Beauty is a concept that has been a part of human nature for a long time. It is an innate instinct to seek and find beauty in everything around us, from the flowers in the garden to the people we love.
The definition of beauty can be found in different cultures, but most agree that it is the ability to feel comfortable in your own skin. It is something that comes from your genetics, grooming and early experiences with people’s reactions to your appearance.
What we consider beautiful can also change over time as we experience different cultures and societal trends. This has led to the rise of beauty standards that can be used for various reasons, such as attracting others or gaining social capital.
Until the eighteenth century, most philosophical accounts of beauty treated it as an objective quality: they located it in the beautiful object itself or in the qualities of that object. Augustine’s account in De Veritate Religione, for example, connects beauty to a response of love and desire; however, Plotinus’s account in the Enneads and Plato’s account in the Symposium locate it in the realm of the Forms.
As the aesthetics of classical conceptions were re-Christianized, Thomas Aquinas connected the quality of beauty to the Second Person of the Trinity. Among other things, he said that something must have integrity: that is, it must follow its own interior logic.
Then, he says that something must be beautiful for its use: it has to be suited for some particular function or purpose. He cites an early example of this in the architecture of ancient Greece: for a building to be beautiful, its constituent parts must be symmetrical, as if they were all designed to fit together, or at least to have a symmetry that would make them work well together.
This is why, in a recent study, scientists found that people tend to prefer faces that are more symmetrical than they are asymmetrical – they say this has to do with the brain’s reward and pleasure center.
Interestingly, even babies seem to respond to attractive symmetrical faces more than they do to less symmetrical ones. This could have to do with the way our brains are wired – some studies believe that specific proportions in faces and bodies are more naturally beautiful than others, but they say there is no hard and fast rule about it.
In some cases, the ability to judge a thing’s beauty can be taught. In the case of a painting, for example, experts have been known to use an eye-to-nose ratio that measures how much the eye area is proportional to the rest of the face. This has been found to be more effective than a measure of facial width and length, but it is still a bit subjective.
The concept of beauty has been influenced by many different groups throughout history, including colonialism and capitalism. These societies used beauty standards to gain power over others and keep them in check. Ultimately, these standards can be harmful and can lead to insecurity. In addition, many people have come to rely on these standards in their daily lives and may not even realize they are being affected by them.