For centuries, beauty was expected to point beyond itself.
Field Notes
For much of history, jade was admired for more than its rarity. In many traditions, people associated it with qualities like integrity, compassion, wisdom, humility, and endurance. Whether those connections were literally true mattered less than what they encouraged people to practice. Beauty wasn’t simply something to own—it was something that reminded you who you hoped to become. Today, beautiful objects more often signal wealth, exclusivity, or status. The stone hasn’t changed. What we ask beauty to represent has.