view of the beautiful. “... I call everything outside me beautiful,” he writes, “that contains what awakens the idea of relationships in my mind, and everything that awakens this idea in me is beautiful for me.” Concretizing his thought, Diderot reveals the concept of relation. It finds expression in order, proportion, symmetry, wholeness. Thus, as its basis, the beautiful has various natural connections of reality.
In German classical aesthetics First of all, the concept of I. Kant deserves attention. He is not interested in the objective signs of beauty, but in the subjective conditions of its perception and the nature of aesthetic judgments. Aesthetic judgment is characterized the following signs: disinterest in the real existence of the object, admiring the pure form; generality and necessity without rationale; expediency without presenting some goal. Kant rejects the beautiful from truth, goodness, usefulness, as a result of which it becomes something purely formal. True, along with “free” formal beauty, the philosopher admits the existence of “incoming” beauty, which has a substantial character. But this is no longer pure beauty.
F. Schiller criticized Kant's subjectivist interpretation of beauty. He recognizes the existence of an objective basis of beauty: proportionality, correctness, and other forms of order. By themselves they do not create beauty, but they are necessary conditions. Schiller defines beauty as "freedom in appearance". The category of beauty is analyzed in the most detailed way by Hegel. He defines it as the sensuous expression of an idea. In nature, the idea of beauty is revealed in correctness, symmetry, conformity to law, harmony, purity of material, color, sound, etc. Since nature is devoid of a spiritual ideal, natural beauty is a secondary, lower form. Only in art does it act adequately to the idea of beauty, as an ideal. The Hegelian concept of beauty contains rational thoughts, but in general it is unacceptable, which was well shown by the great Russian thinker N. G. Chernyshevsky. He sharply opposed the idealistic interpretation of the beautiful. According to Chernyshevsky, in nature “there is nothing to look for ideas; it contains heterogeneous matter with heterogeneous qualities. He seeks to understand the beautiful not as abstract harmony, abstract unity in diversity, or disparate material properties of things and phenomena, but as a kind of integrity that accepts the most various forms. This integrity is life in its highest manifestation - in human life. In the category of life, Chernyshevsky synthesizes the concepts of measure, regularity, harmony, expediency. Ideas about beauty, tastes and ideals of people are formed depending on the lifestyle of people. At the same time, the ideals of beauty are not at all equivalent. The great Russian thinker not only reveals the real foundations of beauty, but also reveals the determinism of the perception of beauty depending on social conditions. Chernyshevsky's concept is the highest achievement of pre-Marxist aesthetic thought. Further progress in the theoretical development of aesthetic categories is carried out in Marxist-Leninist aesthetics.
Marxist-Leninist aesthetics considers the category of beauty as one of the most general aesthetic concepts, in which, on the one hand, the real properties of objects and phenomena of reality are fixed, on the other hand, the attitude towards them is expressed. The beautiful contains a positive assessment of objects and phenomena, properties, aspects, processes of reality, both natural and social, including products of material and spiritual production, as well as works of art. In the category of beauty, human dreams of triumph over chaos, of harmony and perfection of life, of the victory of good over evil, truth over lies, the desire to build life on the principles of humanism are embodied.
Speaking of beauty, one should distinguish between its ontological, epistemological and axiological aspects. First of all, the ontological aspect is important. The beautiful is objective in its genesis and content, because it reflects certain aspects, properties, relationships, patterns of objects and phenomena of the real world. It characterizes objects and phenomena in terms of their essence, the main types of connections, in relation to other objects and phenomena. The beautiful is associated with the inner harmony and integrity of objects and phenomena, with their perfection, progressive development, with the affirmative principles of life. Since, speaking of a beautiful person, we mean not only external beauty, but above all a moral spiritual principle, it is quite understandable why truth, goodness, progressive social aspirations, and high ideals are included in the category of beauty.
The anatomical and physiological nature of a person potentially contains the ability of a person's aesthetic attitude to Reality, the perception of beauty. However, the ability to enjoy the beauty of form, the harmony of sounds and colors arises in the process of mastering the real world by a person, primarily in the process of labor activity. The feeling of beauty is characterized by the fact that it rises above the narrowly utilitarian, purely pragmatic attitude to objects and phenomena of reality, to the products of human creativity. In this case, a person is no longer guided only by the need to fight for survival, but relates to an object and phenomenon relatively freely, takes into account their objective measure, the laws of their existence: orderliness, expediency, proportionality, unity of form and content, proportionality, symmetry, harmony and other types objective regular connection within objects and phenomena and between them. At first, intuitively, vaguely, then more and more clearly, a person was aware of these objective patterns. This opened the way for him to free himself from the omnipotence of the laws of nature. He gradually learned them and used his knowledge to change the environment, turning the knowledge of patterns into tools of his activity. The very process of cognition, which ultimately led to an increase in man's power over the laws of nature, evoked a positive emotional reaction in him. The joy of knowledge and the feeling of freedom ultimately in the course of evolution give rise to a special human feeling - the feeling of beauty, give rise to the need for beauty. A person begins to create not only necessary, practically useful, but also beautiful things, that is, he begins to create according to the laws of beauty.
