Carlo Van Hove: “An amusement pier juts out into the sea, a place where strangers meet, where strangers talk to others…….where probably you also can meet a new friend, a new love……..Isn’t love something we all need ? …… crazy, on a pier !”
‘White Swan in Rivierenhof Park, Antwerp, Belgium’
Marlène Pauly: “A gate to a world in softness and love” Tameslouht, Morocco
IG @marlenepauly
Katharine Hamnett: “I took this picture for my 99 year old friend to look at while she was in hospital- she had spent her entire life on boats and has had a captain’s license longer than any other woman in the world: since she was 18! She loved the Mallorcan coast and thought it was one of the most beautiful places in the world.”
Sunrise in Amed, Bali
Ljiljana Jokovic: “True beauty is the one towards the world around us, towards nature, it is everywhere and all around us. If we only take notice and take a step back, we can see that our planet is the most wonderful place. Beauty is also where love lives, love to our closest, love to the children, to the animals, birds, to freedom, to life itself. I have been doing photography since 2017 and it gives me great pleasure. I collect incredible moments and make them last forever. Pure love also lies in doing what you love, what inspires you. It can be writing, drawing, being involved in any of the forms of art.”
Colleen Cassar: “I know I see beauty when my heart sings”
IG: @roamlikequeens
Kim Jones: “Somewhere over the North Pole is beauty”
IG @mrkimjones
Europe is full of traditional festivals, where strange figures, vegetation spirits, wild men and monstrous creatures appear.
Many of these characters are extremely ancient and popular, with rituals associated with seasonal and agricultural cycles.
These are some of the photos taken by Charles Fréger, a photographer who has traveled for years portraying these masks that he collected for his book “Wilder Mann”.
See all the gorgeous photos and read more about the artist here: https://www.charlesfreger.com/portfolio/wilder-mann/
IG@ persjodell
Andre Sicht: “True beauty can be found in nature. In the forest, for example.
This song is inspired by this beauty.”
IG @a.sicht
Enjoy this brilliant documentary about ravens, crows and jackdaws. It’s filmed so beautifully and shows how smart these birds are.
Werner Van Reck: “I don’t know who said this, but I think it’s fantastic: ‘Beauty is the only truth'”
IG @wernervanreck
Simon de Pury: “Since the pandemic I have been flying far less. On my way back from Bodrum, where I conducted an auction for the Naked Heart Foundation of Natalia Vodianova, the plane flew through these clouds. I never cease to be fascinated by the ever changing beauty of clouds. It makes me dream and reminds me of baroque paintings. As a child and teenager I used to dream incessantly. So much so that my parents used to say ‘Il est dans les nuages’”
IG @simondepury
Kate Baxter: “For me, beauty is simple and comforting”
IG @kateabaxter
Jessica Ogden: “Beauty is when eyes talk love”
IG @the_cats_whiskers
Federico Marchetti: “To me beauty is freedom. Last year, when we couldn’t leave our homes, I took this photo of Lake Como with my drone. The sky reflected on the surface of the water reminded me of the infinite opportunities we have to find beauty in this world.”
Peter (Pé) Gubbels is a Belgian singer-songwriter who lives in Antwerp. He has a love for language and next to his own songs, reworks songs by singers such as Peter Gabriel, Georges Brassens, Leonard Cohen, Suzanne Vega and Sting. For Beauty for a Better World he chose the song ‘Nen Boom’, from his first CD ‘Tussen het Bos en de Bomen’. Text and music by Pé Gubbels.
Pé Gubbels: “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. It’s your soul, your heart, your mind being touched.
It’s the perfect imperfection, the inevitable flaw, the power to recognise that Beauty is natural.”
