"Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all"
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Maugham treats beauty less like a puzzle to solve than a bodily fact you either register or you dont. Calling it "an ecstasy" sounds lofty, then he punctures the loft with "as simple as hunger" - a neat bit of anti-romantic realism. Hunger doesnt require interpretation; it requires acknowledgment. By pairing aesthetic rapture with appetite, he insists beauty is not a moral achievement or an intellectual trophy. Its a sensation that happens to you, not a credential you earn.
The line "There is really nothing to be said about it" reads like a jab at the industry of talking: critics, aesthetes, even playwrights with their elegant monologues. Maugham, a professional maker of words, deliberately stages a refusal of language. Thats the subtextual flex: he knows the seduction of eloquence, but he also knows how quickly it can become performance standing in for feeling. The rose-perfume analogy is doing quiet rhetorical work. Perfume is intimate, immediate, and slightly uncontrollable; it bypasses analysis and goes straight to memory and desire. You dont argue with a scent.
Context matters: Maugham came up in a period saturated with aesthetic theories and post-Victorian posing, then lived through wars that made grand talk feel suspect. His theater-trained ear favors clean, playable statements over metaphysical fog. The intent isnt anti-art; its anti-bullshit. Beauty, he implies, is both undeniable and finally private: the most truthful response is attention, not commentary.
The line "There is really nothing to be said about it" reads like a jab at the industry of talking: critics, aesthetes, even playwrights with their elegant monologues. Maugham, a professional maker of words, deliberately stages a refusal of language. Thats the subtextual flex: he knows the seduction of eloquence, but he also knows how quickly it can become performance standing in for feeling. The rose-perfume analogy is doing quiet rhetorical work. Perfume is intimate, immediate, and slightly uncontrollable; it bypasses analysis and goes straight to memory and desire. You dont argue with a scent.
Context matters: Maugham came up in a period saturated with aesthetic theories and post-Victorian posing, then lived through wars that made grand talk feel suspect. His theater-trained ear favors clean, playable statements over metaphysical fog. The intent isnt anti-art; its anti-bullshit. Beauty, he implies, is both undeniable and finally private: the most truthful response is attention, not commentary.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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