1.6 Existence of Beauty: Aesthetics                                                           Version 1.1 March 2012

 

 

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, just as goodness comes from within.  It can be found in nature as well as in “artificial” works of art. 

We cannot really define what beauty is: the definitions end up being circular.  A work of art could be defined in a circular way as something made all the resources, or part of the resources are applied to produce a thing or an event that has little or no practical purpose, other than to create this sense of beauty.  But in some instances an elegant design can be seen as beautiful even though there was no intent to produce a beautiful object.  Practical tools can be beautiful.  Buildings made for a functional purpose can have features added to make them more attractive or more beautiful.

Many people associate beauty with truth, and there is some truth in this.  Good art is authentic, which means truthful, where the intent is honest.  Many mathematically and scientifically inclined people see the results of maths and science, which are an approximation to the truth, as beautiful.  E = mc² is a beautifully elegant way of describing the relationship between matter and energy.

There is little in common with all beautiful objects, and what one person sees as beautiful another will find incomprehensible.  Computer geeks will know that some computer programs are beautiful.  Many young people find classical music (in Europe or China) boring or painful, but certainly not beautiful.  Many older people find modern hard rock music intolerable.

Cultures developed their own symbols over time, moving from rough representation, to accurate or allegorical representation to non-representative (abstract) art.  For many artistic beauty is a communication of an idea from the artist(s) to the audience.  For others, their art is an expression of their own, made regardless of any attempt to communicate this to anyone else.

Now we can debate what is beautiful and what is art and which artefacts exhibit these qualities but the common source of these sensibilities is our natural human nature.  Science and History can provide some insight into the origins of this sense of beauty:

·         Singing, music and dance may have arisen in humans (as it has in birds and some monkeys) as a pre-linguistic form of communication. 

·         Painting and sculpture arose early in human development. 

·         Narratives (in oral stories, plays, poems, novels, comics, movies, TV serials) and timeless descriptions (in poems and prose) began with the development of language.

·         Technological development now allows us to create works of art with a wide range of media.

But regardless of the evolutionary origins of a sense of beauty, and despite the fact that we may find it hard to define, and we differ on where it is to be found, we choose, to the extent that we make choices, to see some things as beautiful, awesome, brilliant or whatever, so we value beauty.