Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
Wow, that's nice.
(Applause)
One evening a few years ago,
I was in the Philippines with Kira, my pearl supplier.
I was on this beach, watching the pink slowly turn blue.
And in that moment, how can I say -
I might call it a mystical moment,
there was this beauty,
which at some point became evident to me.
Those were special days.
I was there with her to visit one of the only places in the world
where sustainable pearl farming is practised.
In those days I was able to observe
the extreme care of farmers towards the marine ecosystem,
because if something goes wrong
there is no way to collect beautiful pearls;
and considered that behind every pearl is a family of the community,
nothing can go wrong.
I had a chance to think about nature
which, despite the efforts of mankind, always escapes man's control in the end,
because despite all commitment, research, and monitoring
of farm biologists,
the result of every harvest is always a surprise.
I was then able to detect
that, however, this ungovernability is not invincibility,
because farmers, in order to sustain the coral reef,
came up with the idea
of growing corals in their own laboratory
and then implant them.
Well, that night, as I sat down
on this little piece of land that kept me dry from the water,
I thought about the following sentence: "Beauty is fragile."
These words seemed to make sense of everything,
they seemed to instantly legitimize a truth,
as if it were a fact of nature.
It was a very simple concept, maybe even cliché;
and yet for me it represented, perhaps in the best possible way,
my work until then:
that is, looking for precious materials
that were beautiful in all respects,
I mean, also good.
When I got home, though,
this sentence, as simple as it was,
began to raise increasingly puzzling questions.
You see, what I was struck by
was not the awareness of the cruelty and fragility of nature,
or that natural beauty could amaze with such intensity
and at the same time, could be
so easily altered by human action,
could be so fragile.
On the contrary, what amazed me was the fact
that the beauty I had felt and which had almost become oppressive,
and which therefore seemed indisputable to me in its facticity,
that thing that I called beauty, and that I told others about as beauty,
was only such because in that particular moment
I was willing to look, to observe,
I was willing to contemplate it.
Here's the thing: we're fragile, we're human, we're transient.
This thing I felt I had to call beauty,
and which was undoubtedly powerful,
because days, weeks, months had passed
and yet that moment kept questioning me and almost feeding me,
well, that thing called beauty was still fragile,
as it depends on us.
What a loss, then, hadn't I noticed it that night,
if I had merely enjoyed a simple pleasant circumstance,
as there are so many,
if I hadn't recognized that beauty.
Well, sooner or later I'll have to mention it,
since we're talking about beauty.
It's been sneaking around here
cause I think many of you have thought of it,
and that it is a literary quote
and wanders around a bit like, as I like to think, Hamlet's ghost
that appears to Horatio shortly after midnight.
It says:
"Is it true, prince,
that you once declared that beauty would save the world?
Gentlemen, the prince says that beauty will save the world."
The idiot, Dostoevsky.
"Beauty will save the world." What an announcement of salvation, huh?
But what beauty will save the world?
And how will it save the world?
In the novel, unfortunately, Dostoevsky gives us no answer,
at least no clear one;
in fact this merciless story,
shows us that the world hinders, perhaps even destroys, beauty,
because it is pervaded by arrogance, vulgarity, ignorance.
It is a very evocative sentence, but it is a thought without content.
Well, tonight I want to try to say
that yes, perhaps "beauty will save the world",
but on one condition:
beauty itself must be saved from the world first.
But now I have to take a step back:
I've said almost everything, but without saying anything.
I have implied that beauty is a kind of generating force
and I've also supposed that it needs us to do anything.
But I must stop because I first need to clarify
the definition of beauty we are talking about.
Because I seem to notice
that we talk about beauty all the time.
We constantly relate to beauty:
we always use so much the adjective "beautiful,"
it's just an interjection, most of the time
that does not mean anything interesting or decisive.
"Yes I like it, that's beautiful"; "come on, there are beautiful people";
"it's undoubtedly beautiful,
but apart from beauty?"
We call "beautiful" all that seems morally acceptable to us,
somewhat fascinating;
but also what we consider superficial,
hiding the true face of things.
This vagueness, however, this oscillation, happens for a very precise reason,
that is, it is really difficult to talk about beauty;
and for this reason we seek refuge in personal insights,
in relativism.
They say, indeed,
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
and people are often urged to "look beyond aesthetics".
Looks like a tangle.
Well, let's start with aesthetics.
What is aesthetics?
In common language,
"aesthetics" refers to the appearance and external features of something,
and it does so in the negative sense of a simple appearance,
of something that needs to be overcome
to get to the part worthy of an alleged interest.
In truth, the word comes from the Greek "àisthesis",
which means "sensation",
but also "perceiving through the mediation of the senses".
We experience sensations all the time, we are immersed in them.
