The Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
This essay will explore the philosophical and cultural dimensions of the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” It will discuss how perceptions of beauty vary across different societies and historical periods, and how they are influenced by factors such as culture, media, and personal experiences. The piece will also examine the implications of this subjectivity for concepts of self-image, aesthetics, and art. More free essay examples are accessible at PapersOwl about Beauty.
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The common cliché goes “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Is there any real meaning to that? The expression simply means that beauty has no set meaning, definition, or even value for that matter. It is a collectively undecided notion, since its definition lies solely in observation. It also implies that each individual may interpret the idea of beauty (of people, objects, thoughts, etc.) according to his/her own biased, genetic, emotional, cultural, social, and spiritual needs. Having said that, most people feel they ‘intuitively’ know and ‘understand’ what is meant by beauty in their mind’s eye.
What is beauty? How do we decide who is attractive and who is not? Society is full of information telling us what is beautiful, but what fact is that information based on? The topic of beauty has been studied, analyzed and controversial for centuries. We all know the feeling you can have when you hear a beautiful song that brings joy to your heart, stand in a field of flowers that excites your eyes, or admire a face that is visually pleasing. As human beings, we are all drawn to beauty, but what is it that makes something beautiful?
The controversial issue that surrounds beauty is that some believe that true beauty is defined by someone’s outer appearance, while others believe it is something that is experienced through a person’s character. Beauty is defined as “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” The secret of beauty has been a quest of humans for centuries. It has been determined that women and some men spend up to one-third of their income on products and procedures that enhance their looks. We spend way too much time looking in the mirror, scrutinizing, worrying, fretting, and wishing we could change something about ourselves. We dream of looking like the girl at work because she has great hair, or the girl we met at a party because she was skinny, with the perfect nose. This happens because we are constantly being bombarded with messages from social media. Altogether, the adage asserts that beauty is purely reliant on one’s own personal preference and perceptions of it. In other words, beauty is relative.
Therefore, even if I find rather repulsive what you call beautiful, our differences in opinion are both justified and simultaneously true, even if either side disagrees with that fact. This concept explains much in our past and current culture today. The arguments between countless teenagers and parents regarding choice of music and its proper volume make sense – both are right, just with different perceptions of what each would call beautiful, or pleasurable. America as a whole in the past century is a prime example of this. After World War I, the image of the flapper – women with short skirts, short hair, and skinny bodies – became beautiful, followed by the famous image of a pale Marilyn Monroe standing on an air vent, skirt blowing upwards. In America today many would identify beauty as Megan Fox’s tanned and thin hourglass shape, while in Africa a tribesman would find a far larger woman with nose rings attractive. Chinese women still inflict tortuous pains on themselves with the practice of foot binding in pursuit of beauty.
Obviously, beauty varies and morphs into whatever ideal the culture sets for it. If you took the time to analyze each person you encountered, touch every blade of grass you walked upon, or reenact every event you possess in your memory, then you would successfully know what beauty was. A pretty face is not a complete definition of beauty, nor is the quality of one being kind and compassionate. To contain beauty, someone or something does not have to be physically beautiful. Beauty is everywhere. Take a simple flower. Your first glance at a flower would not establish its beauty. You look at its whole appearance; the color(s), structure, scent, design, and even ponder for a while about its growth process. All of these observations of a flower lead to its defining beauty. Now take a simple person and relate it to a flower. In many cases, people describe beauty by one thing… the physical appearance.
However, think about it… Would you think a flower was still beautiful if its smell was outrageously disgusting? The color of the flower is like the personality of a person. The structure is like one’s confidence and impact upon others, the scent, is like someone’s overall personality, the design but one’s individualism, and a flowers growth process is merely like an individual’s own history. the sight”. Over a long period of time, the meaning of beauty has changed. The way beauty was seen in the past, have been slightly modified into something totally different today. For many years, there has been that one question that has not been proven, even until now. There are few people who have their own opinion on this issue. There have been many ancient philosophers who have debated on this such issue. Are individuals actually looking or acting as themselves, or is it all an act to fit in with the society? Does each person have their own perceptive on beauty? Is the whole world just pretending to be someone else? Are people dressing or behaving in such way they can impress society?
For centuries, beauty has been debated if it was either determined by individual or by society. David Hume explored the view of beauty and believed beauty is individual. He felt each person have their own perspective of beauty. There are few people that try to be different from other as much as possible, but the way society thinks of them changes them completely. Conversely, philosophers such as Hegel and Edmund Burke argued that beauty is determined by society. Aristotle, famous Greek philosopher, has also agreed with what David Hume’s theory of beauty. For example, others say Koreans are very ‘beautiful’. But I am Korean, but I do not think so. I rather think that Americans are more diverse in their personality. Korea follows fashion a lot. Therefore, the same clothes, shoes, hair, and makeup are all the same. Beauty like this is different for each individual. But do we follow the definition of ‘beauty’? I do not think so. Someone feels beauty in flowers but others cannot. But we have no prejudices about it.
I like photography very much. Sometimes I think it is ‘beautiful.’ Do other people think of me the same way? We need to be aware that somebody has different things about beauty. That’s why there are so many ideas about ‘beauty’ in this paper, and we think we need to understand each other.
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Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder
Updated 19 August 2021
Subject Communication , Love
Downloads 60
Category Life , Psychology , Sociology
Topic Beauty , Individual , Observation
Beauty is relative, as they say, “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” There is now not a single set meaning, value or definition for beauty. It is a collectively iffy notion due to the fact its definition exclusively lies on observation. Therefore, each has their ideas with regards to beauty. It is via one’s view and opinion. Beauty is not just about the outward appearance of a individual neither is it about the heart and the qualities of a person being compassionate and kind. There is an absolute splendor in everything; we just need to recognize it.People exactly observe different objects, on the other hand, humans define beauty according to their previous experiences. Each person has their definition of beauty, and others convince their fellows to consent with their views with regards to beauty (Wolf et al., pp. 12). The physical appearance of an object or a person does not fully speak of their beauty. Preferably, it is a conscious experience to one’s intellect, eyes, ears, and moral sense. Beauty is expressed from within the heart of an individual. People are motivated by inner strength of character, and this leads to a perception that someone has a beautiful soul.People often appreciate beauty in other people or objects in their environment, and they acknowledge what they feel and see. For instance, most men appreciate a confident and physically attractive woman. These qualities charm most men, and as a result, they value her and take pleasure in being associated with her. Such a beautiful woman gets appreciation from all people in the society, even her fellow women. According to Wolf, recognition of beauty is transmitted through the use of senses. People appreciate beauty owing to the pleasure they derive from an individual, a thought or an object.If humans took time to analyze everything that lies within their horizons, they would discover that there is beauty in almost everything that the eye comes across. Aggregate qualities in an object or a person that pleasurably exalts the mind or gives pleasure to the senses result to beauty. Different people find beauty in various objects, persons, qualities, and ideas. I am of the opinion that if we looked carefully at people and objects within our environment, we would be thrilled by the undisputable beauty that lies within them. There is a chance to discover beauty even in some of the things that we neglect.The secret to beauty has been having been a human quest over time. Both men and women spend a great deal of their income on grooming and beauty enhancement. The beauty industry has grown and diversified over time, products and procedures that enhance the looks of a person increase day after day. It is true that many people spend time on the mirror worrying, fretting, scrutinizing or wishing they could change a thing or two about their appearance. Today’s technology exposes us to trends in the beauty industry, and there is increased awareness on beauty products and procedures. We want to look like a particular model, have our eyebrows on point, have a shapely body and a smooth skin or even acquire a specific perfume.There is no consistency in the definition of beauty. Qualities that result to beauty change over time and from one person to another (Gunes et al., pp 93). People express different views on beauty, what one person considers attractive and beautiful may be what the other person finds unappealing. However, people’s ideas of beauty have continually been influenced by others, the trends, social media, and fashion. Nevertheless, opinions on what is beautiful and what is not still differing among different people, societies, and social classes. Therefore, the definition of beauty lies within an individual.Beauty is not about the outward appearance of an object or a person. Qualities that amount to beauty go far beyond the visible (Peitgen et al., pp 47). Appearance is deceitful, and that is the reason as to why we commonly say that we should not judge a book by its cover. A person or an object may appeal to the eye yet from a closer look and observation of its qualities be undesirable and ugly. Good physical looks do not define entirely the beauty that lies within a person or an object. On the other hand, physical appearance may, in some cases, be enhanced by the beauty of a person’s qualities. There are times that we fall in love with the merits of an object or a person then later acknowledge its physical beauty.In conclusion, beauty is an aspect that has no fundamental definition, and there are no set qualities or aspects leading to elegance. People’s opinion on what is beautiful is different, and it is dependent on a person’s past experiences, social class, and taste. People are influenced to have a standard inclination with regards to beauty due to current trends, social media influence, and fashion. However, there is still a distinction in people’s ideas and definition of beauty. Close observation of people and objects leads to a wholesome discovery of beauty that lies within those people or objects. Beauty is relative, and each person holds their own opinion with regards to beauty. Read also: How to get plagiarism free essay writing for excellent quality? Works CitedGunes, Hatice. "A survey of perception and computation of human beauty." Proceedings of the 2011 joint ACM workshop on Human gesture and behavior understanding. ACM, 2011.Peitgen, Heinz-Otto, and Peter H. Richter. The beauty of fractals: images of complex dynamical systems. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.Wolf, Naomi. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random House, 2013.
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Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
Meaning of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, origin of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.
“Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.”
Examples in Literature
You can see it and hear it, it’s a sensual taste, Yes It is truly a gift to behold, You can touch it or smell it on our senses it’s based, Aesthetically it begins to unfold. So what is beauty how is it defined? Is there a right or a wrong? What is beautiful to someone who’s blind? To who or what does it really belong? It can be hearing a song or a voice you love, Which proves it doesn’t need to be seen, Thinking of the joys of Heaven above, What you love someone else will demean. Meeting your partner for the very first time, Seeing your first child come alive, Touching the peaks of those mountains you climb, Feeling pride as your offspring thrive. I can smell beauty in flowers and trees , Others see it glisten in the skies, A joy to behold is the taste of the seas, To all of our senses it applies. There is so much diversity in that very word, Yet it’s individual to one and all, That’s why this subject is going to be blurred, What you love to some will appeal.
And I thank the lord That beauty’s getting older In the eye of the beholder There’ll be no portrait up my stairs There’ll be no Grecian in my hair And I thank the lord That beauty’s getting older In the eye of the beholder There’ll be no pin-back cheeks for me No Lolita on my knee
Because there’s something missing, and I can even tell you what: the belief we all harbor in our secret heart of hearts that beauty stands alone . That, by its very nature, is obvious. In other words, Beauty with a capital B. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Now that’s another statement entirely. And what it means, so far as I can see, is that those of us whose looks aren’t of the capital B variety can pretty much stop holding our breaths, stop waiting for the right eyes to show up and gaze us.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty is in the mind and the soul. Beauty is in the words that she speaks. Beauty is in her heart, so it’s never cold.
