THE LIFE BEAUTIFUL

When we enter into our private garage, we stop to wistfully admire our car. When we open the door of this fine machine, shut it behind us, we anticipate that satisfying, solid clunk, knowing that the time, effort and money spent on perfecting the restoration has been worth it. From the outside, we know that onlookers will register that the shut lines are even, perfect. Once we sink into the driving seat, the butter-soft leather wraps us as a glove. Our senses reverse into memories of scenic drives and romantic trysts (in contrast to most drives which are usually just a pain). The perfume of the leather, petrol and oil, maybe perfume if we’re lucky; the grip of the slender, wood-rimmed — or bakelite — steering wheel; the palm-grip of the gear-knob; the instrument cluster in calibrated eyeline with high-relief dials as well-formed as an exquisitely engineered time-piece — all betoken beauty. 

We insert the ignition key and turn, drink in the soft clicks of the fuel pump filling the finely tuned carburettors, pull out the choke or depress the throttle the correct number of times (a ritual unique to our own car, of course), gingerly nudge the key onwards or press the starter with a childlike anticipation, hoping the battery has roused itself in willing mood. The starter clicks. It engages. The carbs squirt their juice, the magnetos send their shocks and the 4, 6, 8, 12 or 16 primed cylinders burst into song, first time. The back wall of the garage is marked by our exhaust in morning musk.  The elements of this confabulation all go to answer our need for nervous anticipation, our lust for excitement and the unexpected, our hunger for beauty in life.  And we haven’t left the garage.

Out on the road our senses come alive to the fruity burble or shrill scream of the tightly tuned exhaust system.  In the rain (yes, some dare), the flack, flack, flack of wipers thrum back and forth, metronome tempoing with our admiring of the curvaceous bonnet, its pert bulges. Rounding a corner, the soft green light, tick, tick, tick, indicates indicators indicating intentions. Troubles left behind. Savings too.

And then, there is man’s most beautiful creation, the Riva. Long day ahead with friends and family, on an emerald lake lapped in sunshine, perhaps Italy. An early morning start, a weather check. A swift crossing of the waters to a pine-scented tie-up for a long, lazy lunch. A Campari, perhaps a trout freshly hauled in, a bottle of chilled Greco di Tufo.  Then a shoreline search for a secluded spot to indulge in a post-lunch, post-Sambucca snooze as the perfume of the warm motors dissipates in evaporating silence, just wavelets flapping at the mahogany of the craft. You are transported gently dreamwards . . . Then a quick, brisk swim in the inky depths of the cove, and a sporting run back to base as the long sun splinters shadows across the kaleidoscopic water.

Welcome to The Life Beautiful.  

However, this regular feature will not be about what collectors, connoisseurs, aesthetes drive — rather what drives them. What are their objects of beauty in everyday moments? How do they enjoy them? Where does their motivation come from?

I recall my own honeymoon in Bali, some twenty years ago, each day at breakfast watching the table being beautifully prepared by the Balinese waitresses; mesmerised by how particularly they laid the table for my much-needed re-fuelling after a long-hard night of honeymooning. Every task was carried out slowly, with precision, delicacy and pride.  They did this day after day, and yet they could not have done their work with more mindful, attentive presence had they been laying for royalty.

Each day I write in a journal and, naturally, many days I do not feel the urge.  The allure of calligraphic design and form, the action of writing itself, seated at a mid-20th century Danish rosewood desk, fountain pen in hand, spur me.  The ink flows, as water becoming a river, ink that will never flow from this nib again … the scrape across the paper satisfying and clearing my mind. I know that the letters formed by my technique are each unique in themselves, and will never be the same again – as won’t my thoughts.

Mastery of sport is beautiful – take photos from the 1960s of Ali landing a punch, legs splayed, arms stretched, determination and mindfulness — neither aggression nor anger — etched in, and by, his gaze. Ali crafted an art-form of boxing, his poise, thoughtfulness, physique and skill conjuring the elixir of beauty. Picture too the perfect drift of a Jaguar D-Type, Giani Agnelli’s slope shapes, Pele caressing a ball (the beautiful game), Bjorn Borg’s grasscourt finesse.

So too: creating an architectural statement, living daily among objets d’art, selecting the complex, mechanical watch to suit our day and setting its time and date (as long as it’s not perpetual, of course), circling vinyl jazz on an acoustic masterpiece of Hi Fidelity, indulgent and out-dated but also the richest listening, mixing cocktails in a silver-trayed cheeky shaker, post-prandialling in the library with a cigar while spied upon by a first-edition Wodehouse or Fleming set.  Low-slung Scandinavian furniture,  Art Deco design, photography, cameras, pens, binoculars, antiques, typography, art, sculpture, wine, the Brighton run over August Bank Holiday dressed-to-kill on a rare Lambretta or Vespa. 

Whatever floats your boat, leverage its beauty and share it with friends.

It is with this in mind that I plan to learn more from the many great friends that I have made through our mutual love of fine motor-cars. What drives them? What does it mean for them to be an aesthete or connoisseur? How deep does the need for beauty course through their lives?

I have long nursed a need for beauty, yet I am an amateur still.  One of its true connoisseurs, a great man, philosopher and prolific author no longer with us, Roger Scruton, penned one in particular which has driven me to add this new feature to my website. In Beauty Scruton sums up — beautifully — the spirit that connects us:

“We appreciate beautiful things not for their utility only, but also for what they are in themselves — or more plausibly, for how they appear in themselves.” 
― Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction

La Vita e bella, Life is beautiful — but it takes great effort.

I hope you will enjoy.