Listen to the song here: https://soundcloud.com/pegubbels/nen-boom
More music: https://soundcloud.com/pegubbels/
“During my last holiday in Quebec, I went climbing with my son Matias. The rock was next to a magnificent waterfall. Hanging by my rope, I wanted at all costs to take several pictures of him. I was adamant about providing Matias with a tangible memory of the moment. It did not take long before he got really annoyed with having me behind his back like a paparazzi. He turned around towards me and I never forgot what he told me then. ‘Dad when are you going to put away that camera of yours and admire the landscape around you? Look how beautiful! Enjoy it!’ Of course, he was spot on. My thirteen-year-old son called me back to the obvious: hanging by my rope, I was surrounded by the splendours of nature. And the only thing that mattered to me was to capture in pictures for later the spectacle that I was missing out on in the present moment. Mindfulness is just about that: living the present moment, here and now. Becoming aware of oneself, of what surrounds us, of the lived moment and the unique quality of happiness each brings. Unfortunately, we often mix up states of mind and thought.”
From “The no-nonsense meditation book” Bloomsbury Press – Green Tree 2021
IG @ drstevenlaureys
Sir Paul Smith: “What pure beauty is? The love of the countryside, open spaces, the views and fresh air”
Nature reflects in people and people reflect in nature. Installation artist Rob Mullholland beautifully captured this symbiosis through his mirrored figures in the forest of Aberfoyle, Scotland. The mirrors reflect the deep history of how the forest and people needed to make way for lumber provision for a nation that was rebuilding itself.
With the installation, Mullholland wants to pay respect to and repopulate the forest with the effigy Aberfoyle forest’s people. Text by Emma Baetens
“I think my Love The Lie music video is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever had the privilege of making. Pure beauty to me, especially after a year mostly confined to my own four walls, is friendship and travel; the two focal points of the Love The Lie video. I love being able to see new places, immerse myself in other cultures, meet strangers, eat new foods… and experiencing all of these new sensory adventures with my friends is one of the most beautiful things in the world to me. I feel so lucky to have been able to visit Cappadocia for the first time in life thanks to work and to be able to take two of my closest friends with me to share in the experience with me was just an amazing added bonus. It was one of the best (and most exhausting!) weekends of my life, and now whenever I watch the final video back, it transports me back to a very happy and beautiful time in my life.”
Watch the video here:
Love The Lie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu3hST6u81o
IG@callmeloop
Emerald Rose Whipple: “Beauty recognises itself through us. It touches on the ephemeral nature of all things. When we witness something that impermanent, we witness a moment in time passing.
The fleeting fragility of life is what makes something beautiful to me. I cherish flowers, they are here only for a moment in time, yet they bring innocence and a gentleness to the world.”
Amber Dewaele: “For me, the true essence of beauty is found when simply looking up to the sky. It’s the reaction between the light and the atmosphere that creates beautiful optical phenomena that for a moment makes you appreciate the world we are living in and forget about all the rest. They have the power and beauty to touch our emotions and make us wonder whether it’s a rainbow, a pink sky or a sunrise.”
It’s these wonders, made by the sky, that were the inspiration for my Atmosphere graduation collection: from corona to coffee table, from light pillar to floor lamp and from sunset to wall unit. Using various materials and respective processing techniques in combination with artificial light, this collection brings the wonders of the sky into the interior.
IG @amberdewaele
“The tranquillity of the water heightened the superb effects of this glacial world. Majestic tabular bergs whose crevices exhaled a vaporous azure; lofty spires, radiant turrets and splendid castles; honeycombed masses illumined by pale green light within whose fairy labyrinths the water washed and gurgled.
Seals and penguins on magic gondolas were the silent denizens of this dreamy Venice. In the soft glamour of the midsummer midnight sun, we were possessed by a rapturous wonder — the rare thrill of unreality.”
— Douglas Mawson
Bay near Vancouver, Canada (June 2023)
Wayne Hemingway: “Right now real beauty means my ever expanding brood of grandchildren and seeing my kids make such great parents”
Chris Mooney: “There is nothing more beautiful than the silence of humility observed in the aid of others without notice or credit. Sort of like this fresh snow and the highlighted tree, except we can see it here. The beauty observed!”