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What Does Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Mean?
Home » Phrase and Idiom Dictionary » What Does Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Mean?
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Meaning
Definition: Any judgement of beauty is subjective.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is a commonly used expression in British and American English. It is frequently phrased as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and “beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.”
It applies not just to issues of physical beauty but also to anything proposed as perfect and desirable.
If you introduce friends to a prized painting at the museum, they might disagree with your taste saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That’s a polite way of disagreeing with you, and it can be said with some dismissive condescension.
Origin of Beauty is (Lies) in the Eye of the Beholder
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Greek philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, considered beauty an absolute manifest in order, symmetry, and proportion. But, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Stoics nudged towards an understanding that beauty exists in symmetry (objective) and in eurhythmy (subjective)
Roughly their contemporary, Confucius is credited with saying, “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
In 1741, Benjamin Franklin offered, “Beauty, like supreme dominion, / Is but supported by opinion” ( Poor Richard’s Almanack, III Mon May ).
In 1757, British sceptic and essayist David Hume wrote, “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty” ( Essay XXXII, Of the Standard of Taste ).
As you can see from the above examples, the sentiment expressed in this idiom is quite old, but the modern coinage is relatively recent—and attributed to a Irish novelist.
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Examples of Beauty is (Lies) in the Eye of the Beholder
- Eavesdropping on the cheerleaders fawning over the football players, Jack thought to himself, “ Beauty is in the eye of the beholder , if you ask me.”
- As Marcy and Harry left her boss’s newly redecorated home, he whispered “It just goes to show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder .”
More Examples
- They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, Wall Street investors love the look of e.l.f. Beauty—and they are clamoring to own a piece of the newly public cosmetics brand. – Forbes
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it’s unclear how anyone can look at this property, located at 24 Brentwood Drive, as anything “fascinating.” – New York Post
Beauty is (lies) in the eye of the beholder is a frequently used expression first phrased by an Irish author and commonly used in English speaking cultures. It takes a position that beauty is a subjective and personal experience.
Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Poetry — Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder – A Commentary on Sappho’s Fragments
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Beauty is in The Eye of The Beholder - a Commentary on Sappho’s Fragments
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
What's the meaning of the phrase 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
‘Beauty in the eye of the beholder’ has a literal meaning – that the perception of beauty is subjective – what one person finds beautiful another may not.
What's the origin of the phrase 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'?
This saying first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek. It didn’t appear in English and in its current form in print until the 19th century, but in the meantime there were various written forms that expressed much the same thought. In 1588, the English dramatist John Lyly, in his Euphues and his England , wrote:
“…as neere is Fancie to Beautie, as the pricke to the Rose, as the stalke to the rynde, as the earth to the roote.”
Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues
Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack , 1741, wrote:
Beauty, like supreme dominion Is but supported by opinion
“Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”
The person who is widely credited with coining the saying in its current form is Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton), who wrote many books, often under the pseudonym of ‘The Duchess’. In Molly Bawn, 1878, there’s the line “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, which is the earliest citation that I can find in print.
The 1980s saw the coining of the term ‘beer goggles’ (the increased attractiveness of the opposite sex when one is drunk) and the rather tortured joke that ‘when wearing beer goggles , beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder’.
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What Does Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder Mean?
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Have you ever remarked to a friend on a person’s attractiveness or an object’s loveliness and had your comment met with the expression beauty is in the eye of the beholder ? Did you know what your friend meant—whether they agreed or disagreed with your assessment? Let’s explore the definition, as well as origins, of this common proverbial and idiomatic saying.
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Although this phrase is considered an idiom, and typically idioms have figurative meanings that are difficult to figure out just by looking at the words that comprise them, we can look to the meanings of the individual words here to determine the definition of this expression.
If you’re not familiar with the word beholder, let’s start there. Behold is another way of saying “to see.” Thus, a beholder is a person who sees, who observes or gazes upon something or someone. The expression beauty is in the eye of the beholder is indicating that the beholder’s eyes, that gaze upon someone or something, decide if what they see is beautiful or not.
Taken one step further to land on the full meaning intended when you hear or read the phrase today, its words are saying that not everyone has the same idea of beauty; that different people will have different ideas and opinions about what is attractive or otherwise pleasing. What one person finds beautiful, another may find ugly. It’s important to note that the saying doesn’t have to just apply to physical beauty, but can also apply to any judgement about someone’s or something’s appeal or desirability. For example, it can be used to indicate that what one person finds interesting, another person finds boring. Or, that what someone perceives as special and unique, another person thinks is ordinary and common.
In other words, the saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder is used to express that beauty, or appeal in general, is subjective not objective (which gets at the origins of this phrase; keep reading). You may also see or hear the phrase as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder . This variation has the same meaning and can be used in the exact same way.
Here are some example sentences using the phrase beauty is in the eye of the beholder :
- When I asked my sister if she liked my newly renovated living room, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Mid-century modern isn’t her style.
- On our field trip to the museum, my classmates couldn’t stop talking about this one particular painting, but I didn’t like it all; I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- My mom took me to see her favorite play, but I found it so boring I fell asleep! You know what they say: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- I loved the choreography of our local company’s recent ballet, but my husband said it seemed too simple and that he couldn’t understand what I saw in it. We’re often disagreeing, and I seem to always have to remind him that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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The Origins of This Common Saying
The debate over whether beauty is subjective or objective has been argued since at least the 3rd century BC, with subjective referring to a decision based on personal feelings and opinions and objective being the opposite, a decision made not by considering one’s individual point of view but instead considering the available facts. Indeed, the great Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle thought beauty something that could be measured objectively, in terms of symmetry, proportion, and balance. Those in the Epicurean, Skeptic, and Stoic schools thought of beauty as both objective and subjective.
Although the expression doesn’t appear to have been used then exactly as it is now, the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who lived from 551 BC to 479 BC, is credited with saying the similar saying everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it .
Other very similar versions have been used throughout history. For example, we see a form in this passage from William Shakespeare’s 1588 comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost :
Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues
And in 1741, in Poor Richard’s Almanack , Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Beauty, like supreme dominion/Is but supported by opinion.” Around the same time, in 1742, essayist David Hume wrote, “Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”
But the earliest citation of the expression in its current form appears in 1878, in the book Molly Bawn by Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford. For this reason, she is widely credited with coining the proverb and idiom.
Understanding Proverbs and Idioms
An idiom is an expression with an intended meaning that can’t fully be understood just by looking at the words that comprise it. These phrases usually have a figurative rather than literal meaning. However, this expression differs slightly from other idioms in this way. Of course, it doesn’t literally mean that beauty is physically contained within the eyes of the beholder, but you are able to deduce the figurative meaning relatively easily by looking at the literal meanings of the individual words it contains.
Even if you’ve never heard the term idiom , you have most likely heard many idiomatic expressions. Here are just a few of the most common idioms used today:
You’re in hot water. His boss gave him the ax. It’s time to face the music. You’ve hit the nail on the head. If you took the first example literally, you’d think it was describing a person standing in a bathtub full of hot water, perhaps. But the expression is actually used to describe a person who’s in trouble. Likewise, rather than literally being handed a tool for chopping wood, if you get the ax from your boss, it means you’re getting fired. It’s time to face the music means that it’s time to come to terms with the consequences of your actions. And when someone has hit the nail on the head, they’ve gotten an answer exactly right or done something exactly as it should have been done. A proverb is a short, common phrase or expression that imparts wisdom and advice or shares a universal truth. Synonyms of the term proverb include adage and aphorism . Here are some additional examples of well-known proverbs:
Actions speak louder than words . Absence makes the heart grow fonder. A picture is worth a thousand words. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Discover the meanings of many more idioms here ; learn more about proverbs here .
Related Phrases and Expressions
There are several sayings that express similar sentiments to beauty is in the eye of the beholder or are otherwise related to this expression in terms of content. For example, there’s the idiom beauty is only skin deep , which means that outside beauty doesn’t equate to inside beauty; that just because someone is physically beautiful doesn’t mean they’ll have a good personality or good character. There’s also the expression one man’s trash is another man’s treasure , which means that what one person sees as worthless might be considered highly valuable to someone else.
The proverb and idiom beauty is in the eye of the beholder means that different people can have a different perception of beauty: What one person finds physically attractive, or interesting or appealing in some other way, another person may find ugly, or boring or uninteresting. The expression takes a definitive side in the age-old debate over whether or not beauty is objective or subjective, concluding that it’s subjective, or based on an individual’s personal opinions and feelings and not on hard facts.
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'Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder': Definition, Meaning, Examples
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Have you ever heard someone say, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'? If you have, you might have wondered what it means. If that's the case, then you're in the right place. In this article, we'll learn the meaning of this popular idiom, its origins, and how to use it in a sentence.
If you just want to know what it means, though, here's the quick version:
- When someone says, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' they mean that beauty is subjective and everyone has different opinions. What might be beautiful to one might not be for another.
What Does 'Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder' Mean?
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" means that the perception of beauty is subjective and varies from one person to another. What one person finds beautiful or attractive, another person may not.
It's a perfect example of how idioms can't be interpreted literally. Don't worry; there isn't actually something in your eye. What is meant here is that we all see things differently.
It highlights the idea that there is no universal standard for beauty, and what is considered beautiful can be highly individual and influenced by personal preferences, cultural background, and personal experiences. This idiom is often used to emphasize that people have different tastes and opinions when it comes to aesthetics and that there is no single definition of beauty that applies to everyone.
Imagine, for example, that you're at the museum with a friend, and they mention that a particular painting is very appealing, but it's not to your taste.
You might say:
I really don't know what you see in this painting; I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.
It might be helpful for you to know what ' beholder ' means if you don't already.
The dictionary defines it this way:
The beholder of something is the person who is looking at it.
It's quite an old-fashioned word and isn't used much nowadays.
Because it contains a verb ('is'), you might sometimes see it in alternative forms, although that's quite rare. But you could see it in the past indefinite form if the sentence is past tense.
For example:
Even then she knew that beauty was in the eye of the beholder.
Where Does 'Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder' Come From?
The phrase 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' is often attributed to the 19th-century author Margaret Wolfe Hungerford , who wrote under the pseudonym "The Duchess" in her 1878 work Molly Bawn . And while she might have been the first to use the phrase in this form, the same idea had been expressed in different forms since much earlier.
One of the earliest examples was in playwright John Lyly's 1580 play Euphues and his England, where he said:
...as neere is Fancie to Beautie, as the pricke to the Rose, as the stalke to the rynde, as the earth to the roote.
