Beauty is momentary in the mind — The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of winter, done repenting. So maidens die, to the auroral Celebration of a maiden's choral.

Beauty is beautiful because it is doomed to perish!

Beauty is momentary in the mind — The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.

Death is the mother of beauty

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.

Annihilation is, indeed, part of our being, but art is immortal. A sense of the tyranny of annihilation and the ephemeral quality of life always prompts the artist to create something more permanent then the self. (p188)

Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true Mystic, can never rest

It seems to me sometimes all beauty is dying. Which makes me hope that perhaps it isn't dead but only sleeping. And that makes me think of Sleeping Beauty and wonder if she, Beauty that is, might not be a metaphor for what is happening to the world at large: perfect Beauty born, Beauty cursed with death, Beauty dying - but with the magical hope of being reawakened, maybe by love.

When a beautiful rose dies beauty does not die because it is not really in the rose. Beauty is an awareness in the mind. It is a mental and emotional response that we make. We respond to life as though it were perfect. When we go into a forest we do not see the fallen rotting trees. We are inspired by a multitude of uprising trees.. .The goal of life is happiness and to respond to life as though it were perfect is the way to happiness. It is also the way to positive art work.

Like twinned with unlike is beauty's shock. And beauty...is eternal.

The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.