ABSTRACT
Beauty evokes sadness as well as love, because it is vulnerable. Beauty is vulnerable because it is innocent. One of the problems with psychoanalytical thought from its inception between Freud and Lou Andreas- Salome, is the lack of notice taken of the difference between innocence and experience. The shift from innocence to experience in Western culture has largely been regarded as sexual awakening, as Adam and Eve after they have eaten the apple become aware of their nakedness, as if this is bad; but it is symbolic of a shift from childhood to adulthood. The second movement of Schubert's String Quintet is a perfect encapsulation of innocence and experience. Beauty has a purity and transparency about it, as this rondo by Mozart has. Kant's philosophy brings up the subject of the disinterestedness of beauty that has been hovering in the background, behind the word "ineffable".