As you can see, it's not exactly the same sentence, but it has the same meaning. A more obvious example is Shakespeare's 1588 Love's Labours Lost:
Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues
You might find sources that attribute the origin of this idiom to Ancient Greece around the 3rd century BC and notably to Plato. However, many disagree with this finding because Plato actually contested the subjective idea of beauty. If you're interested in philosophy, you might enjoy researching this. His ideas were interesting, to say the least.
Examples in Sentences
Now that we've covered the meaning of this idiom and its origins, here are some example sentences that use it.
Some people may not find abstract art appealing, but remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The old, weathered barn had a rustic charm that I found beautiful, but others thought it was an eyesore. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. The fashion industry often promotes unrealistic beauty standards, but it's essential to remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While some may prefer the modern architecture of the city, I think the historic district's buildings have a unique charm. It just goes to show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She may not fit conventional standards of beauty, but her confidence and personality make her truly attractive. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. Tastes in music vary widely, and what one person considers beautiful melodies, another might find cacophonous. It's a perfect example of beauty being in the eye of the beholder. When it comes to pets, one person might find dogs adorable while another person thinks cats are the cutest. Beauty, even in pets, is in the eye of the beholder. He saw the beauty in the overgrown garden and spent months restoring it to its former glory. It's a reminder that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In the world of food, some people relish spicy dishes, while others prefer milder flavors. It's a clear illustration that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even in cuisine. Literature and art often divide critics and audiences; what one person considers a masterpiece, another might find uninspiring. It just goes to show that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.
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Other Ways to Say 'Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder'
There are plenty of other ways to say that beauty is objective. They're great to use if you're looking for alternative phrases.
- One person's trash is another person's treasure.
- Different strokes for different folks.
- What's beautiful to you may not be beautiful to me.
- Beauty is a matter of personal taste.
- There's no accounting for taste.
- Each to their own when it comes to beauty.
- In matters of beauty, opinions vary.
- Beauty is a matter of individual interpretation.
- It's all about personal preference.
Concluding Thoughts
That concludes this article about this popular idiom. To summarize, when someone says, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' they mean that the idea of beauty is subjective, and not all people have the same opinions about it.
Are you ready to learn more English phrases and expand your vocabulary? Check out our idioms blog for idioms, expressions, sayings, and more!
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Speech on Beauty Is In The Eye of The Beholder
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‘Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.’ – Confucius. What is beautiful to one person may not be that attractive to another. The term ‘beauty’ has multiple meanings, and what we see through our naked eyes might not be the reality. Real beauty lies inside; what looks rough outside might be beautiful inside. The physical appearance or beauty of a person has nothing to do with their intelligence, personality and character. The term ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ means what one perceives as beautiful and attractive might not be the same for another person. We all see things differently and think in our own ways. Here’s a speech on beauty is in the eye of the beholder for school students.
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Table of Contents
- 1 1-Minute Speech on Beauty Is In The Eye of The Beholder
- 2 400 Words Speech for School Students
- 3 Popular Quotes on Beauty to Add to Your Speech
Also Read: The Best Day of My Life Speech for School Students
1-Minute Speech on Beauty Is In The Eye of The Beholder
‘Hello and welcome to everyone present here. I stand before you all to present my speech on ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ Everyone has their unique abilities, from physical appearance to career achievements. The moment we see something beautiful, a gentle smile emerges on our face, feeling joy and a moment of happiness. For one person, physical beauty may be a depiction, but others might cherish it.’ ‘But to build strong relationships, it is the personality and behaviour of a person that matters more than their beauty. In addition to this, physical beauty might not last forever, but a person’s character and traits will. Right from childhood we are taught to never judge a book by its cover. The same formula is applied to people; outside beauty has nothing to do with inner beauty.’ ‘This phrase, ‘beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’ can have different meanings, depending on how one person is viewed by others. Everybody has their own point of view and way of seeing others. Therefore, we must embrace both the physical and inner beauty of others. Thank you.’ |
Also read: Social Media Bane or Boon? Short and Long Speech for Students
400 Words Speech for School Students
‘Good morning my friends and teachers. I welcome you all here today, where I’ll be presenting my speech on ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.’ What comes to our mind when we hear the term ‘beauty?’ some might say a natural environment with greenery all around, while others might talk about objects, such as a person, a building, any activity, etc. ‘Well, beauty is something that we love to see. It’s a picturesque view which offers us peace and calmness. In the modern world, beauty is associated with an aesthetic environment or people with absolute splendour in almost everything.’ Everyone has their individual perspectives, which shape their unique definition of what pleases them aesthetically. For example, if I say, ‘Beauty to me emphasizes the subjective nature of appreciation and value of art, nature, or people.’ Not everybody will agree with this. ‘If I talk about a person’s beauty, it can be either their physical appearance inner beauty or both. We all appreciate a person who is both beautiful and confident at the same time. But does that mean we will not like a person who is not so beautiful on the outside and is an introvert? Human qualities like charm, respect and value for other people are the most beautiful qualities.’ ‘Most of the time, a person’s beauty is recognised through our senses. We feel delighted when we talk to someone with good looks, but we only get to know more about their inner qualities after spending time. There is beauty in almost everything around us. Judging someone by just looking at them will not be morally correct, as we might miss an opportunity to know an interesting person.’ ‘We spend a lot of time and money to look good. But does that really matter? Some might agree with this, others might not. This division of thought shows how people perceive others through their own mentality. Can you appreciate a movie actor or a model with an average outlook? This mental belief that public figures are supposed to look good from the outside and inside is not what everyone will follow.’ ‘The idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder invites diversity and embraces uniqueness. With this, every person is embraced for their inner and outer beauty. It can also teach us to approach judgements about beauty and humility, where we can recognise our individual perspectives. Thank you.’ |
Also Read: Speech on Independence Day
Popular Quotes on Beauty to Add to Your Speech
Here are some popular quotes on beauty which you can add to your speech on ‘beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.’ Feel free to use them in your speech.
- ‘The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence.’ – Blake Lively
- ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.’ – John Keats
- ‘The perception of beauty is a moral test.’ – Henry David Thoreau
- ‘The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.’ – Helen Keller
- ‘Beauty is power; a smile is its sword.’ – John Ray
- ‘Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.’ – Coco Chanel
- ‘Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.’ – Kahlil Gibran
- ‘The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.’ – Francis Bacon
- ‘Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.’ – Sophia Loren
Also Read: How to Prepare for UPSC in 6 Months?
Ans: This phrase means that everyone perceives beauty differently. What one finds attractive might not interest another person. Its meaning differs from person to.
Ans: Beauty in a person is traits and qualities such as a respectful attitude, trustworthiness, thoughtfulness, kindness, appreciation, etc.
Ans: Although physical beauty is a deception, complimenting someone on their looks can be a good way to talk to someone. If you see an attractive person, you can compliment them on their good looks, but complimenting a person for their inner strength will be difficult. Complimenting someone on their inner beauty requires you to spend some time with them and get to know each other.
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With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.
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The nature of beauty is one of the most enduring and controversial themes in Western philosophy, and is—with the nature of art—one of the two fundamental issues in the history of philosophical aesthetics. Beauty has traditionally been counted among the ultimate values, with goodness, truth, and justice. It is a primary theme among ancient Greek, Hellenistic, and medieval philosophers, and was central to eighteenth and nineteenth-century thought, as represented in treatments by such thinkers as Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Burke, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Hanslick, and Santayana. By the beginning of the twentieth century, beauty was in decline as a subject of philosophical inquiry, and also as a primary goal of the arts. However, there was revived interest in beauty and critique of the concept by the 1980s, particularly within feminist philosophy.
This article will begin with a sketch of the debate over whether beauty is objective or subjective, which is perhaps the single most-prosecuted disagreement in the literature. It will proceed to set out some of the major approaches to or theories of beauty developed within Western philosophical and artistic traditions.
1. Objectivity and Subjectivity
2.1 the classical conception, 2.2 the idealist conception, 2.3 love and longing, 2.4 hedonist conceptions, 2.5 use and uselessness, 3.1 aristocracy and capital, 3.2 the feminist critique, 3.3 colonialism and race, 3.4 beauty and resistance, other internet resources, related entries.
Perhaps the most familiar basic issue in the theory of beauty is whether beauty is subjective—located ‘in the eye of the beholder’—or rather an objective feature of beautiful things. A pure version of either of these positions seems implausible, for reasons we will examine, and many attempts have been made to split the difference or incorporate insights of both subjectivist and objectivist accounts. Ancient and medieval accounts for the most part located beauty outside of anyone’s particular experiences. Nevertheless, that beauty is subjective was also a commonplace from the time of the sophists. By the eighteenth century, Hume could write as follows, expressing one ‘species of philosophy’:
Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. (Hume 1757, 136)
And Kant launches his discussion of the matter in The Critique of Judgment (the Third Critique) at least as emphatically:
The judgment of taste is therefore not a judgment of cognition, and is consequently not logical but aesthetical, by which we understand that whose determining ground can be no other than subjective . Every reference of representations, even that of sensations, may be objective (and then it signifies the real [element] of an empirical representation), save only the reference to the feeling of pleasure and pain, by which nothing in the object is signified, but through which there is a feeling in the subject as it is affected by the representation. (Kant 1790, section 1)
However, if beauty is entirely subjective—that is, if anything that anyone holds to be or experiences as beautiful is beautiful (as James Kirwan, for example, asserts)—then it seems that the word has no meaning, or that we are not communicating anything when we call something beautiful except perhaps an approving personal attitude. In addition, though different persons can of course differ in particular judgments, it is also obvious that our judgments coincide to a remarkable extent: it would be odd or perverse for any person to deny that a perfect rose or a dramatic sunset was beautiful. And it is possible actually to disagree and argue about whether something is beautiful, or to try to show someone that something is beautiful, or learn from someone else why it is.
On the other hand, it seems senseless to say that beauty has no connection to subjective response or that it is entirely objective. That would seem to entail, for example, that a world with no perceivers could be beautiful or ugly, or perhaps that beauty could be detected by scientific instruments. Even if it could be, beauty would seem to be connected to subjective response, and though we may argue about whether something is beautiful, the idea that one’s experiences of beauty might be disqualified as simply inaccurate or false might arouse puzzlement as well as hostility. We often regard other people’s taste, even when it differs from our own, as provisionally entitled to some respect, as we may not, for example, in cases of moral, political, or factual opinions. All plausible accounts of beauty connect it to a pleasurable or profound or loving response, even if they do not locate beauty purely in the eye of the beholder.