Thus, proportionality, proportionality, perfection, orderliness, harmony of the phenomena of reality is the objective material basis of beauty. Expediency must also be included here. However, these objective properties of nature are only the basis of beauty. They can be perceived and evaluated only by a person who has been formed in the process of labor activity, when he not only cognizes laws, measure, essential connections and relationships, but also makes these cognitions the principles of his activity in accordance with the laws of beauty. Thus, two sides of the issue cannot be confused: the existence of objective foundations and laws of beauty and their perception, their use by a person in his activity and their assessment. The ability to perceive beauty, create according to the laws of beauty, correctly evaluate the beauty of nature, social phenomena, art is a historical product, and the objective foundations of beauty are rooted in the very foundation of matter, in its structure, in the laws of its development.
Discussions are usually about the beauty of nature. Some aesthetes believe that nature is aesthetically neutral. In fact, nature should also be considered as an aesthetic value, especially now that it has become important question protection and rational use of natural resources.
Speaking about the objective foundations of beauty, primarily the beauty of inanimate and living nature, we also find its simplest manifestations: measure, symmetry, harmony, optimality. Symmetry can be observed in crystals, in the structure of insects, plants, animals. In living organisms, beauty is manifested in their perfect, purposeful organization. The evolutionary ladder leads us to a deeper and more comprehensive awareness of the beauty of nature. At the top of the evolutionary ladder is man as the highest embodiment of beauty. A person gradually penetrates into the existing harmony of the world, into its orderliness, shape.
At first, a person does not always catch this world harmony right away. Some forms of wildlife may seem ugly, despite the fact that they are expedient and optimal. This is partly due to the fact that some of them can be dangerous to humans. And it calls negative feelings. But to a greater extent this is due to the limited knowledge of nature as a whole. We often tear living forms out of common system development, and then we are inadequately aware of the individual links of the general chain. Therefore, historically changing ideas about beauty cannot be identified with the very objective foundations. natural beauty. Here the action of social factors is also manifested, which affect the process of human cognition in different ways.
The objective laws of beauty are also manifested in the creative activity of the artist. The artist masters these laws and creates in accordance with them. Of course, a person perceives the beauty of nature not as a biological, but as a social being. Nature is mastered by man through practical activities, and the latter is determined social factors. In the process of practical attitude to nature and to other people, conditional connections are formed in the mind between the phenomena of nature and the phenomena of social life. In this case, certain phenomena of nature can be perceived allegorically in aesthetically. This aspect of beauty natural phenomena has its basis not in the very properties of nature, but in the associations formed between natural and social subjects and phenomena. However, this natural-social, or, more precisely, social, beauty cannot be universalized, because man himself is a part of nature, the general rhythm of the universe pulsates in him. The laws of nature, as well as social ones, determine aesthetic creativity. Man creates not only as "the totality of all public relations', but as a force of nature. These are the natural and social aspects of the category of beauty.
In relation to art, beauty appears in three aspects. A work of art is beautiful if it meets the following requirements: it contributes to the establishment of the harmony of social relations, that is, it is progressive in content; is a true reflection of reality and thereby contributes to the establishment of the harmony of social ties; has a significant content, expressed in an adequate form, expressively, expressively, masterfully.
Contemporary bourgeois aesthetics actually excluded from consideration the problem of the beautiful. On the one hand, this is due to the decline of philosophical thought, on the other hand, it is due to a pessimistic assessment of the prospects for the development of mankind. Hence the aestheticization of the ugly, the ugly, even the admiration of the negative, the negative, the ugly.
The art of socialist realism affirms the great ideals of the beautiful and the perfect. The highest embodiment of beauty is a comprehensively and harmoniously developed personality.
Different people perceive nature differently. Some see its external enchanting beauty, watching it from the train window, others can watch the life of the forest for hours, peer into its exciting charm of white-trunked birch trees, variegated meadows, spruce round dance and experience the joy of wonderful meetings with the outside world.
Nature is a wonderful workshop! In the hands of a craftsman with the soul of an artist, everything turns into extraordinary, amazing crafts.
Nature has endowed us with an amazing ability to fantasize, to create from her gifts.
Working with natural material is fraught with great opportunities and brings the child closer to native nature. Nature is generous and varied. You just have to look around and you will find a lot of materials for creating crafts. These are cones and nuts. Fruits and herbs, roots and bark of trees, river and sea stones and shells, branches different trees, tubers and bulbs of various plants, seeds of trees and flowers, seeds of various fruits and much more. The fairy-tale world of forest men, outlandish animals, birds and ready-made compositions give us a forest and a field. It is only necessary to discern the future product in a knot, snag, cone or nut.
Acorns are a wonderful natural material, accessible to everyone: both the shape and color of these fruits are ideal for composing compositions with people and animals. Tree bark can serve as stands for figurines. From acorns you can create wonderful figures: "Squirrel" , "Cat" , "Football player" and etc.
Universal ornamental material - straw of rye, oats, wheat. Straw lends itself perfectly to processing: it is smoothed, cut, painted. Straw appliques are very beautiful, but they are even more beautiful in the light of lamps. The light falling on the straw makes it sparkle, shimmer and burn "gold" . Straw applique is painstaking work, it brings up accuracy in work. perseverance. From the straw you can make: "Rose" , "Herringbone" , "Sunset" , "Congratulations on March 8" and etc.
Unusually interesting natural material - scales of cones of spruce, pine, cedar. Working with cone scales, children show a lot of diligence, ingenuity, and imagination. The main thing is that children believe in themselves and are not afraid to create with their own hands. From pine cones can be made Christmas decorations and even an unusual Christmas tree.
