Uncle Sandy brought up a theory that he has been working on for some time: the idea of active beauty versus passive. To illustrate this concept, he used my brother's dogs.
Pfeiffer, the white dog is a shining example of active beauty. He has been called the ugliest dog in the world - but he is good hearted. Riker, the black dog behind him is beautiful, knows he is beautiful, and therefor does not do much to win the affection of others.
Active beauty is the beauty of your actions, it is the beauty of Mother Theresa, and it is the beauty of the saints. In the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy" Michelangelo is seen drawing the faces of people on the streets. When someone asks him if he is trying to draw the devil, he responds "no, the saints!" It is because they are filled with active beauty they remain beautiful and attractive to others, even though they might not be that easy on the eye balls. Passive beauty is what you are born with, it is what is inate. But it is the active beauty that we must strive to actively cultivate for ourselves and with what we need to surround ourselves. A great example of someone who is both of these is my mother. She is always trying to make the people around her happy, at the expense of her own happiness, or at the expense of her own night of sleep. She is also so passively and effortlessly beautiful, whether she realizes it or not.
To add to Uncle Sandy's theory, I think there must be a certain amount of active beauty that turns into passive - for example, when a person is so kind and thoughtful that is it no longer a conscious action of theirs but routine. Poor little Pfeiffer has awhile to go before he gets there... And I don't think it works in reverse. It is not possible to have such good looks that they leak into your personality and make you nice!
I also compared this to the idea of retinal vs. conceptual art. Although there is cross over, Conceptual art tends to be a work of active beauty because it working and making the viewer work to find the beauty that it contains. Retinal art is art that is created to be pleasing to the eye - the definition of passive beauty! Or, as Aristotle said it "that which seen is pleasing."
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