The scent of Beauty

I think beauty can be lots of things. It can be internal qualities that draw us to an individual, such as kindness or grace. Beauty can also be external; qualities that are aesthetically attractive to us, such as However, what we find beautiful doesn’t always fit one set of standards. While I may find a roaring ocean beautiful in its sublime power, another may find it dangerous and frightening. 

However, that which is dangerous has its own form of beauty, just as that which we may not notice has its own beauty. An old, weathered cup we use everyday, the sprawling hills of Sleepy Hollow: we see and use these often, and as a result have stopped seeing their beauty, allowing them instead to dissolve into the background.

To me, that which is beautiful is that which brings me peace. The smell of sweet, dry pine needles and blackberries in the summer floating in on a hot August breeze is beautiful to me- it smells like summer, a scent of complete contentedness. It smells like a dry, sweaty trail ride, legs and lungs burning as I break out of the forest.

The smell of wet concrete and humid air also is beautiful. Rain in winter, which I now value even more in how rare it has become, makes me feel content. The safety of being cozy indoors in rain, and the sense of adventure of being outdoors each bring me happiness. Rain dripping off trees, my tires tearing through puddles splattering my back with a rooster’s tail of mud. It is in moments such as these where I feel alive, exhilarated, happy. These scents, these memories and feelings, when I remember them, bring me happiness, and to me, that is beauty.

Beauty as Perfection

I always regard myself as a perfectionist. Since childhood, I have set very high standards of essentially everything in my life, from food to furniture, from clothes to grades. I love seeing perfect things. For me, perfection means beauty, which is pleasing and elegant. I can be extremely annoyed if things are not done perfectly. A mark on the blackboard that wasn’t erased properly can drive me mad for a whole day until it is removed.

Yet as growing up, I realize that beauty is not necessarily perfect, and perfection is not necessarily beautiful. For example, the Japanese art style Wabi-sabi seeks no perfection at all. Rather it pursues transience and imperfection. I used to fail to appreciate such type of art, for it is not as exquisitely done. However, now I gradually get to understand the principles, the concepts behind it. Such imperfection actually is a more truthful representation of the reality than perfection. The nature itself is rustic too. Seas, forests, lands, and etc. all follow irregular shapes rather than perfect rounded ones. Nature is not perfect in any sense, but I cannot say that nature is not beautiful. A coal cube can be perfect, but I might not think of it as beautiful. Somehow the imperfection has its own state of perfection. 

Take another example of the tech company Apple. Apple is a dedicated follower of perfection. All the Apple products have perfect design and shape. As a fan of Apple, I definitely love these perfect products. Yet to be honest, I won’t say they are beautiful in any way. They are convenient, nice and useful. Yet in an aesthetic point of view, it cannot be considered beautiful.

Such kind of paradox exists in all aspects of life. One might argue one is better than the other, but the puzzle of perfection and imperfection might not be solved in the future.

The Beautiful

There are two kinds of beauty. One is immediately satisfying at sight and can be universally shared. The other cannot be recognized without careful discovery and reflections, and is therefore subjective to individuals.

The visual beauty brings feelings of pleasure and admiration directly to people, without any secondary or complicate thoughts. Ability to recognize such beauty is something innate and spontaneous, possibly due to an evolutionary process that is theorized in the Ted Talk. It is the first reaction "Wow!" to an egg shape diamond pendant, a pretty face, the brilliant rays of dawn and sunset, the dreamlike colors of The Starry Night etc. Sublime falls in this category. The powerful natural phenomenon and tranquil landscapes with harmony evoke the impression of beauty instantly, with no reason other than they are  simply beautiful. They somehow do not leave a choice for me to decide if it is beautiful, because they are born with the quality of beauty. It is a fact, not a perspective. These beauties are simple yet dangerous as people follows their unavoidable attraction which can lead to misfortune.

Contrary to the beauty of Sublime, the grandeur, is the beauty of focus on a particular idea, like Wabisabi. Seeing Wabi-sabi is a discovering process- one must look very closely and ponder on one's particular response. This is the beauty in the beholder's eye. An abstract painting, knowledge, love and compassion, music... They are cherished by some as beautiful because individuals see and interpret special ideas and and emotion in them that some one else do not. They are like symbols that stand for beauty unique to everyone.

A Futile Effort to Define Beauty

Beauty must have some definite features that have carried on from our cave days. However, Beauty standards have changed over the years. Each decade has brought with it a new beauty trend. However, beauty is also not universal, even in each decade. People tend to favor certain similar qualities in people that they are attracted to. These qualities seem to be nurtured in people they admire as they grow up. As strange as it may sound, people tend to find those who resemble or act like their parents, siblings, and other role models as they grew up more appealing. 

While beauty is more immediately noticeable from the outside, inner beauty is just as important. Outer beauty may capture someones attention, but inner beauty will help you create long lasting bonds. Inner beauty, like outer beauty, is very subjective. Everyone (in my opinion anyways) has some inner beauty in their personalities and quirks.

