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Perception of beauty
Perception of beauty
The impact of beauty on self-esteem
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The judgement of taste is based solely on the opinions and feelings of the person affected by the object being viewed. This judgement is and can only be completely objective depending on individual feeling. Based on person judgement, the opinion formed while viewing a subject does nothing to contribute to the area of teaching or learning since the sentiment appeals to the senses. Only our personal interest to an object will determine our reactions and emotions felt from its existence. Beauty can only be determined by a person’s own personal feelings. Our opinions are not directly formed by someone else’s or by any other aspects. If another person asks for an opinion of an object being beautiful they must also understand that this can only …show more content…
In this aspect, if something is only appealing to on person then it does not have pure beauty as calling something beautiful is to expect everyone else to call it beautiful also. To have taste is to be able to entertain others in a way that many will also find agreeable. And for something to be good it has to be a universal delight. As a concept which is not being universally agreeable or beautiful. Yet for something to have subjective, universal validity, the opinion is based from the object itself. A true judgement of beauty can be a logical one based on aesthetics. It is impossible for anything to be universally shared outside of learning, as opinions are not a universal …show more content…
Only emotion comes from an agreeable trigger from within us. While pure judgment of taste is not equal to basing our taste on charm or emotions. If sublimity is a feeling of emotion that we connect to then free beauty is admiring something for what it is and not for what we expect it to be. This is the opposite of conditioned beauty which is considered to be perfection. Free beauty also is representative of our pure judgements; fantasias in music are also referred to as free beauties. When free beauty is put into a form to fit our understanding of reason, it becomes conditioned as it is held in comparison to an idea of
He clarifies his interpretation of aesthetic value, rejecting the traditionally narrow notions regarding beauty and composition, and expands his view to include insights and emotions expressed through the medium. Explaining that he views overall value as an all-things-considered judgement, he asserts the ethicist’s duty to contrast the aesthetic with the ethical and determine the extent to which one outweighs the other. Gaut calls on readers to defy the popular paradigm equating beauty with goodness and ugly with evil, allowing for great, yet flawed pieces of
The nature of aesthetics has puzzled many, where questions and reflections about art, beauty, and taste have intersected with our understanding of what a real art experience truly is. The notion of the aesthetic experience, an experience that differs from the everyday experiences, has been given great consideration by English art critic Clive Bell and American philosopher John Dewey since the beginning of the 20th century. Both have spent much deliberation on the distinctive character of aesthetic experience; yet have complete opposing ideas on how to go about understanding aesthetic experience’s ecosystem. Bell takes a formalist approach, as he thinks that to understand everything about a work of art, one has to only look at the work of art.
What is beauty? How do human beings decide who is attractive and who is not? Society is full of messages telling us what is beautiful, but what are those definitions based on? Do we consciously decide whom we are attracted to, or is biology somehow involved? The issue of beauty and how we define it has been studied for centuries. Scholars from all fields of study have searched for the "formula" for beauty. Darwin in his book The Descent of Man wrote, "It is certainly not true that there is in the mind of man any universal standard of beauty with respect to the human body. It is however, possible that certain tastes in the course of time become inherited, though I have no evidence in favor of this belief." (1) Science has tried to look at beauty beyond the conscious level. It has tried to determine what roles biology plays in human attraction. Scientists have discovered that symmetry and scent play a role in defining human attraction. (3) But while this can begin to explain beauty on the most basic of levels, what accounts for variations in the standard of beauty? The idea of beauty varies within different societies and communities. Do these cultural preferences have a biological basis? What is the relationship between biology and society in relation to the idea of beauty? How do they relate to each other, and how do they differ? In particular what role does science play in the preference that many societies, (in particular South Asian, East Asian, and North American Cultures), have for fairer skin?
There is beauty and there is beauty. The two are not mutually exclusive, but rather represent two poles on a continuum. At one pole is the beauty that is associated with a sense of lightness and balanced order. It has a faintly decorative quality to it. At the other extreme is the much darker form of beauty that we associate with profundity and truth. This latter form of beauty I will analyze in terms of the containment of the sublime. The distinction between these two extremes of beauty has less to do with the objects under consideration, whether a flower, a sunset, a poem, a painting, or a piece of music, than it does with the attitude of the considerer of the object. That is, anything that possesses beauty of the first kind can also be viewed as possessing beauty of the second kind, if the attention of the viewer is directed appropriately. The differential across the continuum is constituted by the degree of awareness of the element of the sublime in the beautiful.
The saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” is one that has been around for centuries. In fact, “This saying first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek. It didn't appear 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,” (Martin, 1963-2013). This quote is the perfect inference that beauty is based on perception. Perception is the “process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events,” (class notes, 10/7/2013). As a part of the brain’s top-down processing, the perception of beauty has been created and is modified and adjusted based on what is seen, heard and encountered.
Clive Bell argues that in order for an artwork to be considered art, it must evoke aesthetic emotion in the individual. If an individual or a group of individuals do in fact find aesthetic emotion in an artwork, Bell claims it is mainly because of significant form. He defines significant form as a significant relationship between lines, shapes, colors, and other sensory properties in an artwork that make it appealing to an audience. The common phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is similar to Bell’s theory in the sense the individual determines whether an artwork is worthy of acclamation. At one point he argues that no one has called a butterfly not beautiful and that it is universally viewed as beautiful.
