Beauty and its mysterious melancholic effect

July 2, 2026 — 1:23pm

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One of the enduring mysteries of human experience for me is the link between beauty and melancholy or yearning. My paradigm example is a slow movement from Mozart’s piano concertos: simple, lovely yet often gut-wrenching. Many people will have a similar story from other music.

Psychologists and philosophers have attempted various explanations – for example, philosopher Immanuel Kant’s notion of the sublime, which links the pleasure of beauty with potentially terrifying vastness and awe.

I tend to think beauty can bring this sort........

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