Beauty can also be found in objects and scenes. These things can be pleasing to the eye not only for the practicality but for the shapes and colors and sounds that emanate from it. From all our research we’ve done in class and all of my work from outside of class on the subject, I cannot really find a reason that the majority of people agree on for why these things (like art and music are pleasing to some and not to others. I suppose it also can have to do with how you grow up and your influences when you were a child. I personally grew up with an artist for a mother who loved taking me to art galleries. Because of that, I grew up needing an appreciation for art and the patience that is needed to explore galleries. However, going to an art gallery is not a common favorable activity especially for people our age.

All of these topics be argued on, but at the end of the day, beauty is really something that is necessary to help us build feelings towards people and objects. It creates relationships and catches your attention.

Beauty? Emotion?

Hellen Keller said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”. That is the beauty I believe in. Emotional response is an essential part of my concept of beauty. It does not matter whether or not you see, touch, hear, smell, or even taste one thing; what matters most is how we feel after we see, touch, hear, smell, or taste it.

Toward beauty, we would feel fear, wonder, enthusiastic, sympathy, etc. Some of those examples can be the sublime and the wabi-sabi we learned the other day in class. Toward the sublime photos, I feel fear but excited, while I feel calm and peaceful watching a wabi-sabi photos. Both of the sublime and the wabi-sabi are beautiful because they give me emotional responses!

Besides emotional beauty, I’m also interested in the evolution of beauty. From the TED talk we watched in class about the evolution of beauty, I start to realize that our ability to see beauty is actually like a natural selection. We evolve our ability to observe beauty in order to feel pleasant in our lives for survival. We are continuously finding and creating new things that are beautiful in order to satisfy not only ourselves but also others. For example, a house designer always places the furniture to a certain places in order to make us feel comfortable.

Beauty is an evolutionary result for us to feel pleasant.

The Beauty of Knowledge

    Imagine van Gogh’s Starry Night with the silhouette of a jagged tower contrasting with the dark swirls of the night sky. Art is not always beautiful; like anything it can contain elements of beauty such as color, motion, and spatial orientation, but that does not necessarily make it beautiful. Just as a “good” person might do immoral things but still be considered good, an unattractive piece can still be unattractive even if some degree of beauty can be found. Despite the beauty or lack of beauty in the physical piece, I think that the most beautiful thing in an art piece is the thought process that art instigates. The art acts as a catalyst for an unfathomable amount of innovative ideas, enlightening the viewer on the flaws of society and the many wonders of the world which leads into my personal view of the many boundaries of beauty.
    In our society, brains are not always seen as a beautiful characteristic; in fact very few advertisements show models acting intelligent or engaged. I find this fact very discouraging because I think that the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most beautiful things of all. It connects a person to their surroundings in an intimate way, and I think that this idea of beauty needs to be publicized so more people can understand the true value of knowledge. It can provide people with a successful future, opening windows to the careers that they feel passionate about. Because of their love for their study, people have a high probability of inventing more medicines, designing greener ways of living, and making psychological studies so that our society can learn to be at its happiest. Now, what can be more beautiful than that?  

Beauty and Goodness

The line between beauty and goodness is undoubtedly blurry. The two are often used in unison, to describe the same thing. For example, a piece of art can be described as both "very good," and "beautiful". The same goes for a job well done or a excellently cooked meal.   In some cases, people use "beautiful" and "good" as virtual synonyms. Both beauty and good are always used with a positive connotation and because of this, are assumed by many to have similar meanings. But they're so different.
Although the exact definition of "good" is quite elusive, generally, I consider the good to be what is beneficial not only for the individual, but for those around them. The definition of beauty is, as well, hard to pinpoint. But for the most part, I would say that what is beautiful is what is mentally, visually, spiritually or even culinarily pleasing. This being said, what is beneficial is not necessarily pleasing and vice versa. For the purpose of exemplifying this, I would like to bring up the concept of the Sublime. Sublime things elicit beauty essentially because of their massive, unchangeable, natural presence and power. When looking at a Tsunami from afar, it is easy to see its objective beauty, the beauty stemming from its force and immensity. However, regardless of how visually pleasing a tsunami may be, all the people it will kill and destruction it create cant't possibly be considered good. A bright, fluorescent color created by nuclear waste can objectively be seen as beautiful, however, we all know that it is far from good. A chocolate that you pop in your mouth can taste beautiful, yet be pretty bad in terms of health.
In this sense beauty can be much more superficial than goodness. Beauty is what it pleasing, and determining what it pleasing is often much easier than determining what is good. So many things go into deeming something good. One must look at all the sides, characteristics and future impacts of the situation (or object). On the other hand, finding something to be pleasing just requires someone to make an immediate, personal and somewhat innate response. Seeing beauty is almost an innate reaction to seeing the world, whereas seeing goodness is a process that requires a deeper level of thought.
Even though beauty may be slightly more superficial than goodness, without beauty there is virtually no purpose to life. We live to find things, people and experiences that are pleasing, that make us happy. Without this, there is no motivation to live. The ability to see both beauty and goodness are crucial to life.