IG@chrisloganmooney
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/Vg_IelrKtRk
Michel FP De Windt: “Beauty is timeless in what we see, not in what one beholds -that is for someone else to see”
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Julius Poole: “I shot this image at a friends’ house and found it to be quite beautiful. It’s the top of Antwerp Centraal Station at sunset. You can see the sky in the glass. It was my friend’s birthday that day. A beautiful image and beautiful moment indeed.”
IG: @juliuspoole
Bolaji Alonge, aka Eyes of a Lagos Boy, uses macro photography to show the inner world of street flowers of Lagos. These flowers grow in city gardens and sidewalks in between the dirt and rubble. They symbolize the beauty of nature, both fragile and strong at the same time. Together with Lagosians, they stand proudly in the midst of the urban jungle. Bolaji shows beauty where it is least expected. During these trying times, when uncertainty is the new normal, the “small” things in life can make all the difference. However, once enlarged, they can become magical objects of wonder.
Bolaji Alonge is an artist, photographer, journalist and actor from Lagos, Nigeria with more than a decade of experience in documenting history. Bolaji Alonge’s visual language speaks of the wonders of nature and human exchange and searches for historical continuity in a world that is fractured. He shows his beloved Lagos from unexpected angles, a city that inspires and captivates imagination, but also pulls people into a vortex of energy and constant challenges. Images of everyday life in Nigeria carry deep social messages that expose fragility, audacity but also squalor. Bolaji makes the viewer reconsider what we have seen with our own eyes, through the Eyes of a Lagos Boy.
Quote: Bolaji shows beauty where it is least expected. During these trying times, when uncertainty is the new normal, the “small” things in life can make all the difference.
Website: http://eyesofalagosboy.com
Bolaji Alonge: “I show beauty where it is least expected. During these trying times, when uncertainty is the new normal, the “small” things in life can make all the difference.”
To be pure, beauty has to create an emotion, but not any type of emotion.
I believe it creates an emotion in you so sudden it connects you instantly with deep down feelings, what you might be in constant search for without finding it and then “BAM!” it’s there and suddenly it’s gone, with all what it has of preciosity. Or it might bring you to a contemplative state, an understanding, a surging questioning, a mesmerising vision of pure beauty, rarely fabricated, often accidental, many times connected to the true sense of living. Pure beauty is in essence valuable for who can be sensitive to it.
About the photo: “‘Moment de grâce’ walking the other day in a field toward this apparently immobile crow, it suddenly took off when I came upon it. It is me willing to fly away, it is me willing to be a bird, to experience what is beyond ourselves.”
Title: Walk
Olivier Theyskens: “Pure beauty is in essence valuable for who can be sensitive to it.”
Emma Baetens: “Where the crystal coloured seas and pearly white beaches feel like the warmest home I’ve ever been invited to. Having fun at the place we’re rooted in: The Philippines.”
Currently I am working on a series reflecting on the impossible split of contemporary life, the Entanglement series. These sculptures fuse the vulnerability of adolescent humans with that of naked trees. A series overthinking both the drama and the joy of human life on earth in the Anthropocene.
Silvia B: “OF BEAUTY & DOUBT is the credo for my work. The one creates the other and no sculpture can do without.”
IG @ silviab.visual.arts
Guy Kokken: “I enjoy looking at the clouds. The beauty of the skies lies in its transitory aspect. Always moving. Never the same. It has this calming effect on my restless soul.”
IG@guykokken
Nancy Ruffin: “Mother Nature has the best box of crayons”
IG @ruffinnancy
Chris Philippo: “Pure Beauty to me, is the reason that we smile, we feel, we survive and therefore we are. It is the reason we feel pain and therefore feel joy.”