A lot of creative joy is brought to children by work from the needles of coniferous trees, the bark of various trees, maple and birch leaves. Amazing crafts are obtained: "Owl" , "Hedgehog" etc.
In the process of working with natural material, children analyze, compare, express their opinion, learn to generalize and draw conclusions.
Working with natural material satisfies the research need in them, awakens in the child a sense of satisfaction, joy, and success. Children see the result of their hard work and it's wonderful!
Cities and districts 21.02.2019
Jury convicts killer
The jury of the Amur Region considered a criminal case on charges of a resident of the city of Zeya in the murder in May 2016 of police officer Taras Sokolyuk. The case was considered on the complaint of the convict, who did not agree with the earlier verdict.
As a result, the jury sentenced the accused of murder to eighteen and a half years in prison to be served in a strict regime colony. The verdict has not entered into force yet.
Counterfeiters Detained
Three banknotes worth five thousand rubles with signs of forgery were found in the outlets of the Skovorodinsky district. Suspicion of counterfeiting fell on two residents of Zeya.
According to the information received, the suspects were detained by officers of the Zeisky Defense Ministry of the Interior of Russia at their place of residence in the city of Zeya. The detainees are taken into custody. Their involvement in similar crimes committed on the territory of the Amur region is being checked.
Test for yourself
For the third time in the Amur Region, an all-Russian action will be held, when the parents of graduates will be able to change places with their children and go through the entire procedure of the Unified State Exam: from the frame of a metal detector to receiving the results. A single day for passing the exam in Zee will be held on February 24 at the Lyceum.
In addition to the parents of 11th graders, the opportunity to pass the exam is provided to officials, public and creative figures.
Quarantine lifted
Rabies quarantine has been lifted in all districts of the Amur Region. The resolution was recently signed by Governor Vasily Orlov.
According to the head of the department of veterinary medicine and livestock breeding of the Amur region, Sergei Samokhvalov, all the necessary measures have been taken in the outbreaks where cases of the disease were previously registered. No patients were identified this year.
Recall that rabies was recorded in four districts of the Amur Region: Mikhailovsky, Zavitinsky, Oktyabrsky and Konstantinovsky. In the last three, the quarantine extended to forests, as the virus was detected in foxes and raccoon dogs. The virus did not reach the Zeya region.
All domestic animals of the southern and central regions have been universally vaccinated against rabies. In general, as reported by the press service of the government of the Amur Region, the situation in the region is assessed as favorable.
The October hospital has its own water
In Oktyabrsky, specialists from the Amur Territorial Institute for Construction Surveys (AmurTISIz) drilled a well specifically for the needs of the hospital. Now the hospital will have its own water.
Initially, no one believed in the success of this event. It was believed that there was no water in the village, and wells had not been drilled before. Water was brought to the village from a spring located outside of Oktyabrsky.
In the process of drilling, before reaching the 30-meter level, the drill broke down, the employees of AmurTISIZ had to return to Blagoveshchensk to repair the equipment, and then resume work. As a result, the rock was drilled to a depth of 35 meters.
Of course, own well will solve several problems of the Oktyabrskaya hospital at once.
Voting for the proposed measures for the development of the Far East (FE) began on the portal dv2025.rf. The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East believes that thanks to this, it is possible to form a rating of the relevance of the measures that should be provided for by the National Program for the Development of the Far East until 2025. It will be ready by September 1st.
By February 20, about 63,000 users had registered on the site, who had made almost 15,000 proposals, 636 of which applied to the Amur Region.
As a reminder, from January 15 to
On February 15, the head of the city of Zeya, Sergey Gibadullin, met with the population, a survey was conducted, during which employees of organizations made their proposals for the development of not only our city, but the entire Far East.
Six-year-olds passed the tests
Preschoolers again passed the test of the All-Russian physical culture and sports complex "Ready for Labor and Defense" on the basis of kindergarten No. 14. Six-year-old pupils of the preparatory groups passed the standards for push-ups, long jumps from a place, and also tested themselves in exercises for flexibility, abs and throwing ball to the target. According to preliminary data, three children passed the tests for gold badges of distinction, ten for silver ones, and one child earned bronze.
The next stage will take place in the spring. Boys and girls will have to fulfill two mandatory standards: “kilometer run” and 30-meter run. Only after these tests can children be awarded badges of distinction.
« My sports mom»
The sports event "My sports mother" was held in the sports and recreation complex in Zei. The competitions are organized within the framework of the All-Russian action “Father's Patrol. We are ready".
The participants of the competition were members of the women's basketball team with their children. Together with their daughters and sons, the mothers-athletes performed exercises on the press, did push-ups, jumped, tested themselves in speed and accuracy. At the end, all participants were given certificates.
(According to the correspondent “ZVS”).
News of the Amur region
The message of the President included several important economic projects for the Amur Region
Vasily Orlov commented on Vladimir Putin's speech: "The President's Address was devoted to topics that are very important for the Far East. A lot was devoted to demographic issues, support for low-income segments of the population and poverty reduction. These are key issues for us.
A large set of measures is envisaged with funding from the federal budget. Our task is to bring the regional legislation in time in order to bring all these initiatives to life."
