What is beauty?

Feb 1, 2008

Those who deal with design should unders­tand how much cog­ni­tion and emo­tion band together within the aesthe­tic experience.

Everyone agrees that the ideal “for­mula” for the deve­lop­ment of an inter­face pro­ject requi­res balan­ced amounts of kno­wledge and aesthe­tics. Along with ele­ments such as infor­ma­tion archi­tec­ture, usa­bi­lity, navi­ga­tion per­for­mance and subs­tan­tial con­tent – highly impor­tant for such pro­jects, we are aware that aesthe­tics – the graphic tre­at­ment – plays a role of utmost significance.

Evo­lu­ti­o­nary bio­logy tells us that the “ide­als of beauty” have been somehow pro­gram­med into our gene pools

In fact, the issue con­cer­ning what is beau­ti­ful or what is not so direc­tly influ­en­ces many aspects of our lives. In his book “O que é belo?” (“What is beau­ti­ful?”, free trans­la­tion of title), Gábor Paál attempts to situ­ate the con­cept within the realm of aesthe­tics and knowledge.

While phi­lo­sophers asso­ci­ate it mainly to art and psy­cho­lo­gists see it as a sheer sen­sa­tion of ple­a­sure, to the lay­man aesthe­tics is sim­ply a mat­ter of taste.

Evo­lu­ti­o­nary bio­logy tells us that the “ide­als of beauty”, because of the selec­tive advan­tage they pro­vide, have been somehow pro­gram­med into our gene pools. It is a pro­ven fact that peo­ple find waters­ca­pes and pla­ces of lush green vege­ta­tion more ple­a­sing than deserts and steep moun­tains. To our ances­tors, living in those areas gave them an advan­tage because food and water were easier to obtain, and they also found bet­ter pro­tec­tion against their enemies.

On its turn, expe­ri­men­tal psy­cho­logy also gave rise to the so-called field of infor­ma­ti­o­nal aesthe­tics. Rese­ar­chers have demons­tra­ted that graphic pat­terns are res­pon­si­ble for sti­mu­la­ting the observer’s inves­ti­ga­tive poten­tial, that is, they are able to spark curiosity.

Balance seems to be the key word when it comes to aesthe­tics. Too plain a pic­ture is dull; a very com­plex one dis­plays a con­fu­sing mass that does not draw any inte­rest. The pic­tu­res con­si­de­red by most peo­ple as being more appe­a­ling pos­sess the exact level of com­ple­xity capa­ble of gene­ra­ting, in the sen­sory appa­ra­tus, struc­tu­res of a higher order, also cal­led “supersigns”.

In other words, a pat­tern endowed with beauty fea­tu­res an opti­mal degree of infor­ma­ti­o­nal density.

Ale­xan­der Baum­gar­ten, foun­der of modern aesthe­tics, once defi­ned the aesthe­tic expe­ri­ence as a “sen­si­tive” form of kno­wledge – oppo­sed to the “rational-conceptual” kind. To him, beauty meant the oppo­site of reason.

Howe­ver, Nel­son Good­man, Ame­ri­can phi­lo­sopher, in his book Lan­gua­ges of Art, con­dem­ned such strict deta­ch­ment between the cog­ni­tive and emo­ti­o­nal sphe­res sta­ting that: “We place, on one side, impres­si­ons from the sen­ses, per­cep­ti­ons, infe­ren­ces, hypothe­ses, facts and truth; on the other, ple­a­sure, pain, inte­rest, satis­fac­tion, emo­ti­o­nal res­pon­ses, sym­pathy and aver­sion. By so doing, we become una­ble to rea­lize that emo­ti­ons ope­rate cog­ni­ti­vely in the aesthe­tic expe­ri­ence”. (Free back-translation).

Con­si­de­ring cog­ni­tion and emo­tion are so inte­gra­ted, it makes no sense trying to set them apart in the aesthe­tic expe­ri­ence. What we find beau­ti­ful is not always rati­o­nal, although pure rati­o­na­lity can be very beau­ti­ful at times. One thing is cer­tain, though: effi­ci­ency and ele­gance are inti­ma­tely connected.

