Aaron has a very well written essay on what art and ergo beauty is from a Christian worldview.
Julie wrote on this and asked the same question.
This is something I think a great deal about. What is beauty. I think it's a spiritual thing.
Read both of these interesting essays if you are a thinker.
If NOT, never mind.
5 comments:
People coevolved with the other life forms in their environment to avoid danger and to seek and find food and shelter and healthy mates. All the universal things we call beauty can be traced to that fact. Fruit is green and inconspicuous while it is immature and useless as seed but when the seed matures, the fruit ripens and gets a color and odor that will attract things to eat it and move the seed away from the parent plant. As the plant evolved the color signal, we evolved the idea that the contrast of red or blue or orange against the green is beautiful. A flower evolved to attract pollinators so that the plant can later form seed, and the person who notices and appreciates the flower has an advantage in knowing where to find seed later. A symetric person is a healthier mate and a symetric shelter is sturdier. Those who prefered symmetry had healthier children and lived longer in their safe shelter. Snakes were one of the worst predators to early primates and part of our instinctive brain is still wired to fear and avoid snakes, which is why we have written evil into most religions in the form of a snake. (The religion appears true because it reflects an instinct.) We are driven by instinct to avoid being preyed upon, seeking safety and routine and security, and the often conflicting instinct to find new things to eat, seeking novelty and risk and opportunity. In the modern world, we are still driven by these instincts that gave us our ability to survive, even tho they now conflict with the modern world. When calories were harder to come by, eating as much as one could when it was avialable and storing it as fat for use later was as advantage. Now, when calories are easy to come by, well, technology changes the world faster than we can ever evolve to fit into it!
Of course, you don't beleive any of that science, now do you?
K,
That is a good comment. Did you write that? If so I'm impressed. Not meant as a dig but It could have been cut and pasted.
In any case, good contribution. Much to think about.
If what you say is true beauty is LESS subjective than I imagine. What about the beauty of asymetry? Or is that a reaction to the natural symaetrey in our world?
Design seems to rebel against absolute symetrery.
If I could spell symetry I'd be dangerous.
I teach design principles. In order to teach it in a simple way, we summarize into a few principles. Repetition, variety, balance, emphasis, sequence, scale expressed in line, form, color, texture. I could explain every one of them in survival terms including asssymmettrrry which is a form of balance. (Unbalanced asymmetry is not pleasing. The asymetry must be balanced to be pleasiing. Structural stablility and the ability to judge found shelter and build shelter.) I can also explain diet, teen angst, and anything else you want explained in survival terms. And I never cut and paste. THese theories are synthesised (read making it up as I go)from years of studying pop psych, sociology, anthropology, evolutionary science, rock music (I threw that one in for fun) and so on.
Subjectivity: If design is universal and related to instinct, why don't we all like exactly the same thing? Because while evolution was fine tuning us and the rest of the living world to be in synch with each other, it was also guaranteeing that some diversity continued to exist so that when geology and climate and larger patterns changed, there would still exist some on the continuum would be able to adapt. Thus, while we all prefer balance, some prefer it to be symmetric and other that it be asymmetric, some prefer white wine and some prefer red, some prefer vegetables and others meat. It seems on the surface like evolution would make for uniformity, but the mechanism of evolution is changeable genetics and the ability to be adaptable over deep time depends on diversity within each species. (Thus, cultivars are doomed in the wild.)
Spelling: Both asymmetry and symmetry have one letter that is doubled. Paired. Symmetric. Can't be the S because it can't be Ssymetric. None of the others work. Symettric? Symettrric? Symetricc? Only one possible is SyMMetric.
But if you look at it long enough, you think it just can't be. Two M. Candy.
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