Of the economic projects, the head of the region called the expansion of the capacity of the BAM and the Trans-Siberian railway and the need for a wider use of gas motor fuel as especially important for the Amur Region. "Taking into account our gas projects for our region, this opens up new opportunities for the use of such technology," the Governor of the Amur Region explained.
Much attention is paid to the development of education, the provision of industry, trained by modern production personnel.
The President spoke about the need for a network of children's technoparks of Quantoriums, as well as the development of a branch of the children's educational center"Sirius". "In both areas, work is underway in our region. The Quantorium in Blagoveshchensk was opened at the end of 2018. In 2019, we will open the Quantorium in Svobodny. Based on the children's health camp"Spikelet" will create a branch of the children's center in Sochi "Sirius". The agreement was signed at an investment forum in Sochi."
It is planned to allocate twice as much to prepare for the upcoming heating period in the Amur region
It is planned to allocate about 200 million rubles for the repair work of housing and communal services. This proposal was made by the head of the regional ministry of housing and communal services of the region Sergey Gordeev at a meeting of the regional government.
"Since the beginning of the heating season, 57 violations have been registered in the operation of communal infrastructure facilities, most of them in heating networks - 19 cases and water supply networks - 23 cases. Most of the violations are caused by dilapidated networks and equipment," the minister said.
The Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities has already begun to form a consolidated repair plan for 2019-2020. According to the minister, it will be prepared by May 1 following the results of the heating period. When forming it, not only the technological accidents that took place in the winter of 2018-2919 will be taken into account, but also the comments of the procurators.
First Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Polovaykina instructed to work out the option of forming a register of works by March in order to speed up work on the preparation of boiler houses and networks.
The fire season in the Amur region in 2019 may begin earlier than usual
At the next meeting of the Government of the Amur Region, the issue of organizing the preparation of settlements for the spring fire hazard period of 2019 was considered.
Minister of Forestry and Fire Safety of the region Aleksey Venglinsky drew attention to a number of meteor records and an unusually warm end of winter. In this regard, the fire hazard period in the region may begin as early as March 20-25. Taking into account the fact that the winter was not snowy, and the soil was not sufficiently moistened, preventive annealing will not be carried out. The main emphasis should be placed on the cleaning of hazardous areas in a fireless way. Given the tight deadlines, work on the preparation of settlements must be completed no later than March 20.
Aleksey Venglinsky noted that local governments have developed fire protection plans for the territories of municipal districts in general and detailed maps of preventive measures for settlements.
“These documents determined the places for the creation of protective firebreaks, the annealing of dry vegetation, and the cleanup of the territory. Areas not cleared of dry vegetation are marked. The bulk of the firefighting activities were carried out in autumn period 2018. Planned to clear 12,447 "dangerous areas". To date, work has been carried out at 9,307 sites, which is 74.8% of all planned activities,” said Alexey Venglinsky.
Close to completion of work on the preparation of settlements in Tynda (100%), Belogorsk (94%), Svobodny (92%), Blagoveshchensk (91%), Raychikhinsk (91%), Seryshevsky district (92%).
On the territory of the region, 550 volunteer fire departments have been created in 517 settlements with a total number of 2288 people, including 157 voluntary fire brigades and 393 voluntary fire brigades.
Also, in order to extinguish natural fires and protect settlements from them, in 2019, 46 rapid response teams are being trained, created on the basis of the divisions of the fire and search and rescue services of the region with a total number of 230 people.
“Indeed, the weather this year makes its own adjustments to our plans. Therefore, the leadership of the cities and regions of the Amur region should not postpone work on preparing for the fire season, but start it now. The sooner we secure settlements and their inhabitants, the better. After all, the season this year may start much earlier than usual,” said Vasily Orlov, Governor of the Amur Region.
(According to reports from the site www.amurobl.ru).
Man also forms matter according to the laws of beauty.
Beauty is widely spilled in the world around us. Not only works of art are beautiful. Both a scientific theory and a separate scientific experiment can be beautiful. We call an athlete's jump, a virtuoso goal scored, a chess game beautiful. A beautiful thing made by a worker - a master of his craft. The woman's face and the sunrise in the mountains are beautiful. This means that in the process of perception of all these objects that are so different from each other, there is something in common. What is this?
It is incredibly difficult to define in words what exactly motivates us to recognize an object as beautiful. Beauty escapes us as soon as we try to explain it in words, translate it from the language of images into the language of logical concepts. “The phenomenon of beauty,” writes the philosopher A.V. Gulyga, - contains a certain mystery, comprehended only intuitively and inaccessible to discursive thinking. "The necessity of distinguishing "science" and "humanites" (the realm of science and the realm of values. - P.S.), - continues this thought L.B. Bazhenov, - inevitably follows from the difference between thought and experience. Thought is objective, experience is subjective. We can, of course, make experience the object of thought, but then it disappears as experience. No objective description can replace subjective reality experiences."
So, beauty is, first of all, an experience, an emotion, and a positive emotion at that - a kind of feeling of pleasure, different from the pleasures that are given to us by many useful, vital objects that are not endowed with qualities that can give rise to a sense of beauty. But we know that “any emotion is a reflection by the human brain of some actual need and the probability (possibility) of satisfying this need, which the subject evaluates by involuntarily comparing information about the means predictively necessary to achieve the goal (satisfaction of the need), with the information received V this moment”(see Science and Life No. 3, 1965).
