The Greeks had a great fascination with beauty. Their mythology described Helen of Troy as the most beautiful woman. This concept has continued to this day and the Greeks viewed beauty as a form and spirit. Their architecture, in particular, is based on proportion and symmetry, making them one of the most elegant civilizations in history. The term beauty has also been used to describe different types of aesthetic taste, from classical to modern.
Early aesthetic consciousness defined beauty as a natural property of things and a source of harmony. The Pythagoreans believed that beauty arose from quantitative relationships between things. Heraclitus and Plato emphasized the fact that beauty is relative and that the most beautiful harmony is the result of the struggle between opposites. In addition to this, the ancients referred to beauty as a universal quality, which was a great benefit to modern art.
The same principle applies to Schiller’s use of the term. In his novel Alciphron, the philosopher suggests that beauty is an attribute of things that are harmonious and suitable for their intended purpose and application. In other words, a horse made of an ox would be aesthetically beautiful. The same holds true for other objects, including human bodies. By contrast, a lion is a horse that is ugly.
The Renaissance thinkers held that beauty is an objective characteristic. Alberti defined beauty as a strict proportionate harmony and a unity of parts. Leonardo da Vinci claimed that man is the highest standard of beauty. This distinction between the two is important in guiding the candidate’s development as a shaman. It is important to note that a woman’s body and an ox’s face are not the same.
The Renaissance thinkers were convinced that beauty was an objective property. They viewed it as a form of art that could be measured by the standards of man. In other words, they thought that the highest measure of beauty was man. Hence, the word beauty became a universal characteristic. But in the end, beauty remains a subjective quality. If we’re not able to define what beauty is, we will not be able to measure the beauty of any individual.
In addition to a hedonist view, Schiller’s concept of beauty is similar to that of Aristotle. In Alciphron, the philosopher argues that beauty is an intrinsic property of things. It is related to the object’s purpose and application. Thus, the word beauty is not a purely functional attribute. It is an aesthetic attribute of a thing. So, it is not a mere aesthetic quality.
Beauty is a subjective quality that is determined by how an observer experiences something. For example, a human being can experience beauty by feeling the lustrousness of a flower. However, a person can’t experience beauty. They must feel it in their own way to determine whether an object is beautiful. Therefore, their definition of beauty is very subjective. The subjective nature of beauty has two aspects: a physical and an emotional component.