Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual
experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics,
sociology, social psychology and culture. As a cultural creation, beauty has been
extremely commercialized. An "ideal beauty" is a person who is admired, or possesses
features widely attributed to beauty in a particular culture. A number of historical
individuals have become icons of beauty - for example, women like Cleopatra VII,
Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe. The subjective experience of "beauty" often involves
the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature, which
may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. "Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder" is a common phrase that expresses this concept.
Understanding the nature and meaning of beauty is one of the key themes in the philosophical
discipline known as aesthetics. The composer and critic Robert Schumann distinguished
between two kinds of beauty, natural and poetic. The former is found in the contemplation
of nature, whereas the latter lies in man's conscious, creative intervention into
nature. Schumann indicated that in music, or other art, both kinds of beauty appear,
but natural beauty is merely sensual delight. Poetic beauty begins where the natural
beauty leaves off. A common idea suggests that beauty exists in the appearance
of things and people that are good. A good apple will be perceived as more beautiful
than a bruised one. Also, most people judge physically attractive human beings to
be good, both physically and on a deeper level. Specifically, they are believed
to possess a variety of positive traits and personality characteristics.
Further, people's skills can develop and change their sense of beauty. Most
people have similar aesthetics about the work or hobbies they have mastered. History
of beauty A famous depiction of male beauty in Michelangelo's David. A famous depiction
of male beauty in Michelangelo's David. The earliest Western theory of beauty can
be found in the works of early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period,
such as Pythagoras. The Pythagorean school saw a strong connection between mathematics
and beauty. In particular, they noted that objects proportioned according to the
golden ratio seemed more attractive.
These preferences may be important in helping us identify a healthy mate or they
may simply be by-products of the way our brains process information.Beauty ideals
may contribute to racial oppression. For example, a prevailing idea in American
culture has been that black features are less attractive or desirable than white
features. The idea that blackness was ugly was highly damaging to the psyche of
African Americans, manifesting itself as internalized racism.
Human beauty The characterization of a person as “beautiful”, whether on an individual
basis or by community consensus, is often based on some combination of inner beauty,
which includes psychological factors such as personality, intelligence, grace, charm
and elegance, and outer beauty, which includes physical factors, such as health,
youthfulness, symmetry, averageness, and complexion. A common way to measure outer
beauty, as based on community consensus, or general opinion, is to stage a beauty
pageant, such as Miss Universe. Inner beauty, however, is more difficult to quantify,
though beauty pageants often claim to take this into consideration as well.
Evolutionarily it makes sense that sexual creatures should be attracted to mates
sporting predominantly common or average features. Natural selection results, over
the course of generations, in beneficial (or "fit") features replacing their disadvantageous
counterparts. This is the fundamental force which drives evolution, and is the major
insight into Biology which immortalized Charles Darwin. Thus, natural selection
causes beneficial features to become increasingly more common with each generation,
while the disadvantageous features become increasingly rare. A sexual creature,
therefore, wishing to mate with a fit partner, would be expected to avoid individuals
sporting unusual features, while being especially attracted to those individuals
displaying a predominance of common or average features. This is termed "koinophilia".
Another feature of beautiful women that has been explored by researchers is a waist-to-hip
ratio of approximately 0.70 for women. The concept of waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) was
developed by psychologist Devendra Singh of the University of Texas at Austin. Physiologists
have shown that this ratio accurately indicates most women's fertility. Traditionally,
in premodern ages when food was more scarce, overweight people were judged more
attractive than slender. Beauty is not solely limited to the female gender.
Inner beauty Inner beauty is a concept used to describe the positive aspects of
something that is not physically observable. While most species use physical traits
and pheromones to attract mates, humans claim to rely on the inner beauty of their
choices. Qualities including kindness, sensitivity, tenderness or compassion, creativity
and intelligence have been said to be desirable since antiquity. However new research
comparing what humans claim to find attractive to their actual mating habits underlines
the superficiality of "inner beauty," underlining the fact that the human animal
relies on physical traits and pheromones just like every other animal to find a
mate. That said, whether "inner beauty" does or does not measurably affect humans'
mating habits, some traits classified as "inner beauty" do give an evolutionary
survival advantage to either the individual or mating couple or group or all three.
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