Aesthetics

Image of a face generated by averaging 16 original faces, which leads to the hypothesis that the process of averaging a variety of different faces produce beauty. Armand Marie Leroi, a developmental biologist at Imperial College, London, even hypothesized that race-mixing can increase the likelihood of physical attractiveness.

Aesthetics is the philosophical study of the nature and experience of art/literature and beauty.

Aesthetics and the Golden Ratio

Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of the human body emphasized its proportion. The ratio of the distances from foot to navel, and navel to head, is the Golden Ratio.

Greek scholars believed that the Golden Ratio (also called divine proportion) is the key to beauty. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Salvador Dali often incorporate the Golden Ratio in their drawings.

Definitions of art and art appreciation

See also: Art and Art appreciation

Art has been defined in the field of aesthetics in various ways. Some adhere to a rigid definition of "art," such as paintings, sculpture and other traditional genres, while others believe that art should not be strictly defined, and thus believe that anything progressive may be labeled as such.

Art appreciation is the study and understanding of the visual arts which includes learning to better see, understand, and enjoy art.

Architecture

Aesthetics is an important part of architecture. A poll co-sponsored by the American Institute of Architects revealed the following public ranking of "America's Favorite Architecture," with the name of the architect in parentheses:

1. Empire State Building (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon)
2. The White House (James Hoban)
3. Washington National Cathedral (George Bodley and Henry Vaughan)
4. Jefferson Memorial (John Russell Pope)
5. Golden Gate Bridge (Irving F. Morrow and Gertrude C. Morrow)
6. U.S. Capitol (William Thornton, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Charles Bulfinch, Thomas U. Walter, Montgomery C. Meigs)
7. Lincoln Memorial (Henry Bacon)
8. Biltmore Estate/Vanderbilt Mansion (Richard Morris Hunt)
9. Chrysler Building (William Van Alen)
10. Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Maya Lin with Cooper-Lecky Partnership)
11. St. Patrick's Cathedral (James Renwick)

Ravenne, Sant Apollinare in Classe, La nef centrale, VIe siecle.

St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Beauty in literature and other forms of writing

Various novels, poems, essays, speeches, plays and other written works are both profound and eloquent.

The Bible, which is the best-selling book of all time, is an example of a book that is both profound and eloquent.

Argument from beauty

See also: Argument from beauty

Autumn foliage

The argument from beauty argues the existence of beauty in the natural world testifies to the existence of God who both designed natural beauty and who possesses a divine beauty. Objective beauty exists and beauty is not merely subjective in nature.

The psalmist David wrote: "One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple."(Psalm 27:4). The fall of man caused death, disease and suffering to enter into the world. The Bible also declares that Sarah, Abraham's wife, had both inner and outer beauty.

Author John C. Wright wrote in his 2014 essay How We’ve Been Robbed of Beauty by the Left:

“

The strongest argument against the atheism so beloved of the Left is not an argument that can be put in words, for it is the argument of beauty. If you see a sunset clothed in scarlet like a king descending to his empurpled pyre, or wonder at the gleaming thunder of a waterfall, if you find yourself fascinated by the soft intricacy of a crimson rose or behold the cold virgin majesty of the morning star, much less see and enter a cathedral or a walled garden...or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, if indeed you see real beauty and for a moment you forget yourself, then you are drawn out of yourself into something larger. In that timeless moment of sublime rapture, the heart knows even if the head cannot put it into words that the dull and quotidian world of betrayal, pain, disappointment and sorrow is not the only world there is. Beauty points to a world beyond this world, a higher realm, a country of joy where there is no death. Beauty points to the divine. The Left hates this argument, because – since it is not put into words – it cannot be refuted in words.

”

"Natural selection has no reason to produce beauty," Ann Gauger says in Metamorphosis about a principle that applies to flowers as well as butterflies. "Beauty is a sign of the transcendent. It's purely gratuitous. We all recognize it. We just have to acknowledge what it points to."

Christendom has created a vast collection of beautiful Christian paintings, yet the atheist community, which has been in the world for thousands of years (since at least the time of ancient Greece), has yet to create one beautiful painting depicting their ideology nor have they created a large body of atheist art.

Atheists/evolutionists often engage in hypocrisy on the issue of beauty in God's universe and engage in self-refuting arguments which argue that beauty is merely subjective, yet non-beauty/ugliness is an objective reality (non-beauty arose after the fall of man).

Beauty and the religious/irreligious

See also: Atheists and physical attractiveness and Atheism and obesity

English anthropologist Edward Dutton on beauty among the religious/irreligious

See also: Atheists and physical attractiveness

The English anthropologist Edward Dutton indicates that using right-wing politics as a proxy for religiosity, there is evidence that atheists are less attractive and he pointed out that right-wing politicians are more likely to have symmetrical faces according to a study.

Religious Philippines had the most wins in the big four international beauty pageants in 2017. Irreligion is rare among Filipinos

See also: Religious Philippines winning streak in the major international beauty pageants

The Philippines (a very religious country) have had a winning streak in major international beauty pageants (see: Religious Philippines winning streak in the major international beauty pageants).

Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia founded by an atheist and agnostic, has an article entitled Philippines at major beauty pageants.

Wikipedia's article Irreligion in the Philippines indicated in 2018: "Irreligion in the Philippines is particularly rare among Filipinos..."

Books

• A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

See also

Rembrandt, Samson Accusing His Father-in-Law, ca. 1635.

• Plotinus
• Music
• The Renaissance
• Sistine Chapel
• Spanish Golden Age
• Irish Dance
• Sculpture
• Master of Arts
• Painting Masterpieces
• The beauty industry in America
• World treasures
• Argument from beauty

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563.

The Storm, Pierre-Auguste Cot.

External links

• National Arts Education
• The Arts U. S. Life, Culture and History.
• Academic Art Artcyclopedia.
• "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does" - video exposing the pressure on girls and women to conform to an (impossible?) ideal of beauty