Until the eighteenth century, most philosophical accounts of beauty treated it as an objective quality: they located it in the beautiful object itself or in the qualities of that object. In De Veritate Religione , Augustine asks explicitly whether things are beautiful because they give delight, or whether they give delight because they are beautiful; he emphatically opts for the second (Augustine, 247). Plato’s account in the Symposium and Plotinus’s in the Enneads connect beauty to a response of love and desire, but locate beauty itself in the realm of the Forms, and the beauty of particular objects in their participation in the Form. Indeed, Plotinus’s account in one of its moments makes beauty a matter of what we might term ‘formedness’: having the definite shape characteristic of the kind of thing the object is.
We hold that all the loveliness of this world comes by communion in Ideal-Form. All shapelessness whose kind admits of pattern and form, as long as it remains outside of Reason and Idea, is ugly from that very isolation from the Divine-Thought. And this is the Absolute Ugly: an ugly thing is something that has not been entirely mastered by pattern, that is by Reason, the Matter not yielding at all points and in all respects to Ideal-Form. But where the Ideal-Form has entered, it has grouped and coordinated what from a diversity of parts was to become a unity: it has rallied confusion into co-operation: it has made the sum one harmonious coherence: for the Idea is a unity and what it moulds must come into unity as far as multiplicity may. (Plotinus, 22 [ Ennead I, 6])
In this account, beauty is at least as objective as any other concept, or indeed takes on a certain ontological priority as more real than particular Forms: it is a sort of Form of Forms.
Though Plato and Aristotle disagree on what beauty is, they both regard it as objective in the sense that it is not localized in the response of the beholder. The classical conception ( see below ) treats beauty as a matter of instantiating definite proportions or relations among parts, sometimes expressed in mathematical ratios, for example the ‘golden section.’ The sculpture known as ‘The Canon,’ by Polykleitos (fifth/fourth century BCE), was held up as a model of harmonious proportion to be emulated by students and masters alike: beauty could be reliably achieved by reproducing its objective proportions. Nevertheless, it is conventional in ancient treatments of the topic also to pay tribute to the pleasures of beauty, often described in quite ecstatic terms, as in Plotinus: “This is the spirit that Beauty must ever induce: wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love and a trembling that is all delight” (Plotinus 23, [ Ennead I, 3]).
At latest by the eighteenth century, however, and particularly in the British Isles, beauty was associated with pleasure in a somewhat different way: pleasure was held to be not the effect but the origin of beauty. This was influenced, for example, by Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Locke and the other empiricists treated color (which is certainly one source or locus of beauty), for example, as a ‘phantasm’ of the mind, as a set of qualities dependent on subjective response, located in the perceiving mind rather than of the world outside the mind. Without perceivers of a certain sort, there would be no colors. One argument for this was the variation in color experiences between people. For example, some people are color-blind, and to a person with jaundice much of the world allegedly takes on a yellow cast. In addition, the same object is perceived as having different colors by the same the person under different conditions: at noon and midnight, for example. Such variations are conspicuous in experiences of beauty as well.
Nevertheless, eighteenth-century philosophers such as Hume and Kant perceived that something important was lost when beauty was treated merely as a subjective state. They saw, for example, that controversies often arise about the beauty of particular things, such as works of art and literature, and that in such controversies, reasons can sometimes be given and will sometimes be found convincing. They saw, as well, that if beauty is completely relative to individual experiencers, it ceases to be a paramount value, or even recognizable as a value at all across persons or societies.
Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” and Kant’s Critique Of Judgment attempt to find ways through what has been termed ‘the antinomy of taste.’ Taste is proverbially subjective: de gustibus non est disputandum (about taste there is no disputing). On the other hand, we do frequently dispute about matters of taste, and some persons are held up as exemplars of good taste or of tastelessness. Some people’s tastes appear vulgar or ostentatious, for example. Some people’s taste is too exquisitely refined, while that of others is crude, naive, or non-existent. Taste, that is, appears to be both subjective and objective: that is the antinomy.
Both Hume and Kant, as we have seen, begin by acknowledging that taste or the ability to detect or experience beauty is fundamentally subjective, that there is no standard of taste in the sense that the Canon was held to be, that if people did not experience certain kinds of pleasure, there would be no beauty. Both acknowledge that reasons can count, however, and that some tastes are better than others. In different ways, they both treat judgments of beauty neither precisely as purely subjective nor precisely as objective but, as we might put it, as inter-subjective or as having a social and cultural aspect, or as conceptually entailing an inter-subjective claim to validity.
Hume’s account focuses on the history and condition of the observer as he or she makes the judgment of taste. Our practices with regard to assessing people’s taste entail that judgments of taste that reflect idiosyncratic bias, ignorance, or superficiality are not as good as judgments that reflect wide-ranging acquaintance with various objects of judgment and are unaffected by arbitrary prejudices. Hume moves from considering what makes a thing beautiful to what makes a critic credible. “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty” (“Of the Standard of Taste” 1757, 144).
Hume argues further that the verdicts of critics who possess those qualities tend to coincide, and approach unanimity in the long run, which accounts, for example, for the enduring veneration of the works of Homer or Milton. So the test of time, as assessed by the verdicts of the best critics, functions as something analogous to an objective standard. Though judgments of taste remain fundamentally subjective, and though certain contemporary works or objects may appear irremediably controversial, the long-run consensus of people who are in a good position to judge functions analogously to an objective standard and renders such standards unnecessary even if they could be identified. Though we cannot directly find a standard of beauty that sets out the qualities that a thing must possess in order to be beautiful, we can describe the qualities of a good critic or a tasteful person. Then the long-run consensus of such persons is the practical standard of taste and the means of justifying judgments about beauty.
Kant similarly concedes that taste is fundamentally subjective, that every judgment of beauty is based on a personal experience, and that such judgments vary from person to person.
By a principle of taste I mean a principle under the condition of which we could subsume the concept of the object, and thus infer, by means of a syllogism, that the object is beautiful. But that is absolutely impossible. For I must immediately feel the pleasure in the representation of the object, and of that I can be persuaded by no grounds of proof whatever. Although, as Hume says, all critics can reason more plausibly than cooks, yet the same fate awaits them. They cannot expect the determining ground of their judgment [to be derived] from the force of the proofs, but only from the reflection of the subject upon its own proper state of pleasure or pain. (Kant 1790, section 34)
But the claim that something is beautiful has more content merely than that it gives me pleasure. Something might please me for reasons entirely eccentric to myself: I might enjoy a bittersweet experience before a portrait of my grandmother, for example, or the architecture of a house might remind me of where I grew up. “No one cares about that,” says Kant (1790, section 7): no one begrudges me such experiences, but they make no claim to guide or correspond to the experiences of others.
By contrast, the judgment that something is beautiful, Kant argues, is a disinterested judgment. It does not respond to my idiosyncrasies, or at any rate if I am aware that it does, I will no longer take myself to be experiencing the beauty per se of the thing in question. Somewhat as in Hume—whose treatment Kant evidently had in mind—one must be unprejudiced to come to a genuine judgment of taste, and Kant gives that idea a very elaborate interpretation: the judgment must be made independently of the normal range of human desires—economic and sexual desires, for instance, which are examples of our ‘interests’ in this sense. If one is walking through a museum and admiring the paintings because they would be extremely expensive were they to come up for auction, for example, or wondering whether one could steal and fence them, one is not having an experience of the beauty of the paintings at all. One must focus on the form of the mental representation of the object for its own sake, as it is in itself. Kant summarizes this as the thought that insofar as one is having an experience of the beauty of something, one is indifferent to its existence. One takes pleasure, rather, in its sheer representation in one’s experience:
Now, when the question is whether something is beautiful, we do not want to know whether anything depends or can depend on the existence of the thing, either for myself or anyone else, but how we judge it by mere observation (intuition or reflection). … We easily see that, in saying it is beautiful , and in showing that I have taste, I am concerned, not with that in which I depend on the existence of the object, but with that which I make out of this representation in myself. Everyone must admit that a judgement about beauty, in which the least interest mingles, is very partial and is not a pure judgement of taste. (Kant 1790, section 2)
One important source of the concept of aesthetic disinterestedness is the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s dialogue The Moralists , where the argument is framed in terms of a natural landscape: if you are looking at a beautiful valley primarily as a valuable real estate opportunity, you are not seeing it for its own sake, and cannot fully experience its beauty. If you are looking at a lovely woman and considering her as a possible sexual conquest, you are not able to experience her beauty in the fullest or purest sense; you are distracted from the form as represented in your experience. And Shaftesbury, too, localizes beauty to the representational capacity of the mind. (Shaftesbury 1738, 222)
For Kant, some beauties are dependent—relative to the sort of thing the object is—and others are free or absolute. A beautiful ox would be an ugly horse, but abstract textile designs, for example, may be beautiful without a reference group or “concept,” and flowers please whether or not we connect them to their practical purposes or functions in plant reproduction (Kant 1790, section 16). The idea in particular that free beauty is completely separated from practical use and that the experiencer of it is not concerned with the actual existence of the object leads Kant to conclude that absolute or free beauty is found in the form or design of the object, or as Clive Bell (1914) put it, in the arrangement of lines and colors (in the case of painting). By the time Bell writes in the early twentieth century, however, beauty is out of fashion in the arts, and Bell frames his view not in terms of beauty but in terms of a general formalist conception of aesthetic value.
Since in reaching a genuine judgment of taste one is aware that one is not responding to anything idiosyncratic in oneself, Kant asserts (1790, section 8), one will reach the conclusion that anyone similarly situated should have the same experience: that is, one will presume that there ought to be nothing to distinguish one person’s judgment from another’s (though in fact there may be). Built conceptually into the judgment of taste is the assertion that anyone similarly situated ought to have the same experience and reach the same judgment. Thus, built into judgments of taste is a ‘universalization’ somewhat analogous to the universalization that Kant associates with ethical judgments. In ethical judgments, however, the universalization is objective: if the judgment is true, then it is objectively the case that everyone ought to act on the maxim according to which one acts. In the case of aesthetic judgments, however, the judgment remains subjective, but necessarily contains the ‘demand’ that everyone should reach the same judgment. The judgment conceptually entails a claim to inter-subjective validity. This accounts for the fact that we do very often argue about judgments of taste, and that we find tastes that are different than our own defective.
The influence of this series of thoughts on philosophical aesthetics has been immense. One might mention related approaches taken by such figures as Schopenhauer (1818), Hanslick (1891), Bullough (1912), and Croce (1928), for example. A somewhat similar though more adamantly subjectivist line is taken by Santayana, who defines beauty as ‘objectified pleasure.’ The judgment of something that it is beautiful responds to the fact that it induces a certain sort of pleasure; but this pleasure is attributed to the object, as though the object itself were having subjective states.
