Is the whole concept of beauty, shallow, or is there a logical basis for it?

[story]

For me, beautiful is not just about the physical form. It's about how it makes me feel.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty... an' all that

 

[weltweit]

And Diane Arbus made her career on the back of studying this question, yes?

I don't know much about Diane Arbus I am ashamed to say

What was, or is, her work like?

 

[story]

I don't know much about Diane Arbus I am ashamed to say

What was her work like?

Really?! Blimey...

Very beautiful photographs of conventionally ugly, unattractive people: circus freaks etc.

 

[story]

Not the prettiest kids on the block, but a very beautiful image, in my opinion.

 

[story]

And another

 

[story]

Wouldn't call this couple "beautiful"... or vain either, come to that.

But the image is lovely, yes?

 

[Pickman's model]

Wouldn't call this couple "beautiful"... or vain either, come to that.

But the image is lovely, yes?

that's pathetic

 

[weltweit]

Really?! Blimey...

Very beautiful photographs of conventionally ugly, unattractive people: circus freaks etc.

Aha, I am sure I will have seen some of her work, I am very bad at recalling who took what and am "not a very well read photographer"!!

So they may conform to the "interesting" that I mentioned above, either beautiful or interesting makes a good photo, average people don't!

 

[story]

Etc...

 

[story]

Aha, I am sure I will have seen some of her work, I am very bad at recalling who took what and am "not a very well read photographer"!!

So they may conform to the "interesting" that I mentioned above, either beautiful or interesting makes a good photo, average people don't!

Yes, I suppose that's a fair point.

Anyway, as I said, Arbus' whole career was an exploration of this question.

 

[weltweit]

Yes, I have seen two of those three before, especially the boy with the hand grenade.

Yes striking images of "interesting" people.

 

[weltweit]

Got to go. Back later

 

[story]

As Pickman's model has eloquently pointed out, the image of the ordinary couple is not as arresting as some of her other images.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Quite a contested and ideological thing. More profound than we are apt to think.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Most of us can judge two individuals and say that one or the other is more beautiful. We recognise beautiful things, yet we are in the main not taught asthetics so how do we know?

Is beauty a wholly cultural thing, would a beautiful english girl also be beautiful in China?

We have chinese girls here. Some of them are very beautiful.

 

[Knotted]

I have discovered (or rediscovered) the issue because of my photography.

Say I make a photograph, well lit and well posed of an attractive or beautiful person, people will look at the photo and say, "that's beautiful".

If I make the same photo technically speaking, same good lighting same suitable pose of an average person, people looking at the photo do not say, that's beautiful, they say other things.

They are influenced by the attractiveness of the subject when they judge whether the photo has value, despite that each photo has equal value as a representation of the individual photographed.

Which got me thinking. What is beautiful? What is not? why do I think I can make judgements myself, because like everyone we all make these judgements all the time. On what basis do we make these judgements?

I tell you what I think. I think we can justify our judgements in a logical manner - we can give reasons why we think a photograph is beautiful or the subject of the photograph is beautiful - but to do this we do not need to have a single, comprehensive theory of what makes something or someone beautiful.

Think of playing poker. Suppose you are dealt a duff hand and you decide to bluff. You have no way of knowing whether this is the right decision but you can still justify this decision to yourself in a logical manner.

So I think the truth maybe somewhere between there being real, clear criteria for what we think is beautiful and the whole thing being completely down to subjective tastes.

How do people talk on the music and art forums? Sometimes they will claim a work is objectively great but posters generally find that obnoxious - especially if they disagree. Yet at the same time you will find that there is some consensus over what is "shit/not shit".

 

[Knotted]

Vain people are not all striving for a standard homogenised beauty. What about bodymodifiers, who may be changing their bodies to be outrageous, unattractive to the mainstream?

So is vanity about beauty? Or is it about self-awareness? Or is it some kind of neurotic hang up?

OK I take your point. If I implied that vanity was purely about making yourself beautiful, I didn't mean to.

 

[weltweit]

I was thinking about this last night, and I am pretty sure that as I grew up, teachers spent time teaching me maths, english and the like but no teacher spent any time teaching me what was beautiful and what not.

So how is it, that I have developed a sense of beauty that is very similar to the sense of beauty that most other British people have. How did that accident happen when we have not consciously been taught beauty?

Are we born with a sense of beauty, is it innate, or if we learn it, how do we learn it, from whom or from what?

 

[Knotted]

I was thinking about this last night, and I am pretty sure that as I grew up, teachers spent time teaching me maths, english and the like but no teacher spent any time teaching me what was beautiful and what not.

So how is it, that I have developed a sense of beauty that is very similar to the sense of beauty that most other British people have. How did that accident happen when we have not consciously been taught beauty?

Are we born with a sense of beauty, is it innate, or if we learn it, how do we learn it, from whom or from what?

I think if we are talking about people at least you could argue that there is a biological basis for what we find attractive. I'm wary of saying this, because it can be easily overstated. I think we tend to find symmetry attractive for example. Maybe there is something in the golden ratio thing.

More generally I find that my aesthetic tastes change when I see a work of art that's both great and novel (to me). The whole question of, "what is beautiful?", is surely open ended and more to the point consists of overlapping and perhaps even contradictory criteria. As I get older my sense of taste gets better and broader but I find it harder to put it into words. Do I need to put it into words?