IG @chrisphilippo
Inge Cornil: “The power of nature and the regeneration process of Planet Earth mean pure beauty to me”
IG @ cornil_inge
My new works are around the movement of the “Ravens”, interpreted in “Corps-Beaux”. The concept is to take the “Raven” out of its darkness, to paint it with color.
Mustapha Rafik: “Beauty is relative. It is difficult for me to define it. To define beauty is to kill -I therefore dare not define what should not be defined. What is important is to experience it, live it, … On the other hand I am based on some references like the book ‘Esthétique positive – Introduction à l’exploration structurale des arts plastiques’ by Emile
Tainmont and others, in order to familiarise myself with it -without tilting it.”
IG @musrafik
To me, beauty is something pure. Which comes from the heart. When I look for my models or people to work with I always get attracted to those who don’t try to be beautiful & don’t try to hide their real self. Beauty shows when you don’t look for it. Natural, like how nature never tries to please us, but yet always does.
Linde Stevens: “Beauty shows when you don’t look for it. Natural, like how nature never tries to please us, but yet always does.”
In Obudu Mountain there is so much to come across and there are several waterfalls to see. They have the Grontto fall, where the pool is not too deep. The one pictured is one of the deepest pools, which is about 20 feet deep. Only little kids were found swimming in this deep pool -they are great swimmers!
Story and photos by Babatunde Aremu, Nigeria- one of the artists taking part in Beauty for a Better World
Adrien Gras: “I love the poetry and the colours in this image. The non-obvious beauty, the imperfection. It’s messy and beautiful at the same time. Peaceful too.”
IG @ adriengrasfashioneditor
Oskar Lindholm: “Real beauty for me means nature, people… life comes in many colours and how boring would it be if it didn’t?”
Title: Ocean Mood, Sumba, Indonesia
“Beauty hides in strange places, even in sadness and sorrow.”
Title: ‘Dans toutes les larmes s’attarde un espoir” – Simone de Beauvoir
Quote: “Beauty hides in strange places, even in sadness and sorrow.”
“Pure beauty is not only a visual or intellectual emotion, it’s a feeling that can unexpectedly get hold of you, surprises and humbles you”
Title: Laetitia
Website: https://www.jfcarly.com/
Jean-François Carly: “Pure beauty is not only a visual or intellectual emotion, it’s a feeling that can unexpectedly get hold of you, surprises and humbles you”
Beauty lies in the acceptance of difference, difference as an asset, something about ourselves that could enrich our collective lives on a material and cultural basis. When I photograph, I often strive to find difference in the commonplace. In this image of trees, for instance, it almost seems like an abstract painting to me, at first, and invites the viewer to appreciate difference.
Title: Trees
Chael Needle: “Beauty lies in the acceptance of difference, difference as an asset, something about ourselves that could enrich our collective lives on a material and cultural basis.”
“Real beauty is other people”
Title: Lucky Ladybird (2020)
Photo taken by Maja Barker
Anne Davis: “Real beauty is other people”
Oeuvre d’Andy Goldsworthy. Cette pièce, une mise en situation, est d’une telle simplicité qu’elle fait magiquement disparaître tout le superfu qui nous entoure. C’est pour moi un souffle et une respiration. Un nouveau regard sur l’essentiel.
Title: Land Art
Titane Lacroix: ” Un nouveau regard sur l’essentiel.”
Real beauty to me is being present to pay attention to the details
Title: Los Angeles
Website: http://passeprojects.com
Rachel Graham: “Real beauty to me is being present to pay attention to the details”
Beauty can be found anywhere, in anything. An image, a sound, a memory, an idea: it doesn’t matter. The moment you feel it, you know it.
Title: Gothica
IG: pat.finder
Pat Boets: “Beauty can be found anywhere, in anything. An image, a sound, a memory, an idea: it doesn’t matter. The moment you feel it, you know it.”