Disinterested pleasure is proposed by Kant to be the purest form of an aesthetic judgment, leaving the viewer able to look past any outside concerns, conforming with reality. With this process the spectator should be able to experience the art work free from their own desires or interests. A perfect example would be The Pond at Montgeran (Monet, 1876) that depicts a picturesque scene of a pond, rimmed with trees, that any spectator could appreciate the beauty of but not left harbouring desires for. Even though judgements of taste “cannot be other than subjective” (Kant, 2007: 1), it also has an element of the universal voice. Although everyone has different ideals of beauty, humans as a unit can collectively agree on what is beautiful with the use of their cognitive and agreeable faculties.
The subjective element of beauty involves judgment, not opinion. Many people feel beauty is only something seen by the eyes. St. Thomas Aquinas views beauty in both the supernatural and natural orders. Aquinas lists the attributes of beauty to be found in nature. These are; unity, proportion, and clarity. We will see how these attributes of beauty are seen through the eye and felt by the heart.
David Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” addresses the problem of how objects are judged. Hume addresses three assumptions about how aesthetic value is determined. These assumptions are: all tastes are equal, some art is better than others, and aesthetic value of art is defined by a person’s taste(from lecture). However, Hume finds the three beliefs to be an “inconsistent triad”(from lecture) of assumptions. If all taste is equal but taste defines the aesthetic value, how can it be that some art is good and others bad? Wouldn’t all art be equal if all taste is equal? Hume does not believe all objects are equal in their beauty or greatness. He states that some art is meant to endure, “the beauties, which are naturally fitted to excite agreeable sentiment, immediately display their energy”.(text pg 259) So how will society discern what is agreeable and what is not? Hume proposes a set of true judges whose palates are so refined they can precisely define the aesthetic value of something.
Beauty isn’t subjective. It’s one of the only things in the world that cannot be denied. Things are either beautiful or they are not. Art is beautiful. Art is not always meant to be interpreted, sometimes you just need to admire it for its beauty, not for what it means. Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer best known for his book The Picture of Dorian Gray and for writing plays like The Importance of Being Earnest, wrote this and almost based the book earlier mentioned on the whole ideal that beauty doesn’t have to mean more than just beauty. I feel like Oscar Wilde’s greatest strength is his play on words and often use of caricature that really livens up what he writes. He lived during the Victorian era, when art was meant to be used to teach and to influence the minds of society, so as he wrote the book The Picture of Dorian Gray, he strived to prove a great point and contradiction to the era he was living in, as well as the way he uses Dorian’s two best friends to show the hideousness of the bigotry he was living in, as he was arrested and imprisoned for being gay. Oscar Wilde’s use of irony, foil, and symbolism really portray his total disgust towards the age he was living in by rebelling and contradicting the use of art as a tool and the intolerance he was surrounded with during this Victorian age.
The “judgment” theory of emotions is a favored theory among philosophers. According to this theory, at the heart of emotion is a cognitive state: an emotion either is or essentially includes a judgment or belief. If I am in love with a person, this means not just that I get warm and fuzzy feelings inside when the person approaches, but that I have certain beliefs about them – that they are worthy, lovable kind of person. Similarly, if I am afraid of a bear, I don’t just experience a twinge or a pang; I believe or judge the bear to be dangerous or threatening to me. At the heart of love, it would seem, is the judgment that the beloved is a wonderful person; at the heart of fear is the judgment that I am being threatened.
Aesthetics found that through their great interest in beauty, pleasure that is derived form objects of art is more beautiful than other pleasures.
The definition of beauty is varying among different people in the world. Even though almost everyone knows the term beauty, many people are struggling in defining it and persuading others to agree with their opinions. Beauty is defined by a combination of qualities existent in a person or thing that fulfills the aesthetic feels or brings about profound gratification. Many people define beauty as a term to describe a person’s physical appearance; they often think that beauty comes from magazines, video girls, or even models. Although the term beauty can define a person’s physical appearance, true beauty lies in the way one acts and thinks rather than the way one look.
My favorite meal is the chicken fettuccini pasta. I chose this dish because I can never stop eating it. The meal is made up of warm tenderized chunks of chicken, delicate smooth creamy white sauce, and many varieties of sliced up vegetables. However, when I was a child vegetables has always been difficult to eat. It prevented me from enjoying my favorite meal because I would always have to take out the mixed vegetables in the meal. As a child I 've tried avoiding vegetables, but was found throughout the school cafeteria 's food, my mother 's cooking, or many fancy restaurants. There was nowhere to run. Over the years, my mother knew I was struggling to eat vegetables. She worked very hard by coming up with her own recipes in order for me to eat healthy. From mixing in the vegetables into the meals I usually eat or to trick me into eating meat but was actually vegetables. Soon later I came to realize how much effort she has put into the meals. All those hour and hard work my mother put it allowed me to enjoy my favorite meal again.
There is a saying “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” What one individual considers beautiful may not be beautiful to another. Many people in this world have their own definition of what beauty is. Beauty can come from inside or the outside. To me, beauty is not only something that pleases the eyes. Beauty is a quality that pleases or delights the senses or mind. Unfortunately, society makes it nearly impossible to see our own beauty. Most girls are inclined to take a quick look into a compact mirror or run a few fingers through their hair, sizing themselves up with the nearest advertisement featuring a flawless bottle blonde. Some may go a bit further, running an endless list of insecurities