DESCRIPTION OF INTERACTIVE
“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.”
Hume would also suggest that beauty remains inert until something is judged as having beauty and there is a shared agreement of beauty.
Beauty is subjective - it is based on the experience of pleasure that we have when we look at or listen to certain things. There are two types of beauty - Absolute Beauty, the kind of beauty to be found in nature, and Relative Beauty, the beauty that characterizes art. The sensation we have of beauty is our perception of the similarities and differences between how close the imitation is to the reality.
It was Baumgarten who appropriated the word, aesthetics, and gave it its modern meaning: to “sense” beauty. He introduced the concept of judging beauty through our senses (instead of just the intellect), and of proposing that morals play a role in experiencing artwork, encouraging people to consider whether their morals influence their aesthetic experience.
In his “The Aesthetic Hypothesis,” Bell contends, “The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion we call works of art; this emotion is called the aesthetic emotion -- It will be said that the objects that provoke this emotion vary with each individual, and that therefore a system of aesthetics can have no objective validity. However, we have no other means of recognizing a work of art than our feeling for it. I have no right to consider anything a work of art to which I cannot react emotionally; and I have no right to look for the essential quality in anything that I have not felt to be a work of art. All systems of aesthetics must be based on personal experience - that is to say, they must be subjective.”
Plato’s “Theory of Knowledge” contends that we are all born with knowledge, but when our souls became trapped in our bodies at birth, we forgot it. Learning then, is akin to remembering this Knowledge of Forms (definition: In many of his dialogues, Plato mentions supra-sensible entities he calls "Forms" (or "Ideas"). Forms are exemplars. For example, Plato believes that The Form of Beauty is perfect beauty, the Form of Justice is perfect justice, and so forth.”). Recognizing the beauty in a flower or a sunset, takes us one step closer to reclaiming this lost “Knowledge of Beauty.” Keep in mind though, the forms of beauty we perceive with our physical senses, are not real, but mimesis - the imitation or replicas of the Form of Beauty, itself. True knowledge of Beauty cannot be seen or heard, it can only be known by the mind.
An object’s form is the cause of its beauty. Aristotle’s notion of mimesis is similar to the view of Plato, since they both claim that art imitates nature. However, Aristotle did not think nature imitated the realm of the Forms.
The Greeks believed there to be three "ingredients" to beauty: symmetry (definition: A sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance.), proportion (definition: Refers to the relative size and scale of the various elements in an object.), and harmony (definition: All parts of an object relate to and complement each other.).
Augustine made a sharp distinction between the creations of God (ex nihilo) and the creations of artists (ex materia). God created matter, which was initially a formless void without beauty. Things become more beautiful as they possess more form, and less void - becoming more like God, who possesses perfect form. Therefore, something made by man will always contain less beauty than something made by nature, which is closer to God.
Everything that has being will have a degree of beauty, regardless of how small that degree appears. An object must exist, in some sense, in order for it to be beautiful; otherwise, it would be nothing.
How are judgments about beauty possible? Judgements of beauty are often based on feelings; feelings which cannot be proven or measured. Thus, true aesthetic judgments must be free of desire - they must be disinterested if they are to be valid.
Kant is the founder of Formalism (definition: Formalism is the study of art by analysing and comparing form and style—the way objects are made and their purely visual aspects. At its extreme, formalism in art history posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained within the work of art.) in aesthetics.
Hegel proposed that the point of art is not to be realistic - it wasn’t meant to imitate or mirror everyday life—but to show us what divine and human freedom should look like. Such sensuous expression of spiritual freedom is what Hegel called the “Ideal,” or true beauty. He felt that art was the first stage in which the absolute spirit is immediately manifested to our sense-perception, and is thus is an objective rather than a subjective revelation of beauty.