If beauty is an experience, an emotional reaction to a contemplated object, but we are not able to explain it in words, we will try at least to find the answer to a number of questions leading to the solution of this riddle.
First question. In connection with the satisfaction of what need (or needs) does the emotion of pleasure delivered by beauty arise? Information about what exactly comes to us from the outside world at this moment?
Second question. How is this emotional experience, this pleasure, different from all the others?
And finally, the third question. Why in the process of the long evolution of living beings, including the cultural and historical development of man, did such a mysterious, but, apparently, necessary for something, sense of beauty arise?
Perhaps the most complete enumeration of the distinctive features of beauty is given by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Analytic of the Beautiful. Let's look at each of his four definitions.
“A beautiful object causes pleasure, free from any interest”
The first "law of beauty", so formulated by Kant, causes some confusion. Kant's statement comes into conflict with the need-information theory of emotions, which we referred to above. From this theory it follows that behind any interest lies the need that gave rise to it. According to Kant, the pleasure delivered by beauty turns out to be an emotion... without a need! Apparently, however, this is not the case. Speaking about freedom from "interest", Kant had in mind only the vital, material and social needs of a person in food, clothing, procreation, in social recognition, in justice, in observing ethical standards and so on. However, a person has a number of other needs, among which are those that are commonly called "aesthetic needs".
First of all, it is the need for knowledge, the craving for something new, still unknown, not seen before. Kant himself defined the beautiful as "the play of cognitive abilities." Exploratory behavior, free from searching for food, a female, nest building material, etc., can be observed even in animals. In man, it reaches its highest manifestations in disinterested cognition. However, is it disinterested? Experiments have shown that if a person is completely deprived of the influx of new impressions, while satisfying all his physical needs (food, comfortable bed, thermal comfort), he will very quickly develop severe neuropsychiatric disorders in such an information-poor environment.
The need for new, previously unknown information, the pragmatic meaning of which has not yet been clarified, can be satisfied in two ways: by directly extracting information from the environment or by recombining traces of previously received impressions, that is, with the help of creative imagination. Often both channels are used together. Imagination forms a hypothesis, which is compared with reality, and if it corresponds to objective reality, new knowledge about the world and about ourselves is born.
In order to satisfy the need for knowledge, an object that we evaluate as beautiful must contain an element of novelty, surprise, unusualness, must stand out against the background of the average norm of features inherent in other related objects. Note that not every degree of novelty causes positive emotion. In experiments on young animals and children, the American psychologist T. Schneirla found that only moderate novelty attracts, where elements of the new are combined with previously known signs. Excessively new and unexpected scares, causes displeasure and fear. These data are in good agreement with the need-information theory of emotions, since not only newly received information is important for an emotional reaction, but also its comparison with pre-existing ideas.
The need for knowledge, curiosity prompt us to contemplate objects that promise nothing to satisfy our material and social needs, give us the opportunity to see in these objects something significant that distinguishes them from many other similar objects. "Disinterested" attention to the subject is an important, but clearly insufficient condition for the discovery of beauty. Some additional needs must be added to the need for cognition, so that as a result an emotional experience of the beautiful arises.
Analyzing many examples of human activity, where the end result is evaluated not only as useful, but also beautiful, we see that in this case the need for economy of forces, the need for armaments are certainly satisfied with those knowledge, skills and abilities that are the shortest and most the right way lead to the achievement of the goal.
On the example of playing chess, the aesthetic and playwright V.M. Wolkenstein showed that we evaluate a game as beautiful not when a win is achieved by a long positional struggle, but when it arises unpredictably, as a result of a spectacularly sacrificed piece, with the help of a tactic that we least of all expected. Formulating the general rule of aesthetics, the author concludes: "beauty is an expedient and difficult (difficult) overcoming." Writer Bertolt Brecht defined beauty as the overcoming of difficulties. In the very general view we can say that beauty is the reduction of complexity to simplicity. According to the physicist W. Heisenberg, such reduction is achieved in the process of scientific activity by the discovery general principle facilitating understanding of phenomena. We perceive such a discovery as a manifestation of beauty. Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences M.V. Volkenstein recently proposed a formula according to which the aesthetic value of solving a scientific problem is determined by the ratio of its complexity to the minimum research program, that is, to the most universal pattern that allows us to overcome the complexity of the initial conditions (see "Science and Life" No. 9, 1988).
Beauty in science arises from a combination of three conditions: the objective correctness of the decision (a quality that in itself does not possess aesthetic value), its unexpectedness and efficiency.
With beauty as overcoming complexity, we meet not only in the activities of a scientist. The result of an athlete's efforts can be measured in seconds and centimeters, but we will call his jump and his run beautiful only when a record sports result is obtained in the most economical way. We admire the work of a virtuoso carpenter, demonstrating the highest class of professional craftsmanship, which is based on the maximum armament of the relevant skills with the minimum expenditure of effort.
The combination of these three needs - knowledge, armament (competence, equipment) and economy of strength, their simultaneous satisfaction in the process of activity or in evaluating the result of other people's activities cause us a feeling of pleasure from contact with what we call beauty.
"It's great that everyone likes it"
Since we cannot logically justify why a given object is perceived as beautiful, the only confirmation of the objectivity of our aesthetic assessment is the ability of this object to cause a similar experience in other people. In other words, empathy comes to the aid of consciousness as a shared, socialized knowledge, knowledge together with someone.