It's impossibile to keep them away
and to represent them as if they were external objects.
Aesthetics, therefore, is concerned with
investigating and studying the qualities and performance
of this peculiar human sensibility of ours.
And so it explores and investigates the ways we acquire our knowledge:
therefore language, imagination,
creativity, inventing, experiencing,
especially from a scientific perspective.
Aesthetics deals with how we meet the world.
It's not secondary, it's essential.
In this perspective
I'd like to suggest the following definition of beauty:
It's something like: "Beauty is the greatest treasure."
These words are not mine, of course: they come from Goethe's Faust,
the work that tells the story of a man
who wants to bring beauty to the world, and experience it.
Here the keyword is "treasure",
which isn't to be meant as something theoretically important;
quite the opposite, treasure refers here to a precise and concrete thing,
something that must be sought with effort and hope,
if necessary also by digging,
as if it were a chest full of treasures, jewels,
buried in the past.
But in the word "treasure" there's also a connection
with the unknown, with the other, the infinity, the indefinite,
as searching is also venturing, moving in the dark,
exploring otherwise unknown places.
And the result, the reward for this brave endeavor,
the treasure,
is not at all guaranteed.
You might not find anything.
But if you happen to find it, that treasure,
you'll have to bring it back in one piece,
because it will be difficult, on the spot,
to decide which part to keep and which to leave.
In other words, it might be hard, all of a sudden,
to understand its meaning.
Because without it we would not be able to understand its value,
and therefore fully understand how to make it safe.
Well, beauty, we said,
is as valuable as a treasure and can save the world,
but it's also fragile because it somehow depends on us.
Therefore, to save us it will have to be saved first;
but how do we save beauty?
How do we save something that's even hard to talk about?
I'd try and say: by letting two things happen.
First, learning to find beauty.
To find beauty, all you need is to keep your eyes wide open,
to be ready to listen and embrace.
It is a disposition of the soul that is possible for anyone;
and that one acquires, and above all maintains,
by facing the unfamiliar:
it is the effort to learn, to inquire, to read,
to educate oneself in art, poetry and philosophical sensitivity.
It is the constant commitment to give attention and consideration
to the stimuli that come from all our senses,
including the most neglected of all,
the sense of smell.
It is, I'll try to say it even better, the difficulty of distancing oneself,
at least at night when we're home,
from scientific, technical and functional education,
which our age requires and imposes on us,
and embracing, on the contrary, aesthetic sensitivity
and the stimuli coming from the outside world.
To find beauty,
you have to be open to all possibilities,
even at the cost of not understanding and feeling confused,
and getting lost for a moment.
Now that we're ready, willing to find beauty,
how do we look for it?
Well, by approaching the world,
holding in one hand everything we have -
our culture and human sensitivity -
and keep the other hand empty,
because we have to be ready to collect and welcome anything,
even what seems invisible and meaningless.
At this point, what we find
we can brazenly call it beauty,
it has the form of enigma, amazement,
of something that makes us think.
Well, we found beauty, we found the treasure,
but we are not yet at the end of our journey.
Do you remember?
Once you find the treasure, it has to be brought back undamaged
in order to understand its value and meaning,
and keep it safe.
So we must make an effort to give a form and a meaning,
to this multiform, maybe even shapeless thing
that we call beauty
and that comes towards us and interrogates us.
Because only by trying to give it a shape,
we can make it communicable
and pass it on to others.
Here's the second thing to do to save beauty: sharing it.
This too, like the effort to find beauty,
is something anyone can do.
Of course, those who are able to produce something totally unique and original,
that is the genius,
will do it in a very powerful way:
these are the artists and people who inspire us the most.
But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't do anything.
We may not be brilliant, but we can still be creative.
because such is the nature of Homo Sapiens.
We can make the effort to explain, to elaborate
by whatever means we have.
If we think we have found beauty in a book, or in a movie,
instead of just suggesting it quickly to our friends,
let's try to talk about it, investigate within us and with them,
let's talk about this thing we have met, and we feel we can call beauty.
Because by making this effort
we will not only make it communicable,
but we will be able to pass it on to others
and we'll give it a place to stay safe.
Kind of like a treasure chest.
This is the heroic act of seeking beauty,
finding it and bringing it back into the world,
triggering its saving power
through a collective effort of processing and sharing.
"Humanity - writes Dostoevsky in another work -
can live without science, it can live without bread,
but it cannot live without beauty,
for there'd be nothing left to do in this life.
Here lies the entire story."
Hold on. Hold on.
I summoned Horatio earlier.
Do you emember the last thing Hamlet asks his friend,
before he dies?
He says, "You live.
Report me, and my cause, to the unsatisfied."
Hamlet asks Horatio to report.
Thanks.
(Applause)