Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Natural Beauty vs. Man Made Beauty
In class we were discussing natural beauty versus man made beauty. As I have mentioned before, I believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Now, we may not look at a normal, cookie-cutter building, and think that it is some beautiful, amazing, pieces of work. But there are many buildings and structures out there that people work very hard to make beautiful and pleasing to look at. We might not, think that it is the most beautiful thing that we have ever seen before, but on the other end of the spectrum, it probably won't be the ugliest thing that you have ever seen. So I think it just depends on the person viewing the structure and how they look at it, others may enjoy it while others not so much. Also, another thing that I think that is interesting about this topic is that often times you will see postcards, paintings, pictures, etc. of skylines or a city that is light up at night. So we find a city with lights on at night beautiful, but not a single building standing alone the same way?
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I agree, I also believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, is this appreciation of beauty merely based on taste. If so, is there possible to have things that are classified as universal being beautiful? I think that despite most appreciations being based on one's taste there are a few things that exist that I think people would classify as being universal beautiful. For example, babies in my opinion would be safe to say that many individuals look at babies and instantly say awe and get a warm feeling. Even those who might not like kids can respect the innocence in baby an their beauty.
ReplyDeleteSo, even though I think that beauty is highly dependent on one's taste I do, however, think that there are things present that can be classified as universally beautiful.
Is this taste dependent appreciation of beauty a product of today's society and generational differences?
Yes, I agree with Latonio here. I'm reading a book right now Dr. Langguth gave me which is about the biological origins of music. I believe that all people universally have some standard of beauty. At least naturally, I think most of us had an adverse reaction to the atonal music of John Cage. Now whether we should learn to appreciate everything as beautiful is an open question, but I think we are naturally born with an inclination to regard certain things as ugly and other things as beautiful - mostly along the lines of harmony and symmetry. It takes effort to see everything as beautiful, a conscious decision. Therefore, I would say beauty is not entirely in the eye of the beholder, and that there does exist a certain preconception of beauty at birth.
ReplyDeleteI agree also, there are definetely some things that most people, if not everyone believe is beautiful. But when saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" I believe that not everyone will have the same taste (obviously). For example, a lot of people are creeped out and/or disgusted by snakes and spiders while other people may believe they are the most beautiful things on earth, but saying this also makes me think back to the idea that you may need some knowledge to appreciate some beauty.
ReplyDeleteTrue. I'm not entirely sure one always needs knowledge to see beauty in spiders. Usually those who love spiders are curious children rather than adults - the children having little scientific knowledge about them and yet still following them around. The same is true for snakes. It's almost as though some children have to learn to healthily fear these things. They need to learn caution which raises the question what do children see in spiders and snakes.
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