Kant, and after him the author of these lines, one can object that aesthetic assessments are extremely subjective, they depend on the culture in which a given person was brought up, and in general - "there is no arguing about tastes." The art historian will immediately give examples of innovative paintings, which were first called illiterate daubs, and then proclaimed masterpieces and placed in best museums peace. Without denying the dependence of aesthetic assessments on the historically established norms adopted in this social environment, from the level intellectual development of a person, his education, upbringing conditions, etc., we can offer a certain universal measure of beauty. Its only criterion is the phenomenon of empathy, which cannot be translated into the language of logical proofs.
It is wonderful that - is recognized as such by a sufficiently large number of people for quite a long time. A massive, but short-term passion or long-term veneration by a limited circle of connoisseurs cannot testify to the outstanding aesthetic merits of an object. Only wide public recognition for many years serves as an objective measure of these merits. Most clearly, the justice of what has been said is manifested in the fate of great works of art, to which people have been turning for centuries as a source of aesthetic pleasure.
“Beauty is the expediency of an object without a concept of purpose”
Kant's third "law of beauty" can be interpreted as follows. Since we are not able to define in words what qualities an object must have in order to be beautiful, we cannot set ourselves the goal of making a beautiful object without fail. We are forced to first make it (make a thing, perform a sports exercise, perform an act, create a work of art, etc.), and then evaluate whether it is beautiful or not. In other words, the object turns out to be relevant to the goal, which was not specified in advance. So what kind of conformity is Kant talking about? Conformity to what?
Every time the beauty of an object is discussed, the significance of its form is emphasized. “A work of art,” wrote Hegel, “which lacks a proper form, is not, precisely for this reason, a genuine, that is, a true work of art.” In a broader sense, not limited to the sphere of art, the philosopher A.V. Gulyga considers beauty as a "value-significant form". But in what case does the form become value-significant, and in general, what is “value”? Academician P.N. Fedoseev, formulating the problem of values, recalls that for Marxism "... the highest cultural and moral values are those that most contribute to the development of society and comprehensive development personalities." Let us remember this emphasis on development, it will come in handy more than once.
We can say that beauty is the maximum correspondence of the form (organization, structure) of a phenomenon to its purpose in human life. Such conformity is expediency. For example, an athlete's jump, despite a record result, we will perceive as ugly if the result is achieved by extreme effort, a convulsive jerk, with an almost pained grimace on his face. After all, sport is a means of harmonious development, physical improvement of a person, and only secondarily - a means of social success and a way to receive material rewards.
It's really useful because it's beautiful, said Antoine de Saint-Exupery. But he couldn't say: it's really beautiful, because... it's useful. There is no inverse relationship here.
We don't recognize beautiful thing utilitarian useless, a football player's blow past the goal, professionally illiterate work, an immoral act. But only the utilitarian usefulness of a thing, action, deed does not yet make them beautiful.
However, we were carried away by analysis and almost violated by our reasoning the fourth and last "law of beauty", namely, that
“The beautiful is known without the mediation of a concept”
In the language of modern science, this means that the activity of the brain, which results in an emotional reaction of pleasure from the contemplation of beauty, proceeds at an unconscious level.
Let us briefly recall that the higher nervous (mental) activity of a person has a three-level (consciousness, subconsciousness, superconsciousness) functional organization (see "Science and Life" No. 12, 1975).
As we mentioned above, consciousness is a specific form of reflection of reality, operating with knowledge, which, with the help of words, mathematical symbols, technology samples, images of works of art, can be transferred to other people, including other generations in the form of cultural monuments. By transferring his knowledge to another, a person thereby separates himself from this other and from the world, the knowledge of which he transfers. Communication with others secondarily generates the ability of a mental dialogue with oneself, that is, leads to the emergence of self-consciousness. The inner “I”, which judges my own actions, is nothing but the “others” that remain in my memory.
The subconscious is a kind of unconscious mental, to which belongs everything that was conscious or can become conscious in certain conditions. These are skills that are well automated and therefore cease to be realized, motivational conflicts ousted from the sphere of consciousness, social norms of behavior deeply assimilated by the subject, the regulatory function of which is experienced as the “voice of conscience”, “call of the heart”, “call of duty”, etc. In addition to such a previously realized experience that fills the subconscious with concrete, external in origin content, there is also a direct channel of influence on the subconscious - imitative behavior.
Imitative behavior plays a decisive role in mastering the skills that give human activity (industrial, sports, artistic, etc.) the features of art. We are talking about the so-called "personal knowledge", which is not realized by either the teacher or the student and which can be transmitted exclusively in a non-verbal way, without the help of words. The goal is achieved by following a set of implicit norms or rules. Observing the teacher and striving to surpass him, the student subconsciously masters these norms.
Superconsciousness in the form of creative intuition reveals itself at the initial stages of any creative process not controlled by consciousness and will. The neurophysiological basis of superconsciousness is the transformation and recombination of traces of previously received impressions stored in the memory of the subject. The activity of the superconsciousness is always focused on satisfying the dominant vital, social or ideal need, the specific content of which determines the nature of the emerging hypotheses. The second guiding factor is the life experience of the subject, fixed in his subconscious and consciousness. It is consciousness that has the most important function of selecting emerging hypotheses: first, through their logical analysis, and later, using such a criterion of truth as practice.