We have now reached our definition of beauty, which, in the terms of our successive analysis and narrowing of the conception, is value positive, intrinsic, and objectified. Or, in less technical language, Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing. … Beauty is a value, that is, it is not a perception of a matter of fact or of a relation: it is an emotion, an affection of our volitional and appreciative nature. An object cannot be beautiful if it can give pleasure to nobody: a beauty to which all men were forever indifferent is a contradiction in terms. … Beauty is therefore a positive value that is intrinsic; it is a pleasure. (Santayana 1896, 50–51)
It is much as though one were attributing malice to a balky object or device. The object causes certain frustrations and is then ascribed an agency or a kind of subjective agenda that would account for its causing those effects. Now though Santayana thought the experience of beauty could be profound or could even be the meaning of life, this account appears to make beauty a sort of mistake: one attributes subjective states (indeed, one’s own) to a thing which in many instances is not capable of having subjective states.
It is worth saying that Santayana’s treatment of the topic in The Sense of Beauty (1896) was the last major account offered in English for some time, possibly because, once beauty has been admitted to be entirely subjective, much less when it is held to rest on a sort of mistake, there seems little more to be said. What stuck from Hume’s and Kant’s treatments was the subjectivity, not the heroic attempts to temper it. If beauty is a subjective pleasure, it would seem to have no higher status than anything that entertains, amuses, or distracts; it seems odd or ridiculous to regard it as being comparable in importance to truth or justice, for example. And the twentieth century also abandoned beauty as the dominant goal of the arts, again in part because its trivialization in theory led artists to believe that they ought to pursue more urgent and more serious projects. More significantly, as we will see below, the political and economic associations of beauty with power tended to discredit the whole concept for much of the twentieth century. This decline is explored eloquently in Arthur Danto’s book The Abuse of Beauty (2003).
However, there was a revival of interest in beauty in something like the classical philosophical sense in both art and philosophy beginning in the 1990s, to some extent centered on the work of art critic Dave Hickey, who declared that “the issue of the 90s will be beauty” (see Hickey 1993), as well as feminist-oriented reconstruals or reappropriations of the concept (see Brand 2000, Irigaray 1993). Several theorists made new attempts to address the antinomy of taste. To some extent, such approaches echo G.E. Moore’s: “To say that a thing is beautiful is to say, not indeed that it is itself good, but that it is a necessary element in something which is: to prove that a thing is truly beautiful is to prove that a whole, to which it bears a particular relation as a part, is truly good” (Moore 1903, 201). One interpretation of this would be that what is fundamentally valuable is the situation in which the object and the person experiencing are both embedded; the value of beauty might include both features of the beautiful object and the pleasures of the experiencer.
Similarly, Crispin Sartwell in his book Six Names of Beauty (2004), attributes beauty neither exclusively to the subject nor to the object, but to the relation between them, and even more widely also to the situation or environment in which they are both embedded. He points out that when we attribute beauty to the night sky, for instance, we do not take ourselves simply to be reporting a state of pleasure in ourselves; we are turned outward toward it; we are celebrating the real world. On the other hand, if there were no perceivers capable of experiencing such things, there would be no beauty. Beauty, rather, emerges in situations in which subject and object are juxtaposed and connected.
Alexander Nehamas, in Only a Promise of Happiness (2007), characterizes beauty as an invitation to further experiences, a way that things invite us in, while also possibly fending us off. The beautiful object invites us to explore and interpret, but it also requires us to explore and interpret: beauty is not to be regarded as an instantaneously apprehensible feature of surface. And Nehamas, like Hume and Kant, though in another register, considers beauty to have an irreducibly social dimension. Beauty is something we share, or something we want to share, and shared experiences of beauty are particularly intense forms of communication. Thus, the experience of beauty is not primarily within the skull of the experiencer, but connects observers and objects such as works of art and literature in communities of appreciation.
Aesthetic judgment, I believe, never commands universal agreement, and neither a beautiful object nor a work of art ever engages a catholic community. Beauty creates smaller societies, no less important or serious because they are partial, and, from the point of view of its members, each one is orthodox—orthodox, however, without thinking of all others as heresies. … What is involved is less a matter of understanding and more a matter of hope, of establishing a community that centers around it—a community, to be sure, whose boundaries are constantly shifting and whose edges are never stable. (Nehamas 2007, 80–81)
2. Philosophical Conceptions of Beauty
Each of the views sketched below has many expressions, some of which may be incompatible with one another. In many or perhaps most of the actual formulations, elements of more than one such account are present. For example, Kant’s treatment of beauty in terms of disinterested pleasure has obvious elements of hedonism, while the ecstatic neo-Platonism of Plotinus includes not only the unity of the object, but also the fact that beauty calls out love or adoration. However, it is also worth remarking how divergent or even incompatible with one another many of these views are: for example, some philosophers associate beauty exclusively with use, others precisely with uselessness.
The art historian Heinrich Wölfflin gives a fundamental description of the classical conception of beauty, as embodied in Italian Renaissance painting and architecture:
The central idea of the Italian Renaissance is that of perfect proportion. In the human figure as in the edifice, this epoch strove to achieve the image of perfection at rest within itself. Every form developed to self-existent being, the whole freely co-ordinated: nothing but independently living parts…. In the system of a classic composition, the single parts, however firmly they may be rooted in the whole, maintain a certain independence. It is not the anarchy of primitive art: the part is conditioned by the whole, and yet does not cease to have its own life. For the spectator, that presupposes an articulation, a progress from part to part, which is a very different operation from perception as a whole. (Wölfflin 1932, 9–10, 15)
The classical conception is that beauty consists of an arrangement of integral parts into a coherent whole, according to proportion, harmony, symmetry, and similar notions. This is a primordial Western conception of beauty, and is embodied in classical and neo-classical architecture, sculpture, literature, and music wherever they appear. Aristotle says in the Poetics that “to be beautiful, a living creature, and every whole made up of parts, must … present a certain order in its arrangement of parts” (Aristotle, volume 2, 2322 [1450b34]). And in the Metaphysics : “The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree” (Aristotle, volume 2, 1705 [1078a36]). This view, as Aristotle implies, is sometimes boiled down to a mathematical formula, such as the golden section, but it need not be thought of in such strict terms. The conception is exemplified above all in such texts as Euclid’s Elements and such works of architecture as the Parthenon, and, again, by the Canon of the sculptor Polykleitos (late fifth/early fourth century BCE).
The Canon was not only a statue deigned to display perfect proportion, but a now-lost treatise on beauty. The physician Galen characterizes the text as specifying, for example, the proportions of “the finger to the finger, and of all the fingers to the metacarpus, and the wrist, and of all these to the forearm, and of the forearm to the arm, in fact of everything to everything…. For having taught us in that treatise all the symmetriae of the body, Polyclitus supported his treatise with a work, having made the statue of a man according to his treatise, and having called the statue itself, like the treatise, the Canon ” (quoted in Pollitt 1974, 15). It is important to note that the concept of ‘symmetry’ in classical texts is distinct from and richer than its current use to indicate bilateral mirroring. It also refers precisely to the sorts of harmonious and measurable proportions among the parts characteristic of objects that are beautiful in the classical sense, which carried also a moral weight. For example, in the Sophist (228c-e), Plato describes virtuous souls as symmetrical.
The ancient Roman architect Vitruvius epitomizes the classical conception in central, and extremely influential, formulations, both in its complexities and, appropriately enough, in its underlying unity:
Architecture consists of Order, which in Greek is called taxis , and arrangement, which the Greeks name diathesis , and of Proportion and Symmetry and Decor and Distribution which in the Greeks is called oeconomia . Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result. Proportion implies a graceful semblance: the suitable display of details in their context. This is attained when the details of the work are of a height suitable to their breadth, of a breadth suitable to their length; in a word, when everything has a symmetrical correspondence. Symmetry also is the appropriate harmony arising out of the details of the work itself: the correspondence of each given detail to the form of the design as a whole. As in the human body, from cubit, foot, palm, inch and other small parts come the symmetric quality of eurhythmy. (Vitruvius, 26–27)
Aquinas, in a typically Aristotelian pluralist formulation, says that “There are three requirements for beauty. Firstly, integrity or perfection—for if something is impaired it is ugly. Then there is due proportion or consonance. And also clarity: whence things that are brightly coloured are called beautiful” ( Summa Theologica I, 39, 8).
Francis Hutcheson in the eighteenth century gives what may well be the clearest expression of the view: “What we call Beautiful in Objects, to speak in the Mathematical Style, seems to be in a compound Ratio of Uniformity and Variety; so that where the Uniformity of Bodys is equal, the Beauty is as the Variety; and where the Variety is equal, the Beauty is as the Uniformity” (Hutcheson 1725, 29). Indeed, proponents of the view often speak “in the Mathematical Style.” Hutcheson goes on to adduce mathematical formulae, and specifically the propositions of Euclid, as the most beautiful objects (in another echo of Aristotle), though he also rapturously praises nature, with its massive complexity underlain by universal physical laws as revealed, for example, by Newton. There is beauty, he says, “In the Knowledge of some great Principles, or universal Forces, from which innumerable Effects do flow. Such is Gravitation, in Sir Isaac Newton’s Scheme” (Hutcheson 1725, 38).
A very compelling series of refutations of and counter-examples to the idea that beauty can be a matter of any specific proportions between parts, and hence to the classical conception, is given by Edmund Burke in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Beautiful and the Sublime :
Turning our eyes to the vegetable kingdom, we find nothing there so beautiful as flowers; but flowers are of every sort of shape, and every sort of disposition; they are turned and fashioned into an infinite variety of forms. … The rose is a large flower, yet it grows upon a small shrub; the flower of the apple is very small, and it grows upon a large tree; yet the rose and the apple blossom are both beautiful. … The swan, confessedly a beautiful bird, has a neck longer than the rest of its body, and but a very short tail; is this a beautiful proportion? we must allow that it is. But what shall we say of the peacock, who has comparatively but a short neck, with a tail longer than the neck and the rest of the body taken together? … There are some parts of the human body, that are observed to hold certain proportions to each other; but before it can be proved, that the efficient cause of beauty lies in these, it must be shewn, that wherever these are found exact, the person to whom they belong is beautiful. … For my part, I have at several times very carefully examined many of these proportions, and found them to hold very nearly, or altogether alike in many subjects, which were not only very different from one another, but where one has been very beautiful, and the other very remote from beauty. … You may assign any proportions you please to every part of the of the human body; and I undertake, that a painter shall observe them all, and notwithstanding produce, if he pleases, a very ugly figure. (Burke 1757, 84–89)
There are many ways to interpret Plato’s relation to classical aesthetics. The political system sketched in the Republic characterizes justice in terms of the relation of part and whole. But Plato was also no doubt a dissident in classical culture, and the account of beauty that is expressed specifically in the Symposium —perhaps the key Socratic text for neo-Platonism and for the idealist conception of beauty—expresses an aspiration toward beauty as perfect unity.