Churchtown Dairy’s founder, Abby Rockefeller, was inspired by William Copperthwaite’s quote ‘Beauty is a birthright and the lack of beauty is a sign of great danger’, made beauty the cornerstone of Churchtown’s mission. “We strive to imbue all our work with beauty — the buildings, the gardens, the care of the animals and the economic and social systems within which we work.”
Title: Churchtown Diary: “A Castle for the Cows”
Quote: “Beauty is a birthright and the lack of beauty is a sign of great danger”
I took this photo in the spring of 2018 at around 5 AM, after another sleepless and painful night. In February of that year I had a spinal stroke and the after-effects took a long time to heal and are in fact still ongoing at the end of 2020.
I was feeling down, walked to the window and saw this view, of our back garden in the mist. Took this photo with my iPhone and immediately felt a lot happier again.
Nature has that effect: it’s not only the greatest artist in the universe, it’s also a fantastic healer. Let’s take care of nature as well as we can- also in our own interest.
Real beauty: You know it when you see real beauty, as it touches you deep within. It’s also a physical reaction (intuition, reflex), it’s what makes us human and what connects us with all other people.
Title: Misty Morning in the Garden
Website: beautywithoutirony.com
Ninette Murk: “You know it when you see real beauty, as it touches you deep within. It’s also a physical reaction (intuition, reflex), it’s what makes us human and what connects us with all other people.”
Real beauty to me can simply mean being present. If we can pull ourselves away from our tiny screens and simply look out the window, smell a flower, feel the dirt under our feet. It’s all around us if we take the time to be with nature’s bounty.
Title: Sunrise On Sullivan’s Island With Fergus
Cator Sparks: “Real beauty to me can simply mean being present.”
It would be unwise to try and give a definition of Pure Beauty. It’s still an ongoing discussion in Western philosophy. Let’s keep it that way.
Title: Wave XIX
Jan De Zutter: “It would be unwise to try and give a definition of Pure Beauty.”
It’s been heavy for all of us, these times, I was just taken again to a place that I barely remember. But I also found it by searching what is the thing that is beautiful for me in the midst of chaos. This time it’s the forest (always been, but all over the world… This is my home one, that I didn’t get to see much for a long time). It’s my home hoods. Literally. I’m a traveller of spaces and times … And been basically everywhere that was necessary to my growth. But I was taken back… Not just because of Covid-19. But because someone in my family is close to dying as well at this point…
It’s hard. But it’s part of the game of Life. In the end even the sadness is beautiful, because we’re in that together as a family. So this picture portraits that… The Autumn of the forest, letting go… Sometimes even of the precious ones. Home. And the energetics that I see of it. Peace and love from the North.
Title: Autumn Forest
Phaedra Sinatra: “In the end even the sadness is beautiful, because we’re in that together as a family.”
What does real beauty mean to you? If you’re asking me that question, I’m probably not really sure what to answer. What I know… real beauty is natural, real beauty doesn’t need any filters, real beauty is radiating from within.
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in some ways, and they’re still beautiful.” -Alice Walker
And I couldn’t agree more! These pictures of the green nature in Setul (West Java) perfectly describe what Alice Walter said and what I know about real beauty; it’s natural and doesn’t need any filters.
The last one is the picture of my best friend and I. Recently, we were not being our best selves (mentally and physically) then we decided to find peace and fresh air in nature today. Truth to be told: we’ve never been this happy lately! Natural, no filters and we are genuinely happy -it seems like our happiness is radiating through the picture. It feels like we are another example of real beauty.
Title: Happiness is a walk in nature
Quote: “Real beauty is natural, real beauty doesn’t need any filters, real beauty is radiating from within.”
Some might think they’re just weeds, others might see its beauty
Title: Beauty or Weed?
Brandon Stringfellow La Voie: “Beauty isn’t what you see… it’s how you see it. The Alinker Family Farm understands it’s not IF you can achieve wellness… it’s if you have ACCESS to it. Together we move differently, in order to build a kinder and more equitable world for and by us all.”
IG @stringfellow_deeds