Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. In the Middle Ages, philosophical debate over the concept of beauty was a wide-ranging one, even extending to discussion on geometric shapes. When the debate took such a turn, the fourth-century opinions of St Augustine were never far away. In his text, De Quantitatae Animae, Augustine expounded a theory based on geometrical regularity in which certain shapes of triangles were considered more beautiful than others and a square surpassed a triangle in the beauty stakes. The winner, however, was the circle.
I was prompted to remember this when, on a recent visit to the Australian Museum (Sydney), my attention was taken by a display of models of the dinosaur life-cycle which began with a “peep” inside a dinosaur egg and showed the pre-hatched baby tucked into a perfect circle (Photo #1). On my return home that evening, I was again confronted by a perfect circle in the form of my “post-hatched” dog curled up on her bed (Photo #2). Dinosaurs or dogs, I think Augustine is right: the circle is a beautiful shape.
Carmel Bendon 