What Is Beauty?

Beauty is widely defined as a subjective quality of things which makes these objects appealing to see. These objects include sunsets, landscapes, beautiful humans and unique works of artistic art. Beauty, along with other aesthetic sense, is the most important theme of aesthetics, among the major branches of art history. The word beauty, according to the Merriam Webster’s dictionary, is used to mean “the fair or lovely appearance or even temperament of something”. According to this definition, beauty is a personal assessment of beauty, an appeal which is subjective.

The twentieth century has witnessed a plethora of literature, on the subject of beauty. philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Bertrand Russell and Richard Rorty have each addressed the problem of beauty in different ways. Modern artists like Monet and de Kooning have given new meanings to the concept of beauty. In fact, in the twenty-first century, when a person asks the question, what is beauty; what constitutes beauty for me, the answer may differ from what was earlier given by a famous French philosopher, Madame de Sade. According to Sade, beauty is “a feeling that springs, not from any definite external object, but out of our personal and individual experience of the inside elements of our being”.

Modern people often refer to a “beauty culture” as an aesthetic tradition that pervades all aspects of human life, including literature, music, art, fashion, and technology. A number of theories to explain the emergence of beauty. Some believe that beauty has its roots in the physical, such as in the ability to perceive form and so on, while some others believe that beauty arises from an inner spiritual nature, such as with the idea of beauty as an ideal. Beauty can be found in the natural world, in the beauty of nature, in the cultural art of various peoples, and in human endeavor, such as the visual arts, literature, technology, and science.