To which of the spheres of the unconscious mentality - to the subconscious or to the superconscious - does the activity of the mechanism belong, as a result of which the emotional experience of beauty arises?
Here, of course, the role of the subconscious is great. Throughout their existence, people have repeatedly convinced themselves of the advantages of certain forms of organization and their own actions, and things created by man. The list of such forms includes the proportionality of the parts of the whole, the absence of unnecessary details that do not work for the main idea, the coordination of the combined efforts, the rhythm of repetitive actions, and much, much more. Since these rules turned out to be valid for a wide variety of objects, they acquired an independent value, were generalized, and their use became automated, applied "without the mediation of a concept", i.e. unconsciously.
But all the assessments we have listed (and others similar to them) testify to the correct, expedient organization of actions and things, that is, only to the useful. What about beauty? She eluded logical analysis again!
The fact is that the subconscious mind fixes and generalizes norms, something repetitive, average, stable, fair sometimes throughout the history of mankind.
Beauty, on the other hand, is always a violation of the norm, a deviation from it, a surprise, a discovery, a joyful surprise. For a positive emotion to arise, it is necessary that the information received exceed the previously existing forecast, so that the probability of achieving the goal at that moment increases significantly. Many of our emotions - positive and negative - arise at an unconscious level of higher nervous activity of a person. The subconscious mind is able to assess the change in the probability of satisfying needs. But the subconscious itself is not able to reveal, extract from the object something new that, in comparison with the “standards” stored in the subconscious, will give a positive emotion of pleasure from the perception of beauty. The discovery of beauty is a function of the superconscious.
Direction finder of creative thought
Because the positive emotions testify to the approach to the goal (satisfaction of the need), and negative emotions - to the removal from it, higher animals and humans seek to maximize (strengthen, repeat) the former and minimize (interrupt, prevent) the latter. According to the figurative expression of Academician P. Anokhin, emotions play the role of “bearings” of behavior: striving for the pleasant, the body seizes the useful, and avoiding the unpleasant, prevents the meeting with harmful, dangerous, destructive. It is quite clear why evolution "created" and natural selection fixed the brain mechanisms of emotions - their vital importance for the existence of living systems is obvious.
Well, what about the emotion of pleasure from the perception of beauty? What does she serve? Why is she? Why do we rejoice in something that does not satisfy hunger, does not protect against bad weather, does not promote rank in the group hierarchy, does not provide utilitarian useful knowledge?
The answer to the question about the origin of aesthetic feeling in the process of anthropogenesis and the subsequent cultural and historical evolution of man, we can formulate as follows; the ability to perceive beauty is essential tool creativity.
Any creativity is based on the mechanism of creating hypotheses, conjectures, assumptions, peculiar “mental mutations and recombinations” of traces of previously accumulated experience, including the experience of previous generations. From these hypotheses, selection occurs - the determination of their truth, that is, their correspondence to objective reality. As we said above, the selection function belongs to consciousness, and then to practice. But there are so many hypotheses, the vast majority of which will be rejected, that checking them all is clearly an unrealistic task, just as it is unrealistic for a chess player to enumerate all possible options for each next move. That is why a preliminary "sieve" is absolutely necessary to screen out hypotheses unworthy of verification at the level of consciousness.
It is this pre-selection that the superconscious mind, usually called creative intuition, is engaged in. What criteria does it follow? First of all, not formulated in words (i.e., unconscious) criterion of beauty, emotionally experienced pleasure.
Prominent cultural figures have spoken about this more than once. Physicist W. Heisenberg: "... a glimpse of the beautiful in exact natural science makes it possible to recognize a great relationship even before its detailed understanding, before it can be rationally proven." Mathematician J. Hadamard. “Among the numerous combinations formed by our subconscious, the majority are uninteresting and useless, but therefore they are not capable of affecting our aesthetic sense; they will never be realized by us; only some are harmonious and therefore both beautiful and useful; they are able to excite our special geometrical intuition, which will draw our attention to them and thus enable them to become conscious ... Who is deprived of it (aesthetic feeling) will never become a real inventor. Aviation designer O.K. Antonov: “We know perfectly well that a beautiful plane flies well, and an ugly one does not fly well, or even will not fly at all ... The desire for beauty helps to accept, correct solution makes up for the lack of data.
The reader may note that we borrow all these arguments in favor of the heuristic function of the emotional experience of beauty in the field of scientific and technical creativity. But what about the beauty of natural phenomena, the beauty of a human face or deed?
The world according to the laws of beauty
Here, first of all, it should be emphasized that perception, as a result of which a feeling of beauty arises, is a creative act. In each phenomenon, beauty must be discovered, and in many cases it is not revealed immediately, not at the first contemplation. The discovery of beauty in the creations of nature is a secondary phenomenon in relation to the creative abilities of man. “In order for a person to perceive beauty in the field of auditory or visual, he must learn to create himself,” A.V. Lunacharsky. This, of course, does not mean that only composers enjoy music, and only professional artists enjoy painting. But a completely uncreative person, with an undeveloped superconsciousness, will remain deaf to the beauty of the surrounding world. To perceive beauty, he must be endowed with sufficiently strong needs for knowledge, armament (competence) and economy of strength. He must accumulate in the subconscious the standards of a harmonious, expedient, economically organized, so that the superconsciousness discovers in the object a deviation from the norm in the direction of exceeding this norm.
