Blessed by the four elements The Indian stone temple also included, in its architectural form, the means for being blessed by the four elements—earth, wind, water, fire. Before entering the temple gates, one removed one's shoes to touch and be blessed by the earth. Then upon passing through the temple gateway, one is blessed by the air with a gust of wind. A blessing by water is obtained by bathing in the temple tank, or at least descending its steps to touch the water. Finally, on entering the cool interior of the sanctuary, the worshipper is given a mark on the forehead with ashes taken from a sacred flame by an attendant priest. Even this blessing by fire has a slight cooling sensation to it. Perhaps it is only coincidental that each of these four blessings is associated with a cooling sensation; and yet, the use of forms and materials that inevitably create coolness is quite remarkable. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture Avatar: The Last AirbenderThe Legend of KorraA hierarchical system of sense elements
A hierarchical system of sense During the Renaissance, the five senses were understood to form a hierarchical system from the highest sense of vision down to touch. Vision was correlated to fire and light, hearing to air, smell to vapour, taste to water, and touch to earth. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses Avatar: The Last AirbenderPrometheusBlessed by the four elements fireelementssenses
Avatar: The Last Airbender A Series The Legend of KorraBlessed by the four elementsA hierarchical system of sense spiritelements
The Legend of Korra A Series If you look for the lightWhen we hit our lowest point Avatar: The Last AirbenderBlessed by the four elements spiritelements
No kind No kind of shape, no kind of design or kind of picture or other work of art can be beautiful. No kind of color is beautiful. Beauty comes always from the singularity of things. Two things which happen to be closely similar in size, color, insurance value, smell, weight, or shape, may both seem equally beautiful. It is not therefore to be deduced that, say, a smell of turpentine is a necessary prerequisite of beauty; and nor is the fact that the two things' shapes are measurably within a millimeter of each other. They might still be as different as chalk and cheese: they might differ hugely in surface quality so that one lived and the other was dead. One judges a man by what he is, by his individuality, his idiosyncrasy; not by his measurable properties or measurable behavior or by the shape of his nose or the description in his passport. So with a work of art. David Pye, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design The Timeless Way of Building beauty