Can I borrow a cup of elegance?

Elegance.  Such a simple and beautiful word. But what  a tough word to pin down. It does wonderful duty in describing something you see that is, well, elegant. I think elegance falls into that category of word that elicits the phrase “I know it when I see it.” You just know.

And you can probably even look at the object and pick out what gives it elegance. Elegance does have a definition, or many definitions, though they seem to press the play button on the quote attributed to Pontius Pilate “What is truth?” What is elegance?

One definition is “Grace, refinement, and beauty in movement, appearance, or manners.” I think that works for me.

I know you’re asking why am I interested in the definition of elegance. Perhaps it’s because I want my furniture to be elegant. And yes, sometimes that is true, though clients sometimes want different qualities. But it’s mostly a need to get my hands around this for when that client wants something elegant. Where does one begin?

So we come back to “What is elegance?” First off, I need to know what that means to me. Second, I need to figure out what that means to the client.

To me elegance begins with movement and all the ways one can achieve that. Sometimes that means simple. But introducing simple into the equation just adds more abstractness to something we are trying to unabstract. I had a client who said she wanted something elegant and to her elegance was paired with simplicity. I had to ask whether simple to her was uncomplicated or was it minimal. It was minimal, which was a characteristic I could chase but probably not define.

I did find a definition of elegance that I liked though I think it actually was referring to an ecosystem or ecology. “Elegance denotes the minimum activity that is necessary and sufficient to produce the desired outcome.” I like this probably because it confirms it some way may initial gut feel on what makes elegance, and that was movement. Activity. Movement. Perhaps activity is movement with a goal.

So in order to achieve elegance with movement I need to infuse that movement with a goal. Movement for movement sake may or may not churn out elegance and most likely becomes artifice instead of art. Which believe it or not takes me back to my main belief about what is required to elevate art, any sort of art: Intention. What is the intent?

Though perhaps harder to achieve than elegance, intention may actually be easier to define and describe, assuming there is intention in it. So, you have to ask yourself, what is your intention? Do you have one?  Do I have one? That, I suppose is the question. 

This entry was posted on 24. October 2008 at 10:54 and is filed under Designs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.