BEAUTY

THEORIES OF BEAUTY

• Is beauty universal? • Is beauty objective or subjective?• Is beauty really “in the eye of the beholder?”• Or it is an objective features of beautiful

things.

Theories of Beauty• The Classical Conception of Beauty (objective)

– This idea of beauty, is embodied in Italian Renaissance painting and architecture:

– To be beautiful is to have proportion, harmony, and symmetry. (nature or work of art)

– “to be beautiful, a living creature, and every whole made up of parts, must … present a certain order in its arrangement of parts”

– Aristotle (Poetics)

– Aristotelian Ethics (A good life is a life live in moderation)

• Counter argument – there are things that do not display asymmetry but we consider them beautiful. (nature)

• Flower• Peacock• Swan

• Idealist Conception of Beauty (Objective)

– Plato : art as a copy of copy of real things.– We can only experience portion of perfect beauty.– Gradation of things: beautiful, more beautiful and

most beautiful.

• If Plato is with us today, he would despise us for indulging in virtual images.– Photo shopped pictures– Graphic images– Because for him those are mere copies of copies

of reality. And copy will always be inferior to the original.

– And lastly it creates delusion.

• Beauty as love and Longing – “by beauty I mean, that quality of those qualities

in bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it”

- Edmund Burke

• Beauty and Pleasure– “By beautiful we generally understand whatever,

when seen, heard, or understood, delights, pleases, and ravishes us by causing within us agreeable sensations”

– Augustine asks explicitly whether things are beautiful because they give delight, or whether they give delight because they are beautiful.

• Beauty and Purpose– “Every one knows that beauty is what pleases” – But it pleases for reasons of usefulness.

– things are beautiful only in relation to the uses for which they are intended or to which they are properly applied.

• According to John Locke, beauty is not a primary quality that resides in the material object, but a secondary that resides in the perceiver.– Primary qualities- those that belong to the

material object. (solid or weight, extension or volume and motion)

– Secondary qualities – those that belong to the perceiver. (touch, sight, sound, and taste)

• Beauty is perceive through the sense of sight, and in view of the relative standard that each individual may possess. (depends on one’s orientation)– Painting– Music– Movie– Architecture (building) etc…

• Hence, perception of beauty may vary. “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

conclusion

• All these theories of beauty are possibilities in that they are not reducible to truth and falsity.

• Therefore, we conclude that beauty is subjective and objective at the same time.– It is subjective because we perceive things differently.– It is objective because whenever we experience

beauty we also experience pleasure, love and longing for that object regardless whether it is useful or not.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

- Thomas Merton

“Art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

- Rainbow Rowell

The “Earth” without “art” is just

“eh”