A Brief Commentary on the Concept of Beauty

There is a famous saying that states, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and for the most part I think people would agree with that concept. After all, everyone seems to have their own personal tastes when it comes to things like music, movies, clothing, artwork, literature, favorite foods, and even who people consider attractive. In light of these realities, it seems proper to characterize beauty as purely a subjective experience.

Additionally, I have had many conversations with people where I asked this question: "Do you believe beauty is subjective or objective?" In other words, is beauty something that exists within the mind only, or is beauty a characteristic that exists within an object itself? Unsurprisingly, the majority of people will say the former; that it is our senses that come together to form an idea in our mind, and then our mind makes a judgment on whether or not that idea is beautiful.

However, on this point I still remain unconvinced, and the classic example I use to defend my position is the Grand Canyon. Take a look at the picture below:

If someone were to come along and describe this scene as ugly, would they be wrong? Our knee-jerk reaction might be to say that they are entitled to their own opinion, but I believe this response misses the point entirely.

We are asking whether beauty is a product of the mind or an external reality independent of the mind. The better question is this: would most people agree that this scene is ugly, or would most say it is beautiful? I think we can safely answer the latter.

We can also ask this same question regarding artwork as well. Why is Beethoven's 5th Symphony recognized as a universal masterpiece? Why is Moby Dick regarded as one of the greatest works of American literature? Why is Casablanca upheld as one of the greatest films of all time?

These four examples (The Grand Canyon, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Moby Dick, and Casablanca), in addition to their universal recognition, have another thing in common: they transcend the time in which they were created. For the most part, every age that has known them has agreed on the great value they contain. Why is this the case? Is it purely coincidental, or is there a domain of value that exists apart from ourselves that some simply fail to recognize?

While I am by no means an expert on these matters and need to explore these ideas further, I believe I am in good company. To conclude this post, I would like to share a passage taken from CS Lewis's work The Abolition of Man. Here, Lewis is commenting on an elementary school English textbook, giving the authors of this book the names Gaius and Titius:

"In their second chapter Gaius and Titius quote the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall. You remember that there were two tourists present: that the one called it 'sublime' and the other 'pretty'; and that Coleridge mentally endorsed the first judgment and rejected the second judgment with disgust."

"Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it - believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt. The reason why Coleridge agreed with the tourist who called the cataract sublime and disagreed with the one who called it pretty was of course that he believed inanimate nature to be such that certain responses could be more 'just' or 'ordinate' to it than others. And he believed (correctly) that the tourists thought the same. The man who called the cataract sublime was not intending simply to describe his own emotions about it: he was also claiming that the object was one which merited those emotions." - The Abolition of Man, pgs. 2, 14