Neverthe­less, des­pite this link between emo­tion and cog­ni­tion, there is a sig­ni­fi­cant dif­fe­rence: while joy and con­tent­ment are hazy fee­lings, occur­ring on sub­cons­ci­ous levels, of a spon­ta­ne­ous and vis­ce­ral nature, the aesthe­tic expe­ri­ence is somewhat more conscious.

Most times, we are able to iden­tify very cle­arly the object we con­si­der beau­ti­ful, something we have a har­der time doing regar­ding the sen­sa­tion of well-being, which is per­cei­ved in a dif­fuse way.

All that makes it even har­der to answer the ques­tion about the mea­ning of beauty.

Howe­ver, let’s give it a try. Let’s think about an aesthe­tic object of any kind – an inter­face, a sculp­ture, a sci­en­ti­fic the­ory, a lands­cape – sim­ply as a model for­med by inter­con­nec­ted indi­vi­dual elements.

The ques­tion is: how should this model be dis­po­sed, how should we per­ceive it in order to find it beautiful?

Through that pro­ce­dure, prac­ti­cally every phe­no­me­non of aesthe­tic expe­ri­ence des­cri­bed by expe­ri­men­tal psy­cho­logy fits one of four categories:

1. Beauty of the first kind. Deri­ves from the rela­ti­onships between the ele­ments within a model. Those cha­rac­te­ris­tics are cohe­rence, sym­me­try, balance, cle­ar­ness, sim­pli­city, har­mony, ele­gance, unity, con­ti­nuity and – perhaps the most impor­tant – sui­ta­bi­lity. They des­cribe a cer­tain kind of order inside a model.

2. Beauty of the second kind. Refers less to an object and more to a per­so­nal rela­ti­onship between object and behol­der. In other words, con­nec­tion, fami­li­a­rity, trust, empathy, or the pos­si­bi­lity of per­so­nally taking part in something. Thoughts and objects acquire aesthe­tic value when they touch us on a per­so­nal level, move us, when they reflect something of our­sel­ves, when we iden­tify with them in one way or another, or pro­ject our thoughts and emo­ti­ons unto them.

Beauty of the second kind is the essence of phe­no­mena as diverse as sym­pathy, the fee­ling of belon­ging to a cer­tain place and also our favo­ri­tism towards the­o­ries and ideas that agree with our view of the world. Besi­des, it is not merely the fami­li­a­rity that ascri­bes aesthe­tic value, but a par­ti­cu­lar blend of the usual and the new.

3. Beauty of the third kind. The cri­te­ria of beauty are sti­mu­lus, exci­te­ment, novelty, com­ple­xity, but also cre­a­ti­vity. It is beau­ti­ful to feel cre­a­tive. Beauty does not report only to objects, but also to acti­ons. It can be beau­ti­ful to dis­co­ver new things, make art, write books, or express one’s own ideas. The beauty in those acti­ons does not depend so much on whether the object pro­du­ced is beau­ti­ful: the most impor­tant issue is that dea­ling with the object has been a sti­mu­la­ting experience.

4. Fun­da­men­tal Aesthe­tics. This is the cate­gory which best cor­res­ponds to the noti­ons of beauty as a sen­sory expe­ri­ence and sen­sa­tion of ple­a­sure. Our pre­di­lec­tion for har­mo­ni­ous sounds, waters­ca­pes, sym­me­tri­cal faces or well-built bodies falls into this cate­gory. The main cha­rac­te­ris­tic of the fun­da­men­tal aesthe­tics the­o­ries is that objects do not carry any addi­ti­o­nal sym­bo­lic trait. A rose, in that res­pect, is sim­ply a rose, not a sign of affec­tion, or a roman­tic sym­bol, nor a metaphor of bloom and decay.

The four cate­go­ries above help us des­cribe aesthe­tic sen­sa­ti­ons in all their diver­sity and, at the same time they pro­vide us with a ter­mi­no­logy for values of beauty, they also leave room for indi­vi­dual preferences.

Such clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tem of aesthe­tic values is also use­ful for all those dea­ling with kno­wledge pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion. Desig­ners, artists, jour­na­lists, adver­ti­sers, edu­ca­tion admi­nis­tra­tors or sci­en­tists can and should con­si­der the fun­da­men­tal aesthe­tic values, be it mind­fully or intuitively.

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