In other words, a person discovers beauty in the phenomena of nature, perceiving them as creations of Nature. He, most often unconsciously, transfers to the phenomena of nature the criteria of his own creative abilities, his creative activity. Depending on outlook this person as such a "creator" he means either the objective course of evolution, the process of self-development of nature, or God, as the creator of everything that exists. In any case, a person's consciousness does not so much reflect the beauty that initially exists in the world around him, but rather projects onto this world the objective laws of his creative activity - the laws of beauty.
Animals have positive and negative emotions as internal guidelines for behavior in the direction of what is useful or in the elimination of what is harmful to their life. But, not being endowed with consciousness and sub- and superconsciousness derivatives from it, they do not possess those specific positive emotions that we associate with the activity of creative intuition, with the experience of beauty. Do not have a feeling of this kind of pleasure and children up to a certain age. Hence the need aesthetic education and aesthetic education as an organic part of the mastery of culture, the formation of a spiritually rich personality.
Education involves the amount of knowledge about the subject of aesthetic perception. A person completely unfamiliar with symphonic music is unlikely to enjoy complex symphonic works. But since the mechanisms of the subconscious and the superconscious are involved in aesthetic perception, it is impossible to confine ourselves to education, that is, the assimilation of knowledge. Knowledge should be supplemented by aesthetic education, the development of the inherent needs of each of us for knowledge, competence and economy of strength. The simultaneous satisfaction of these needs can give rise to aesthetic pleasure from the contemplation of beauty.
The main form of development of superconsciousness in the first years of life is a game that requires fantasy, imagination, everyday creative discoveries in the child's comprehension of the world around him. armament took a dominant place.
Here we come close to answering the question why a utilitarian object, a false scientific theory, an immoral act, an erroneous movement of an athlete cannot be beautiful. The fact is that the superconsciousness, which is so necessary for the discovery of beauty, always works for the dominant need, which steadily dominates the structure of the needs of a given person.
In science, the goal of knowledge is objective truth, the goal of art is truth, and the goal of behavior dictated by the social need “for others” is good. The expressiveness in the structure of the motives of a given personality of the ideal need for cognition and the altruistic need “for others” we call spirituality (with an emphasis on cognition) and sincerity (with an emphasis on altruism). Needs that are directly satisfied by beauty turn out to be inextricably linked with the motivational dominant that originally initiated the activity of the superconscious. As a result, "pure beauty", in Kant's terminology, is complicated by "accompanying beauty". For example, the beautiful in a person becomes a “symbol of the morally good,” since truth and good merge in beauty (Hegel).
It is the mechanism of the activity of the superconsciousness, "working" for the dominant need, that explains to us why beauty "free from any interest" is so closely connected with the search for truth and truth. A "beautiful lie" may exist for some time, but only at the expense of its plausibility, pretending to be true.
Well, what about those cases where the dominant need, for which the Superconsciousness works, is selfish, asocial or even antisocial? After all, evil can be no less inventive than good. Malicious intent has its brilliance and creative insights. Yet "beautiful villainy" is impossible because it violates the second law of beauty, according to which beauty should please everyone.
Recall that empathy is by no means a direct reproduction of the emotions experienced by another person. We empathize only when we share the reason for the experience. We will not rejoice with the traitor who cunningly deceived his victim, and we will not sympathize with the grief of the villain over the failed atrocity.
The need-information theory of emotions also exhaustively answers the question of the depiction of terrible, ugly, disgusting phenomena of life by art. The need that art satisfies is the need to know the truth and the good. The emotions that arise in this case depend on the extent to which this work satisfied our needs and how perfect its form is. That is why a true work of art will evoke positive emotions in us even if it tells about the dark sides of reality. The face of Peter from Pushkin's "Poltava" is terrible for his enemies and beautiful as God's thunderstorm for the author of "Poltava", and through him - for the reader. So let's re-emphasize. Assessments of the “useful - harmful” type contribute to the preservation of physical existence by people in a broader sense - the preservation of it social status values created by it, etc., and “useless” beauty, being an instrument of creativity, is a factor of development, improvement, and forward movement. Striving for the pleasure that beauty brings, that is, satisfying the needs of knowledge, competence and economy of strength, a person forms his creations according to the laws of beauty and in this activity he himself becomes more harmonious, more perfect, spiritually richer. Beauty, which must certainly “please everyone”, brings him closer to other people through empathy with beauty, again and again reminds him of the existence of universal human values.
Maybe that is why “beauty will save the world” (F.M. Dostoevsky).
And the last. Is beauty the only language of the superconscious? Apparently not. In any case, we know another language of the superconscious, the name of which is humor. If beauty affirms something more perfect than the average norm, then humor helps to sweep away, overcome obsolete and exhausted norms. It is no coincidence that history moves in such a way that humanity cheerfully parted with its past.
We again met a beautiful object: a thing, a landscape, a human act. We are aware of their beauty and strive to draw other people's attention to it. But why is this object beautiful? It is impossible to explain this with words. The superconsciousness told us about it. In your own language.
Pavel Vasilyevich Simonov is an academician, a specialist in the study of higher nervous activity.
"Science and Life" No. 4, 1989.
