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What Is Beauty? A Philosophical Quest for an Answer
The Nature of Beauty
- The nature of beauty is a riddle in philosophy, with great figures engaging in trying to understand it, including Plato and Aristotle.
- An aesthetic attitude makes the engagement and appreciation of beauty using our senses, like taste, smell, vision or touch.
- Beauty can also be accessed in other ways like intellectually and through imagination.
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The Nature of Beauty
- The nature of beauty is a riddle in philosophy, with great figures engaging in trying to understand it, including Plato and Aristotle.
- An aesthetic attitude makes the engagement and appreciation of beauty using our senses, like taste, smell, vision or touch.
- Beauty can also be accessed in other ways like intellectually and through imagination.
The Aesthetic Attitude
An aesthetic attitude is a state of contemplating a subject with no other purpose than appreciating it.
Aesthetic appreciation can be carried on by means of the senses (seeing a beautiful scenery, listening to music, etc.), but it's not restricted to just that. We can rejoice, for instance, in imagining a beautiful house that never existed
A Universal Definition of Beauty
Beauty becomes varied and subjective as people around the world have different perspectives, based on cultural and personal preferences.
The beauty of anything cannot be compared with one another using only the senses, as there can be no common elements in many things of beauty. An oil painting is beautiful and so is picking flowers in a yellow field. While one is seen through our vision, the other is a combination of vision, experience and other senses like smell.
Beauty And Pleasure
Human beings, it seems, are genetically predisposed to desire and appreciate beauty.
Philosophy delves into the fundamental question of the ethics and aesthetics of beauty, as it can be both a pleasure and something of value, due to it being dear to humans.
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Defining Art
- Art does not have a universal definition, though it is generally believed that it is an intentional and conscious creation of something that requires imagination and skill.
- It can ...
Defining Art Through History
- From the 11th century until the end of the 17th century, the definition of art was anything that was done with expertise, with the result of knowledge and practice.
- The Romantic period of the 18th century, beauty became the main criteria for defining good art. Nature, spirituality and free expression were sought after and well received.
- The 19th Century started the Avant-garde art movement, with art becoming real, modern, futuristic and surreal. Whatever the definitions, the originality of art stands out as a time-tested measure, with new genres and manifestations like performance art, digital art, and electronic art.
Philosophy of Art
- Art as Representation or Mimesis. Representation of art as an imitation or copying became the mainstream meaning of art in Greece. Plato first developed the idea of art as “mimesis,” which, in Greek, means copying or imitation. How immaculately it replicated the original subject became the measure of its value.
- Art as Expression of Emotional content. Dramatic, sublime and heartfelt art becomes a way to express oneself during the Romantic movement , with audience response becoming key to the valuation of the content. The emotions that were felt when the art was witnessed became its barometer for success.
- Art as Form. Formal qualities of art became influential in the 18th century, with the principles of art and design, like balance, rhythm, harmony and unity became as important as the content of the work of art.
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Aristotle gave us an alternative conception of happiness
It cannot be acquired by pleasurable experiences but only by identifying and realizing our own potential, moral and creative, in our specific environments, with our particular family, friends and colleagues, and helping others to do so.
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The Philosophy of The Nordic Design
Nordic philosophy has a deep respect for functionality, clean lines, and longevity. Nordic design is created to be in harmony with its environment and a direct result of the region's cl...
Moving from Art Nouveau towards Art Deco
In 1915, a Danish company for decorative arts launched a magazine to promote local craftsmanship.
It was made to compete against the Art Noveau movement. Social commentary pressed more on the arts, which paved the way for Art Deco - an industrially-driven design philosophy.
The Golden Age of Scandinavian Design
- In the 1930s, artists, inspired by the concepts of Constructivism, Functionalism, and Surrealism, paved the way for Nordic design's iconic milestones.
- In the 1950s, the Lunning Prize (an equivalent of Nobel Prize) hailed exemplary designers who have given valuable contributions to Nordic Design from 1951 to 1970.
- In 1954, a traveling exhibition comprised of the region's best designs landed in the United States and Canada and influenced the American culture.
- In Denmark, Danish design thrived during the 1940s to the 1960s and created its own flavor, abandoning grandeur ornamentation in pursuit of form and function.
- After WWII, Danish design has become a democratic movement, where makers turn to mass-producing natural raw materials such as ceramics, wood, and leather.
- While the popularity declined in the 1970s, it had an upturn a decade later.
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