The Problem of Beauty

The Problem of Beauty

Beauty is often defined as the aesthetic quality of certain objects that making these objects enjoyable to perceive. Such objects may include sunsets, landscapes, humans and other artistic works of art. Beauty, along with beauty and art, is probably the most significant part of aesthetics, possibly the most influential part of all the branches of art history, and one of its most important sub-races.

The major aim of aesthetics is to establish an ideal visual experience. It has been postulated that beauty, in the broadest sense, can be seen as an objective, universal essence, which can be experienced and contemplated by all people in their various cultural and historical contexts. The major theories of aesthetics that have been developed across the history of aesthetic thought agree on a basic position, namely that beauty is a distillation or condensation of basic human needs and values. However, the various theories of aesthetic value differ fundamentally in their scope of vision, in terms of what they are to be understood as expressing.

In terms of an aesthetic experience, some theories suggest that beauty is a complex subjective quality, while others emphasize the simplicity and directness of a particular aesthetic object, such as a sunset. There is also a tendency to define beauty as the emotional state associated with beauty. Other theories regard beauty as the objective quality of a work of art, while still others argue that beauty exists only contingently in relation to other aspects of our aesthetic experience. Still others insist that beauty is nothing but a means to an end, with the end being happiness. The various theories concerning the nature of beauty in relation to the various cultures and historical periods pose difficulties for the aesthetically-inclined, for it is not easy to find a definition of beauty that can be both accurate and consistent across different points of view.