In the midst of a drinking party, Socrates recounts the teachings of his instructress, one Diotima, on matters of love. She connects the experience of beauty to the erotic or the desire to reproduce (Plato, 558–59 [ Symposium 206c–207e]). But the desire to reproduce is associated in turn with a desire for the immortal or eternal: “And why all this longing for propagation? Because this is the one deathless and eternal element in our mortality. And since we have agreed that the lover longs for the good to be his own forever, it follows that we are bound to long for immortality as well as for the good—which is to say that Love is a longing for immortality” (Plato, 559, [ Symposium 206e–207a]). What follows is, if not classical, at any rate classic:
The candidate for this initiation cannot, if his efforts are to be rewarded, begin too early to devote himself to the beauties of the body. First of all, if his preceptor instructs him as he should, he will fall in love with the beauty of one individual body, so that his passion may give life to noble discourse. Next he must consider how nearly related the beauty of any one body is to the beauty of any other, and he will see that if he is to devote himself to loveliness of form it will be absurd to deny that the beauty of each and every body is the same. Having reached this point, he must set himself to be the lover of every lovely body, and bring his passion for the one into due proportion by deeming it of little or no importance. Next he must grasp that the beauties of the body are as nothing to the beauties of the soul, so that wherever he meets with spiritual loveliness, even in the husk of an unlovely body, he will find it beautiful enough to fall in love with and cherish—and beautiful enough to quicken in his heart a longing for such discourse as tends toward the building of a noble nature. And from this he will be led to contemplate the beauty of laws and institutions. And when he discovers how every kind of beauty is akin to every other he will conclude that the beauty of the body is not, after all, of so great moment. … And so, when his prescribed devotion to boyish beauties has carried our candidate so far that the universal beauty dawns upon his inward sight, he is almost within reach of the final revelation. … Starting from individual beauties, the quest for universal beauty must find him mounting the heavenly ladder, stepping from rung to rung—that is, from one to two, and from two to every lovely body, and from bodily beauty to the beauty of institutions, from institutions to learning, and from learning in general to the special lore that pertains to nothing but the beautiful itself—until at last he comes to know what beauty is. And if, my dear Socrates, Diotima went on, man’s life is ever worth living, it is when he has attained this vision of the very soul of beauty. (Plato, 561–63 [ Symposium 210a–211d])
Beauty here is conceived—perhaps explicitly in contrast to the classical aesthetics of integral parts and coherent whole—as perfect unity, or indeed as the principle of unity itself.
Plotinus, as we have already seen, comes close to equating beauty with formedness per se: it is the source of unity among disparate things, and it is itself perfect unity. Plotinus specifically attacks what we have called the classical conception of beauty:
Almost everyone declares that the symmetry of parts towards each other and towards a whole, with, besides, a certain charm of colour, constitutes the beauty recognized by the eye, that in visible things, as indeed in all else, universally, the beautiful thing is essentially symmetrical, patterned. But think what this means. Only a compound can be beautiful, never anything devoid of parts; and only a whole; the several parts will have beauty, not in themselves, but only as working together to give a comely total. Yet beauty in an aggregate demands beauty in details; it cannot be constructed out of ugliness; its law must run throughout. All the loveliness of colour and even the light of the sun, being devoid of parts and so not beautiful by symmetry, must be ruled out of the realm of beauty. And how comes gold to be a beautiful thing? And lightning by night, and the stars, why are these so fair? In sounds also the simple must be proscribed, though often in a whole noble composition each several tone is delicious in itself. (Plotinus, 21 [ Ennead I,6])
Plotinus declares that fire is the most beautiful physical thing, “making ever upwards, the subtlest and sprightliest of all bodies, as very near to the unembodied. … Hence the splendour of its light, the splendour that belongs to the Idea” (Plotinus, 22 [ Ennead I,3]). For Plotinus as for Plato, all multiplicity must be immolated finally into unity, and all roads of inquiry and experience lead toward the Good/Beautiful/True/Divine.
This gave rise to a basically mystical vision of the beauty of God that, as Umberto Eco has argued, persisted alongside an anti-aesthetic asceticism throughout the Middle Ages: a delight in profusion that finally merges into a single spiritual unity. In the sixth century, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite characterized the whole of creation as yearning toward God; the universe is called into being by love of God as beauty (Pseudo-Dionysius, 4.7; see Kirwan 1999, 29). Sensual/aesthetic pleasures could be considered the expressions of the immense, beautiful profusion of God and our ravishment thereby. Eco quotes Suger, Abbot of St Denis in the twelfth century, describing a richly-appointed church:
Thus, when—out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God—the loveliness of the many-colored gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues: then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven; and that, by the grace of God, I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner. (Eco 1959, 14)
This conception has had many expressions in the modern era, including in such figures as Shaftesbury, Schiller, and Hegel, according to whom the aesthetic or the experience of art and beauty is a primary bridge (or to use the Platonic image, stairway or ladder) between the material and the spiritual. For Shaftesbury, there are three levels of beauty: what God makes (nature); what human beings make from nature or what is transformed by human intelligence (art, for example); and finally, the intelligence that makes even these artists (that is, God). Shaftesbury’s character Theocles describes “the third order of beauty,”
which forms not only such as we call mere forms but even the forms which form. For we ourselves are notable architects in matter, and can show lifeless bodies brought into form, and fashioned by our own hands, but that which fashions even minds themselves, contains in itself all the beauties fashioned by those minds, and is consequently the principle, source, and fountain of all beauty. … Whatever appears in our second order of forms, or whatever is derived or produced from thence, all this is eminently, principally, and originally in this last order of supreme and sovereign beauty. … Thus architecture, music, and all which is of human invention, resolves itself into this last order. (Shaftesbury 1738, 228–29)
Schiller’s expression of a similar series of thoughts was fundamentally influential on the conceptions of beauty developed within German Idealism:
The pre-rational concept of Beauty, if such a thing be adduced, can be drawn from no actual case—rather does itself correct and guide our judgement concerning every actual case; it must therefore be sought along the path of abstraction, and it can be inferred simply from the possibility of a nature that is both sensuous and rational; in a word, Beauty must be exhibited as a necessary condition of humanity. Beauty … makes of man a whole, complete in himself. (1795, 59–60, 86)
For Schiller, beauty or play or art (he uses the words, rather cavalierly, almost interchangeably) performs the process of integrating or rendering compatible the natural and the spiritual, or the sensuous and the rational: only in such a state of integration are we—who exist simultaneously on both these levels—free. This is quite similar to Plato’s ‘ladder’: beauty as a way to ascend to the abstract or spiritual. But Schiller—though this is at times unclear—is more concerned with integrating the realms of nature and spirit than with transcending the level of physical reality entirely, a la Plato. It is beauty and art that performs this integration.
In this and in other ways—including in the tripartite dialectical structure of his account—Schiller strikingly anticipates Hegel, who writes as follows.
The philosophical Concept of the beautiful, to indicate its true nature at least in a preliminary way, must contain, reconciled within itself, both the extremes which have been mentioned [the ideal and the empirical] because it unites metaphysical universality with real particularity. (Hegel 1835, 22)
Beauty, we might say, or artistic beauty at any rate, is a route from the sensuous and particular to the Absolute and to freedom, from finitude to the infinite, formulations that—while they are influenced by Schiller—strikingly recall Shaftesbury, Plotinus, and Plato.
Hegel, who associates beauty and art with mind and spirit, holds with Shaftesbury that the beauty of art is higher than the beauty of nature, on the grounds that, as Hegel puts it, “the beauty of art is born of the spirit and born again ” (Hegel 1835, 2). That is, the natural world is born of God, but the beauty of art transforms that material again by the spirit of the artist. This idea reaches is apogee in Benedetto Croce, who very nearly denies that nature can ever be beautiful, or at any rate asserts that the beauty of nature is a reflection of the beauty of art. “The real meaning of ‘natural beauty’ is that certain persons, things, places are, by the effect which they exert upon one, comparable with poetry, painting, sculpture, and the other arts” (Croce 1928, 230).
Edmund Burke, expressing an ancient tradition, writes that, “by beauty I mean, that quality or those qualities in bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it” (Burke 1757, 83). As we have seen, in almost all treatments of beauty, even the most apparently object or objectively-oriented, there is a moment in which the subjective qualities of the experience of beauty are emphasized: rhapsodically, perhaps, or in terms of pleasure or ataraxia , as in Schopenhauer. For example, we have already seen Plotinus, for whom beauty is certainly not subjective, describe the experience of beauty ecstatically. In the idealist tradition, the human soul, as it were, recognizes in beauty its true origin and destiny. Among the Greeks, the connection of beauty with love is proverbial from early myth, and Aphrodite the goddess of love won the Judgment of Paris by promising Paris the most beautiful woman in the world.
There is an historical connection between idealist accounts of beauty and those that connect it to love and longing, though there would seem to be no entailment either way. We have Sappho’s famous fragment 16: “Some say thronging cavalry, some say foot soldiers, others call a fleet the most beautiful sights the dark world offers, but I say it’s whatever you love best” (Sappho, 16). (Indeed, at Phaedrus 236c, Socrates appears to defer to “the fair Sappho” as having had greater insight than himself on love [Plato, 483].)
Plato’s discussions of beauty in the Symposium and the Phaedrus occur in the context of the theme of erotic love. In the former, love is portrayed as the ‘child’ of poverty and plenty. “Nor is he delicate and lovely as most of us believe, but harsh and arid, barefoot and homeless” (Plato, 556 [Symposium 203b–d]). Love is portrayed as a lack or absence that seeks its own fulfillment in beauty: a picture of mortality as an infinite longing. Love is always in a state of lack and hence of desire: the desire to possess the beautiful. Then if this state of infinite longing could be trained on the truth, we would have a path to wisdom. The basic idea has been recovered many times, for example by the Romantics. It fueled the cult of idealized or courtly love through the Middle Ages, in which the beloved became a symbol of the infinite.
Recent work on the theory of beauty has revived this idea, and turning away from pleasure has turned toward love or longing (which are not necessarily entirely pleasurable experiences) as the experiential correlate of beauty. Both Sartwell and Nehamas use Sappho’s fragment 16 as an epigraph. Sartwell defines beauty as “the object of longing” and characterizes longing as intense and unfulfilled desire. He calls it a fundamental condition of a finite being in time, where we are always in the process of losing whatever we have, and are thus irremediably in a state of longing. And Nehamas writes that “I think of beauty as the emblem of what we lack, the mark of an art that speaks to our desire. … Beautiful things don’t stand aloof, but direct our attention and our desire to everything else we must learn or acquire in order to understand and possess, and they quicken the sense of life, giving it new shape and direction” (Nehamas 2007, 77).
