We breath all the time, even when we don’t notice it. The same goes for beauty. Sometimes we don’t even care: “as long as it works” “appearance does not matter”... yet we still reproach society for its “kalocracy” (see note below) when it seems only the beautiful ones succeed. Be that as it may, Beauty gets to all of us and it does it in every aspect of our lives.
To fully understand what beauty is we should observe its main attribute which is to attract (no surprise we say a beautiful person is “attractive”) Attraction is bound up with the sense of pleasure as otherwise we move away at once from things we found unpleasant.
So far it seems to work, but lets think about this: Is something beautiful because it attract us or just because its beautiful? The first one supports our personal appreciation and for example lets an entomologist say that cockroach is... lovely. The second one appeals to our tendency of take things by consensus and then we all say that a rising sun is splendid even if we never are not going to stay awake to see a dawn. Individual appreciation vs... collective unconscious? In any case the determining factor will still be the attraction. Those things we just say are pretty, even if we hate them or we don’t care about them, are only the product of conventionalism. So the beauty is nothing but the attribute of anything to attract and cause some gratification. Inherent or because its a sign of any other gratification (a sort of fetish) for a living being. Example: A chocolate cake will be delicious for me and make me drool like a dog and I will stare at it in ecstasy, attracted by its shape, either real or just a picture. (Well, a cake or Miss February)
Aesthetics
Nothing as subjective as aesthetic appreciation. We simply value the shapes that get to our senses and then we are captivated by a melody or that lovely table we got in a flea market. Aesthetics is like a “beautimeter” for judging our reality, sometimes at our very criteria and sometimes influenced by things like fashion or epoch.
Aesthetics is not a banality. Our aesthetic appreciations not only help us to determine our individuality but it is like social sense of smell (not always accurate) with which we choose how to relate with other people. Apparently isolated aspects like economic, cultural, moral and so on turn themselves into aesthetic values when we consider them in relation to a person in order to, in example, finding him/her “lovely” or hate him/her so much.
As for the sexual matter, it is not as completely aesthetic as we could consider it. Not specially because of that pheromones stuff. Although humans judge sexual beauty by some temporal canons that come and go (for example, fleshy women are not as popular like in other times and then we have those “metrosexual” men) the certain thing is “sexual urgency” uses to go beforehand. Even the sexual side of the esthetic weakens in some cases like the one of heterosexual men comparing (measuring?) their stuff or those like the hetero judges at a female beauty contest, esthetic surgeons and artists, of course.
About human mating... feelings involved, if we take into account the amount of general attributes that turn themselves into aesthetic judgments at the moment of choosing (if one really chooses) we can only get to the irrefutable and affected conclusion that... “love is the most beautiful thing” :P
Note: kalocracy. From the Greek kalos/beautiful and kratos/rule. The rule of the good looking ones. It was just a way to say it.
To fully understand what beauty is we should observe its main attribute which is to attract (no surprise we say a beautiful person is “attractive”) Attraction is bound up with the sense of pleasure as otherwise we move away at once from things we found unpleasant.
So far it seems to work, but lets think about this: Is something beautiful because it attract us or just because its beautiful? The first one supports our personal appreciation and for example lets an entomologist say that cockroach is... lovely. The second one appeals to our tendency of take things by consensus and then we all say that a rising sun is splendid even if we never are not going to stay awake to see a dawn. Individual appreciation vs... collective unconscious? In any case the determining factor will still be the attraction. Those things we just say are pretty, even if we hate them or we don’t care about them, are only the product of conventionalism. So the beauty is nothing but the attribute of anything to attract and cause some gratification. Inherent or because its a sign of any other gratification (a sort of fetish) for a living being. Example: A chocolate cake will be delicious for me and make me drool like a dog and I will stare at it in ecstasy, attracted by its shape, either real or just a picture. (Well, a cake or Miss February)
Aesthetics
Nothing as subjective as aesthetic appreciation. We simply value the shapes that get to our senses and then we are captivated by a melody or that lovely table we got in a flea market. Aesthetics is like a “beautimeter” for judging our reality, sometimes at our very criteria and sometimes influenced by things like fashion or epoch.
Aesthetics is not a banality. Our aesthetic appreciations not only help us to determine our individuality but it is like social sense of smell (not always accurate) with which we choose how to relate with other people. Apparently isolated aspects like economic, cultural, moral and so on turn themselves into aesthetic values when we consider them in relation to a person in order to, in example, finding him/her “lovely” or hate him/her so much.
As for the sexual matter, it is not as completely aesthetic as we could consider it. Not specially because of that pheromones stuff. Although humans judge sexual beauty by some temporal canons that come and go (for example, fleshy women are not as popular like in other times and then we have those “metrosexual” men) the certain thing is “sexual urgency” uses to go beforehand. Even the sexual side of the esthetic weakens in some cases like the one of heterosexual men comparing (measuring?) their stuff or those like the hetero judges at a female beauty contest, esthetic surgeons and artists, of course.
About human mating... feelings involved, if we take into account the amount of general attributes that turn themselves into aesthetic judgments at the moment of choosing (if one really chooses) we can only get to the irrefutable and affected conclusion that... “love is the most beautiful thing” :P
Note: kalocracy. From the Greek kalos/beautiful and kratos/rule. The rule of the good looking ones. It was just a way to say it.
2006, March 14. El Jardín Lúgubre.
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