 

[kyser_soze]

Pretty much the last paragraph of Knotted's post. My concept of beauty is not a fixed thing, and while if I compare back there are general themes, it's not an especially good guide.

Also, why conflate beauty with attraction? I think Kate Moss is beautiful, but I don't find her attractive. I tend to separate out my aesthetic from emotional judgements when simple 'looking' IYSWIM...

 

[weltweit]

I think if we are talking about people at least you could argue that there is a biological basis for what we find attractive. I'm wary of saying this, because it can be easily overstated. I think we tend to find symmetry attractive for example. Maybe there is something in the golden ratio thing.

Yes, I should have thought about this. I was initially thinking about the beauty of people rather than for example the beauty of art or design.

I think groups of people tend to agree more on which people are beautiful and which not, than they agree in the case of art.

More generally I find that my aesthetic tastes change when I see a work of art that's both great and novel (to me). The whole question of, "what is beautiful?", is surely open ended and more to the point consists of overlapping and perhaps even contradictory criteria. As I get older my sense of taste gets better and broader but I find it harder to put it into words. Do I need to put it into words?

Yes, so, is it wrong to say that where people are concerned there may be some locked in innate or unrecognised logic in which people are beautiful, and where other things there may not be that locked in logic rather that people can decide personally what they find beautiful.

Also, why conflate beauty with attraction? I think Kate Moss is beautiful, but I don't find her attractive. I tend to separate out my aesthetic from emotional judgements when simple 'looking' IYSWIM...

Oh, I find Kate Moss neither beautiful nor attractive :-/ but yes, beautiful people are not always attractive people. Beauty is visual, attraction can include a lot more than the visual.

 

[Knotted]

Yes, so, is it wrong to say that where people are concerned there may be some locked in innate or unrecognised logic in which people are beautiful, and where other things there may not be that locked in logic rather that people can decide personally what they find beautiful.

My main point is that there is a bit of a false opposition there.

 

[idioteque]

I remember a programme (I think it was on Channel 4?) looking at this a few years ago... All I can remember is that the man presenting it had different sized ears, and that the programme was uncharacteristically interesting and thought-provoking for Channel 4. Anyone else remember it?

 

[weltweit]

My main point is that there is a bit of a false opposition there.

Sorry, I don't understand?

 

[Diamond]

The concept of beauty, either in the sense of sexual attraction or a broader, platonic aesthetic, probably serves no essential purpose whatsoever.

I would imagine it started off as just another way to differentiate within the species and eventually took on its own logic.

In the modern world it is as much a socio-cultural tool/resource as anything else.

 

[Knotted]

Sorry, I don't understand?

At the risk of putting words in your mouth, let's ask the question, "is our idea of what is beautiful innate or do we make it up as we go along?"

It should be clear that that's a false opposition. Perhaps we could ask, "is it culturally determined?" And surely it is to an extent. But I still think you would be missing the point somehow.

I suppose ultimately the false opposition is between on the one hand saying "beauty is intrinsic to the object" or saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I think the theoretical move to seperate the observer from the work creates confusion. For example, as a photographer you should know that how beautiful somebody is in a photograph is in part a function of how you present them. To see something beautiful is not an entirely passive affair, but it is also not just something you decide or your culture decides on.

 

[THINK!]

Is the whole concept of beauty, shallow,> or is there a logical basis for it

Yes it's a demonstration of good genes and good health, also fitness and likely breeding success (old women aren't consider'd attractiv for example they ar also infertile). Most breeders go thru a process of selection befor getting down to the business althou nature has devised some other techniques, mass spawning for example.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

what good genes do foxgirls have?

 

[weltweit]

At the risk of putting words in your mouth, let's ask the question, "is our idea of what is beautiful innate or do we make it up as we go along?"

It should be clear that that's a false opposition. Perhaps we could ask, "is it culturally determined?" And surely it is to an extent. But I still think you would be missing the point somehow.

I suppose ultimately the false opposition is between on the one hand saying "beauty is intrinsic to the object" or saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I think the theoretical move to seperate the observer from the work creates confusion. For example, as a photographer you should know that how beautiful somebody is in a photograph is in part a function of how you present them. To see something beautiful is not an entirely passive affair, but it is also not just something you decide or your culture decides on.

I like the idea that it may be culturally determined but I don't recall, talking about beauty in a person, I don't recall anyone teaching it to me, (who is beautiful and who is not) perhaps I just somehow absorbed it as I was growing up.

 

[weltweit]

Yes it's a demonstration of good genes and good health, also fitness and likely breeding success (old women aren't consider'd attractiv for example they ar also infertile). Most breeders go thru a process of selection befor getting down to the business althou nature has devised some other techniques, mass spawning for example.

Yes, there may be something in that, I was just editing some photos of a girl who everyone thought was very pretty. I had not seen the images since a week ago when I took them. What struck me looking at them now was not the beauty of the girl rather more, the lack of imperfections. I.e. she has good teeth, even symetrical features, good skin, clear blue eyes, clean well brushed hair. The overall result is one could say that she was beautiful but the detail was that she lacked imperfections.

So a demonstration of good genes, someone to breed with, yes perhaps.