The concept of beauty by Dostoevsky

Abstract

Invoked stereotypically and, often, in improper contexts, some ideas are irreversibly “outworn” and their speculative “weight” is diminished, coming to be suspected of banality or rhetorism. Certainly, this would also be the case of the question formulated in Dostoevsky's The Idiot: “Is it true, Prince, that you once said that beauty will save the world? ... What kind of beauty will save the world?” In the absence of some firm and explicit definition, the interpretative enthusiasm became copiously inflamed, equally mobilizing the aestheticians, artists, moralists, mystics and theologians. What is it that maintained such an interest? The obvious utopian fragrance? The aesthetic “turn” of the novel soteriology? The prophetic tone? The naive trust in different “values”? The theorists of beauty invoke the formula in question with the hidden thought of somewhat legitimizing the unexpected scale of their own speculative pursuit or its all-embracing pragmatic openness, rarely glimpsed by “laymen”. Others, disregarding the context of the Dostoevskian evocation, use the opportunity for proposing definitions assumed more justified. The real evaluation, therefore, would be entirely foreign to art in general, and the reference to the latter must have been either inconsistent, or difficult to prove. Few know, though, that Dostoevsky was passionate about art, painting, that he was assiduously frequenting the (Russian or European) museums, that he used images, even artistic ones, in order to create or strengthen own arguments. Unlike the “underground individual”, the “beautiful individual” is described in terms of moral exemplarity. Can moral exemplarity be incarnated by a real, living individual, located right in this world? Is there an anthropological model that embodies the absolute Good? Can such a model become exemplary?