Thinkers of the 18 th century—many of them oriented toward empiricism—accounted for beauty in terms of pleasure. The Italian historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, for example, in quite a typical formulation, says that “By beautiful we generally understand whatever, when seen, heard, or understood, delights, pleases, and ravishes us by causing within us agreeable sensations” (see Carritt 1931, 60). In Hutcheson it is not clear whether we ought to conceive beauty primarily in terms of classical formal elements or in terms of the viewer’s pleasurable response. He begins the Inquiry Into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue with a discussion of pleasure. And he appears to assert that objects which instantiate his ‘compound ratio of uniformity and variety’ are peculiarly or necessarily capable of producing pleasure:
The only Pleasure of sense, which our Philosophers seem to consider, is that which accompanys the simple Ideas of Sensation; But there are vastly greater Pleasures in those complex Ideas of objects, which obtain the Names of Beautiful, Regular, Harmonious. Thus every one acknowledges he is more delighted with a fine Face, a just Picture, than with the View of any one Colour, were it as strong and lively as possible; and more pleased with a Prospect of the Sun arising among settled Clouds, and colouring their Edges, with a starry Hemisphere, a fine Landskip, a regular Building, than with a clear blue Sky, a smooth Sea, or a large open Plain, not diversify’d by Woods, Hills, Waters, Buildings: And yet even these latter Appearances are not quite simple. So in Musick, the Pleasure of fine Composition is incomparably greater than that of any one Note, how sweet, full, or swelling soever. (Hutcheson 1725, 22)
When Hutcheson then goes on to describe ‘original or absolute beauty,’ he does it, as we have seen, in terms of the qualities of the beautiful thing (a “compound ratio” of uniformity and variety), and yet throughout, he insists that beauty is centered in the human experience of pleasure. But of course the idea of pleasure could come apart from Hutcheson’s particular aesthetic preferences, which are poised precisely opposite Plotinus’s, for example. That we find pleasure in a symmetrical rather than an asymmetrical building (if we do) is contingent. But that beauty is connected to pleasure appears, according to Hutcheson, to be necessary, and the pleasure which is the locus of beauty itself has ideas rather than things as its objects.
Hume writes in a similar vein in the Treatise of Human Nature :
Beauty is such an order and construction of parts as, either by the primary constitution of our nature, by custom, or by caprice, is fitted to give a pleasure and satisfaction to the soul. … Pleasure and pain, therefore, are not only necessary attendants of beauty and deformity, but constitute their very essence. (Hume 1740, 299)
Though this appears ambiguous as between locating the beauty in the pleasure or in the impression or idea that causes it, Hume is soon talking about the ‘sentiment of beauty,’ where sentiment is, roughly, a pleasurable or painful response to impressions or ideas, though the experience of beauty is a matter of cultivated or delicate pleasures. Indeed, by the time of Kant’s Third Critique and after that for perhaps two centuries, the direct connection of beauty to pleasure is taken as a commonplace, to the point where thinkers are frequently identifying beauty as a certain sort of pleasure. Santayana, for example, as we have seen, while still gesturing in the direction of the object or experience that causes pleasure, emphatically identifies beauty as a certain sort of pleasure.
One result of this approach to beauty—or perhaps an extreme expression of this orientation—is the assertion of the positivists that words such as ‘beauty’ are meaningless or without cognitive content, or are mere expressions of subjective approval. Hume and Kant were no sooner declaring beauty to be a matter of sentiment or pleasure and therefore to be subjective than they were trying to ameliorate the sting, largely by emphasizing critical consensus. But once this fundamental admission is made, any consensus seems contingent. Another way to formulate this is that it appears to certain thinkers after Hume and Kant that there can be no reasons to prefer the consensus to a counter-consensus assessment. A.J. Ayer writes:
Such aesthetic words as ‘beautiful’ and ‘hideous’ are employed … not to make statements of fact, but simply to express certain feelings and evoke a certain response. It follows…that there is no sense attributing objective validity to aesthetic judgments, and no possibility of arguing about questions of value in aesthetics. (Ayer 1952, 113)
All meaningful claims either concern the meaning of terms or are empirical, in which case they are meaningful because observations could confirm or disconfirm them. ‘That song is beautiful’ has neither status, and hence has no empirical or conceptual content. It merely expresses a positive attitude of a particular viewer; it is an expression of pleasure, like a satisfied sigh. The question of beauty is not a genuine question, and we can safely leave it behind or alone. Most twentieth-century philosophers did just that.
Philosophers in the Kantian tradition identify the experience of beauty with disinterested pleasure, psychical distance, and the like, and contrast the aesthetic with the practical. “ Taste is the faculty of judging an object or mode of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called beautiful ” (Kant 1790, 45). Edward Bullough distinguishes the beautiful from the merely agreeable on the grounds that the former requires a distance from practical concerns: “Distance is produced in the first instance by putting the phenomenon, so to speak, out of gear with our practical, actual self; by allowing it to stand outside the context of our personal needs and ends” (Bullough 1912, 244).
On the other hand, many philosophers have gone in the opposite direction and have identified beauty with suitedness to use. ‘Beauty’ is perhaps one of the few terms that could plausibly sustain such entirely opposed interpretations.
According to Diogenes Laertius, the ancient hedonist Aristippus of Cyrene took a rather direct approach.
Is not then, also, a beautiful woman useful in proportion as she is beautiful; and a boy and a youth useful in proportion to their beauty? Well then, a handsome boy and a handsome youth must be useful exactly in proportion as they are handsome. Now the use of beauty is, to be embraced. If then a man embraces a woman just as it is useful that he should, he does not do wrong; nor, again, will he be doing wrong in employing beauty for the purposes for which it is useful. (Diogenes Laertius, 94)
In some ways, Aristippus is portrayed parodically: as the very worst of the sophists, though supposedly a follower of Socrates. And yet the idea of beauty as suitedness to use finds expression in a number of thinkers. Xenophon’s Memorabilia puts the view in the mouth of Socrates, with Aristippus as interlocutor:
Socrates : In short everything which we use is considered both good and beautiful from the same point of view, namely its use. Aristippus : Why then, is a dung-basket a beautiful thing? Socrates : Of course it is, and a golden shield is ugly, if the one be beautifully fitted to its purpose and the other ill. (Xenophon, Book III, viii)
Berkeley expresses a similar view in his dialogue Alciphron , though he begins with the hedonist conception: “Every one knows that beauty is what pleases” (Berkeley 1732, 174; see Carritt 1931, 75). But it pleases for reasons of usefulness. Thus, as Xenophon suggests, on this view, things are beautiful only in relation to the uses for which they are intended or to which they are properly applied. The proper proportions of an object depend on what kind of object it is and, again, a beautiful car might make an ugly tractor. “The parts, therefore, in true proportions, must be so related, and adjusted to one another, as they may best conspire to the use and operation of the whole” (Berkeley 1732, 174–75; see Carritt 1931, 76). One result of this is that, though beauty remains tied to pleasure, it is not an immediate sensible experience. It essentially requires intellection and practical activity: one has to know the use of a thing and assess its suitedness to that use.
This treatment of beauty is often used, for example, to criticize the distinction between fine art and craft, and it avoids sheer philistinism by enriching the concept of ‘use,’ so that it might encompass not only performing a practical task, but performing it especially well or with an especial satisfaction. Ananda Coomaraswamy, the Ceylonese-British scholar of Indian and European medieval arts, adds that a beautiful work of art or craft expresses as well as serves its purpose.
A cathedral is not as such more beautiful than an airplane, … a hymn than a mathematical equation. … A well-made sword is not less beautiful than a well-made scalpel, though one is used to slay, the other to heal. Works of art are only good or bad, beautiful or ugly in themselves, to the extent that they are or are not well and truly made, that is, do or do not express, or do or do not serve their purpose. (Coomaraswamy 1977, 75)
Roger Scruton, in his book Beauty (2009) returns to a modified Kantianism with regard to both beauty and sublimity, enriched by many and varied examples. “We call something beautiful,” writes Scruton, “when we gain pleasure from contemplating it as an individual object, for its own sake, and in its presented form ” (Scruton 2009, 26). Despite the Kantian framework, Scruton, like Sartwell and Nehamas, throws the subjective/objective distinction into question. He compares experiencing a beautiful thing to a kiss. To kiss someone that one loves is not merely to place one body part on another, “but to touch the other person in his very self. Hence the kiss is compromising – it is a move from one self toward another, and a summoning of the other into the surface of his being” (Scruton 2009, 48). This, Scruton says, is a profound pleasure.
3. The Politics of Beauty
Kissing sounds nice, but some kisses are coerced, some pleasures obtained at a cost to other people. The political associations of beauty over the last few centuries have been remarkably various and remarkably problematic, particularly in connection with race and gender, but in other aspects as well. This perhaps helps account for the neglect of the issue in early-to-mid twentieth-century philosophy as well as its growth late in the century as an issue in social justice movements, and subsequently in social-justice oriented philosophy.
The French revolutionaries of 1789 associated beauty with the French aristocracy and with the Rococo style of the French royal family, as in the paintings of Fragonard: hedonist expressions of wealth and decadence, every inch filled with decorative motifs. Beauty itself became subject to a moral and political critique, or even to direct destruction, with political motivations (see Levey 1985). And by the early 20th century, beauty was particularly associated with capitalism (ironically enough, considering the ugliness of the poverty and environmental destruction it often induced). At times even great art appeared to be dedicated mainly to furnishing the homes of rich people, with the effect of concealing the suffering they were inflicting. In response, many anti-capitalists, including many Marxists, appeared to repudiate beauty entirely. And in the aesthetic politics of Nazism, reflected for example in the films of Leni Riefenstahl, the association of beauty and right wing politics was sealed to devastating effect (see Spotts 2003).
Early on in his authorship, Karl Marx could hint that the experience of beauty distinguishes human beings from all other animals. An animal “produces only under the dominion of immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom. Man therefore also forms objects in accordance with the laws of beauty” (Marx 1844, 76). But later Marx appeared to conceive beauty as “superstructure” or “ideology” disguising the material conditions of production. Perhaps, however, he also anticipated the emergence of new beauties, available to all both as makers and appreciators, in socialism.
