What is beautiful?

Question

If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, then how do we really define beauty?

Answer 1

Beauty is a six letter word composed of upwright drawings composed by human hand and seen by sight & mind.

Answer 2

I have been bothered lately by things being described as "beautiful." There is nothing wrong with my aunt sitting in front of the Christmas tree, taking a decorated vase out of a gift box and saying, "Oh my, that's beautiful," right? Yet it started to bother me the more I heard it being used by the people around me. So recently when my father said, "It's such a beautiful day," as we got in the car to go to the store, I ignored it. When my friend showed me his new car and asked, "Isn't she a beauty?" I quietly agreed. I had been going on like this and was stopped cold when my four-year old daughter was playing with her dolls and said very innocently, "My favorites are Belle and Sleeping Beauty."

Well, for some reason those words sounded like an old record being scratched by a needle, making me suddenly aware that I was more worried about this "beauty" thing than I realized, so I asked her, "Why are they your favorites, honey?" She gave me that look (that I can tell will be the same when she's a teenager and I ask why she wants to borrow the car) and put her hand on her hip and slanted her head sideways. "Because they're beautiful, Dad."

Answer 3

Exactly the way you so eloquently put the phrase, in the eyes of the beholder, the individual, the human being. Beauty is our own opinion and view of what beauty means to each individual person on Earth. That is the beauty of the creation of free-minded, free- speech, freedom that should be but isn't.

Answer 4

You bascially answered your own question, and that is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is whatever visually pleasing or pleasing in some other way to you. If you think that a nice set of hooters (can you tell I'm a guy?), or a large butt is a thing of beauty that is up for you to decide. For me, beauty is when a person is smart, and can use that knowledge wisely.

Answer 5

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but you would be thought more beautiful than another if you were considered more beautiful than that person by more people than those who thought that they were more beautiful than yourself.

Answer 6

there have been a multitude of attempts to define the qualities of beauty. the idea that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' translates as the idea that aesthetics are purely subjective, while there is another school of thought dedicated to the idea that beauty is objective. that is, that there are measurable qualities in humans & some natural phenomena which are realised as recognisably beautiful.

the golden or divine proportion is one. this proportion (phi, approx. 1.6180) is said to occur in nature (such as the spiral of particular shells or certain plants) & in the human body/face. this idea stems from vaguely religious ideas about God's creation- it can be found in particular pieces of renaissance art. but i believe this idea is an incredibly static frame which is applied rather than 'found'. architecture as well has found proportions of beauty, le corbusier's 'modular man' is the most prime example of it. women are even more subject to this of, course, because it's said that beautiful women have waist-to-hip ratios of 0.7, i think kate moss was cited as an example.

another common theme in the subjective analysis of beauty is the idea of symmetry, we supposedly find beauty in very symmetrical faces. you might think this sounds crazy, but very few people have compeltely symmetrical faces- if you take a head-on photo of yourself & mirror each half your face looks vastly different in both... i've been told that one half will always look better than the other because that's the half which tends more to 'averageness', the idea being that average features also make a beautiful face. i've seen an art project which superimposed hundreds of faces on top of each other to find the 'average' face.

both symmetry & averageness have biological funtions- these apparently mark a person as more virile or fertile, so their capability of perpetuating the race is more viable. in other animals this is true as well, serious disfigurements which detract from symmetry or averageness (eg. a prominent scar or albinoism) can often lead to an animal being outcast, or even attacked by their own kind. humans aren't the only ones to value physical appearances.

it's a kind of darwinism really, 'survival of the fittest'. but i think because human beings are so much more complex than other animals there is a certain discontinuity between beauty & attraction. in a more philosophical sense humans seem to have an innate sense of beauty in the natural world, most people are drawn to the ocean or bodies of water, to magnificent sunsets, etc. most people can't define what makes such things beautiful except for the fact 'they just are'.

i think in a similar way we find underlying beauty in everything & everyone we come across. this is why so many people say that beauty is subjective. you may have the proportions, the symmetry, the averageness, but if you don't have anything to back it up: you'll get old & then you're a goner.

the 'survival of the fittest' idea can be applied to someone's compassion & empathy because of the feelings they evoke in you, just as a sunset makes one feel a certain way without knowing why a sunset is beautiful. to me beauty isn't just a series of numbers or adjectives; it is a feeling close to inspiration, but not quite.

(i'm sorry, i usually don't write this much, but there are a plethora of ideas about beauty & this barely covers any of them. if you can get your hands on some of the literature it is truly fascinating stuff.)

Answer 7

BEAUTY IS THE BEHOLDER. What one perceives as beautiful defines the beauty of that person.

Answer 8

My first wife ran for miss South Carolina, my second wife had one eye that looked the other way,and not considered a beauty, but to me she was greatly beautiful. I loved her very much.they were both beautiful, I don't noticed much but whats in the heart,usually anyway.
I liked what Mick Jagger said, that anything that is truly beautiful has a flaw to it, somewhere,

Peace.

Answer 9

I believe that beauty would be defined as that which evoces a positive spontainous feeling within the observer. Hope this helps.

Answer 10

yes, in the eyes of the beholder