The lines quoted below were read several days ago. I was confused. I thought about revisiting Nietzsche’s point of view, as more time was needed to absorb what he seemed to say.

A collection of blown glass pumpkins that I encountered while Christmas shopping yesterday reminded me of the written lines about beauty. The pumpkin, a circle form, a shade of orange that comforts, to the variation of flavors which are conjured from the pumpkin — make this gourd/squash/fruit an icon of the fall season.

The collection rendered by a glass artist impressed me. The ‘wicked’, atypical beauty was imposing. What about the essential, the iconic beauty of a nature-made pumpkin? Well, what about it? However I know, the outsized curly stalk, with this artisan’s eccentric treatment of iridescent, prismatic color also merits appreciation.

The violation of standards and settled norms – in a gallery environment, or in a merchandise filled shop is recognized as – art.  And what of human individuals?  A certain particular beauty, no mere caricature?

We move about
in nature,
cunning and cheerful,
in order that we may surprise
everything in the beauty peculiar to it;
we make an effort…

Thus also
we should walk about among humankind
as their discoverers and explorers,
meting out to them good and evil
in order that we may unveil the peculiar
beauty, etc., etc….

Are we then forbidden
to enjoy the evil man like
some savage landscape
which possesses its own bold and daring lines
and luminous effects,

while this same man,
so long as he behaves well,
and in conformity with the law,
appears to us
to be an error of drawing,
and a mere caricature
which offends us
like a defect
in nature?

—Yes, this is forbidden:
for as yet
we have
only been permitted
to seek beauty
in anything
that is morally
good,…
—and this is sufficient
to explain
why we have found
so little…

The Dawn of Day, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by J. M. Kennedy, aphorism 468

Let’s enjoy the ‘savage landscape’ of Pink Floyd’s tune, Run Like Hell. Recorded August 9th, 1980.