Capitalism, of course, uses beauty – at times with complete self-consciousness – to manipulate people into buying things. Many Marxists believed that the arts must be turned from providing fripperies to the privileged or advertising that helps make them wealthier to showing the dark realities of capitalism (as in the American Ashcan school, for example), and articulating an inspiring Communist future. Stalinist socialist realism consciously repudiates the aestheticized beauties of post-impressionist and abstract painting, for example. It has urgent social tasks to perform (see Bown and Lanfranconi 2012). But the critique tended at times to generalize to all sorts of beauty: as luxury, as seduction, as disguise and oppression. The artist Max Ernst (1891–1976), having survived the First World War, wrote this about the radical artists of the early century: “To us, Dada was above all a moral reaction. Our rage aimed at total subversion. A horrible futile war had robbed us of five years of our existence. We had experienced the collapse into ridicule and shame of everything represented to us as just, true, and beautiful. My works of that period were not meant to attract, but to make people scream” (quoted in Danto 2003, 49).
Theodor Adorno, in his book Aesthetic Theory , wrote that one symptom of oppression is that oppressed groups and cultures are regarded as uncouth, dirty, ragged; in short, that poverty is ugly. It is art’s obligation, he wrote, to show this ugliness, imposed on people by an unjust system, clearly and without flinching, rather to distract people by beauty from the brutal realities of capitalism. “Art must take up the cause of what is proscribed as ugly, though no longer to integrate or mitigate it or reconcile it with its own existence,” Adorno wrote. “Rather, in the ugly, art must denounce the world that creates and reproduces the ugly in its own image” (Adorno 1970, 48–9).
The political entanglements of beauty tend to throw into question various of the traditional theories. For example, the purity and transcendence associated with the essence of beauty in the realm of the Forms seems irrelevant, as beauty shows its centrality to politics and commerce, to concrete dimensions of oppression. The austere formalism of the classical conception, for example, seems neither here nor there when the building process is brutally exploitative.
As we have seen, the association of beauty with the erotic is proverbial from Sappho and is emphasized relentlessly by figures such as Burke and Nehamas. But the erotic is not a neutral or universal site, and we need to ask whose sexuality is in play in the history of beauty, with what effects. This history, particularly in the West and as many feminist theorists and historians have emphasized, is associated with the objectification and exploitation of women. Feminists beginning in the 19th century gave fundamental critiques of the use of beauty as a set of norms to control women’s bodies or to constrain their self-presentation and even their self-image in profound and disabling ways (see Wollstonecraft 1792, Grimké 1837).
In patriarchal society, as Catherine MacKinnon puts it, the content of sexuality “is the gaze that constructs women as objects for male pleasure. I draw on pornography for its form and content,” she continues, describing her treatment of the subject, “for the gaze that eroticizes the despised, the demeaned, the accessible, the there-to-be-used, the servile, the child-like, the passive, and the animal. That is the content of sexuality that defines gender female in this culture, and visual thingification is its method” (MacKinnon 1987, 53–4). Laura Mulvey, in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” reaches one variety of radical critique and conclusion: “It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it. That is the intention of this article” (Mulvey 1975, 60).
Mulvey’s psychoanalytic treatment was focused on the scopophilia (a Freudian term denoting neurotic sexual pleasure configured around looking) of Hollywood films, in which men appeared as protagonists, and women as decorative or sexual objects for the pleasure of the male characters and male audience-members. She locates beauty “at the heart of our oppression.” And she appears to have a hedonist conception of it: beauty engenders pleasure. But some pleasures, like some kisses, are sadistic or exploitative at the individual and at the societal level. Art historians such as Linda Nochlin (1988) and Griselda Pollock (1987) brought such insights to bear on the history of painting, for example, where the scopophilia is all too evident in famous nudes such as Titian’s Venus of Urbino or Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus , which a feminist slashed with knife in 1914 because “she didn’t like the way men gawked at it”.
Feminists such as Naomi Wolf in her book The Beauty Myth , generalized such insights into a critique of the ways women are represented throughout Western popular culture: in advertising, for example, or music videos. Such practices have the effect of constraining women to certain acceptable ways of presenting themselves publicly, which in turn greatly constrains how seriously they are taken, or how much of themselves they can express in public space. As have many other commentators, Wolf connects the representation of the “beautiful” female body, in Western high art but especially in popular culture, to eating disorders and many other self-destructive behaviors, and indicates that a real overturning of gender hierarchy will require deeply re-construing the concept of beauty.
The demand on women to create a beautiful self-presentation by male standards, Wolf argues, fundamentally compromises women’s action and self-understanding, and makes fully human relationships between men and women difficult or impossible. In this Wolf follows, among others, the French thinker Luce Irigaray, who wrote that “Female beauty is always considered as finery ultimately designed to attract the other into the self. It is almost never perceived as a manifestation of, an appearance of, a phenomenon expressive of interiority – whether of love, of thought, of flesh. We look at ourselves in the mirror to please someone , rarely to interrogate the state of our body or our spirit, rarely for ourselves and in search of our becoming” (quoted in Robinson 2000, 230).
“Sex is held hostage by beauty,” Wolf remarks, “and its ransom terms are engraved in girls’ minds early and deeply with instruments more beautiful that those which advertisers or pornographers know how to use: literature, poetry, painting, and film” (Wolf 1991f, 157).
Early in the 20th century, black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) described European or white standards of beauty as a deep dimension of oppression, quite similarly to the way Naomi Wolf describes beauty standards for women. These standards are relentlessly reinforced in authoritative images, but they are incompatible with black skin, black bodies, and also traditional African ways of understanding human beauty. White standards of beauty, Garvey argued, devalue black bodies. The truly oppressive aspects of such norms can be seen in the way they induce self-alienation, as Wolf argues with regard to sexualized images of women. “Some of us in America, the West Indies, and Africa believe that the nearer we approach the white man in color, the greater our social standing and privilege,” he wrote (Garvey 1925 [1986], 56). He condemns skin bleaching and hair straightening as ways that black people are taught to devalue themselves by white standards of beauty. And he connects such standards to ‘colorism’ or prejudice in the African-American community toward darker-skinned black people.
Such observations suggest some of the strengths of cultural relativism as opposed to subjectivism or universalism: standards of beauty appear in this picture not to be idiosyncratic to individuals, nor to be universal among all people, but to be tied to group identities and to oppression and resistance.
In his autobiography, Malcolm X (1925–1965), whose parents were activists in the Garvey movement, describes ‘conking’ or straightening his hair with lye products as a young man. “This was my first really big step toward self-degradation,” he writes, “when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that black people are ‘inferior’ – and white people ‘superior’ – that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look ‘pretty’ by white standards” (X 1964, 56–7). For both Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, a key moment in the transformation of racial oppression would be the affirmation of standards of black beauty that are not parasitic on white standards, and hence not directly involved in racial oppression. This was systematically developed after Malcolm’s death in the “natural” hairstyles and African fabrics in the Black Power movement. Certainly, people have many motivations for straightening or coloring their hair, for example. But the critical examination of the racial content of beauty norms was a key moment in black liberation movements, many of which, around 1970, coalesced around the slogan Black is beautiful . These are critiques of specific standards of beauty; they are also tributes to beauty’s power.
Imposing standards of beauty on non-Western cultures, and, in particular, misappropriating standards of beauty and beautiful objects from them, formed one of the most complex strategies of colonialism. Edward Said famously termed this dynamic “orientalism.” Novelists such as Nerval and Kipling and painters such as Delacroix and Picasso, he argued, used motifs drawn from Asian and African cultures, treating them as “exotic” insertions into Western arts. Such writers and artists might even have understood themselves to be celebrating the cultures they depicted in pictures of Arabian warriors or African masks. But they used this imagery precisely in relation to Western art history. They distorted what they appropriated.
“Being a White Man, in short,” writes Said, “was a very concrete manner of being-in-the-world, a way of taking hold of reality, language, and thought. It made a specific style possible” (Said 1978, 227). This style might be encapsulated in the outfits of colonial governors, and their mansions. But it was also typified by an appropriative “appreciation” of “savage” arts and “exotic” beauties, which were of course not savage or exotic in their own context. Even in cases where the beauty of such objects was celebrated, the appreciation was mixed with condescension and misapprehension, and also associated with stripping colonial possessions of their most beautiful objects (as Europeans understood beauty)—shipping them back to the British Museum, for example. Now some beautiful objects, looted in colonialism, are being returned to their points of origin (see Matthes 2017), but many others remain in dispute.
However, if beauty has been an element in various forms of oppression, it has also been an element in various forms of resistance, as the slogan “Black is beautiful” suggests. The most compelling responses to oppressive standards and uses of beauty have given rise to what might be termed counter-beauties . When fighting discrimination against people with disabilities, for example, one may decry the oppressive norms that regard disabled bodies as ugly and leave it at that. Or one might try to discover what new standards of beauty and subversive pleasures might arise in the attempt to regard disabled bodies as beautiful (Siebers 2005). For that matter, one might uncover the ways that non-normative bodies and subversive pleasures actually do fulfill various traditional criteria of beauty. Indeed, for some decades there has been a disability arts movement, often associated with artists such as Christine Sun Kim and Riva Lehrer, which tries to do just that (see Siebers 2005).
The exploration of beauty, in some ways flipping it over into an instrument of feminist resistance, or showing directly how women’s beauty could be experienced outside of patriarchy, has been a theme of much art by women of the 20th and 21st centuries. Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers and Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party” place settings undertake to absorb and reverse the objectifying gaze. The exploration of the meaning of the female body in the work of performance artists such as Hannah Wilke, Karen Finley, and Orlan, tries both to explore the objectification of the female body and to affirm women’s experience in its concrete realities from the inside: to make of it emphatically a subject rather than an object (see Striff 1997).
“Beauty seems in need of rehabilitation today as an impulse that can be as liberating as it has been deemed enslaving,” wrote philosopher Peg Zeglin Brand in 2000. “Confident young women today pack their closets with mini-skirts and sensible suits. Young female artists toy with feminine stereotypes in ways that make their feminist elders uncomfortable. They recognize that … beauty can be a double-edged sword – as capable of destabilizing rigid conventions and restrictive behavioral models as it is of reinforcing them” (Brand 2000, xv). Indeed, vernacular norms of beauty as expressed in media and advertising have shifted in virtue of the feminist and anti-racist attacks on dominant body norms, as the concept’s long journey continues.
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aesthetics: British, in the 18th century | aesthetics: French, in the 18th century | Aquinas, Thomas | Aristotle | Ayer, Alfred Jules | Burke, Edmund | Croce, Benedetto: aesthetics | feminist philosophy, interventions: aesthetics | hedonism | Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: aesthetics | Hume, David: aesthetics | Kant, Immanuel: aesthetics and teleology | Kant, Immanuel: theory of judgment | medieval philosophy | Neoplatonism | Plato: aesthetics | Plotinus | Santayana, George | Schiller, Friedrich | Schopenhauer, Arthur | Scottish Philosophy: in the 18th Century | Shaftesbury, Lord [Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of]
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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Beauty / Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder: Exploring Subjective Perceptions
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder: Exploring Subjective Perceptions
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Introduction
Cultural and societal influences on beauty perception.
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