Hi, My name is Adrian, I study architecture and I love art and science. I draw a lot, and see patterns in what people find beautiful and not. I hope that a good theory (or a set of them) able to make predictions on what people find beautiful, and why, will emerge from science (psychology) or philosophy.

There are many well known factors that will help making something beautiful. People love repeating patterns, they love depths in a picture, and water in a landscape scene. Some colours famously clash, other are aesthetic. Both historical and personal experience, as well as scientific studies has confirmed this.

In order to find out more about what people find beautiful, I need to know why they do. I am convinced it is more than mere culture, we are not taught what is beautiful. Why?

Everyone finds Angelina Jolie beautiful.. Just about anyone, independently of culture, finds a picture of her more pleasant to look at than, say, Gandhi. I am only talking of pure aesthetics here, not symbolism etc.

The interesting thing is, evolutionary psychology claims to know why we find some people more attractive, and can make very accurate predictions on this. Signs of youth (like big eyes) good genes (like symmetry) and health (clean skin) are all required for a model. And going after such women is a very good mating strategy, from evolutionary perspective.

Therefore, at least when it comes to taste in faces, a scientific theory can explain and make predictions. When it comes to sounds (we get distressed by babies crying and love babies laughing), as well as taste (we love eating food that is rich on energy, the kind that would be useful during our late evolution) we can see how our personal taste is closely linked to our genes.

Is taste in art other than portraits genetically determined? I think culture and genes both play a role here.
One way to determine what part is genetic, and cultural, is to compare art and architecture across cultures and time. Patterns I find: Folk and traditional art from all cultures show a lots of colours, as well as repeating patterns.
Virtually all buildings from all times and culture are full of decoration, patterns and colours, as long as the budget allows for it. Even the pyramids and Greek temples showed this.

However, I wonder if modern fine art and architecture has gone away from this universal, genetically determined sense of beauty and towards a culturally determined fashions. This is why lay people still does not understand modernist architecture and abstract paintings, a century late. The architects are not "ahead of the wave" when creating minimalist buildings no one likes to live in, they are just separated from the universal sense of beauty and ignoring human love of patterns, colours, details etc common to all traditional styles.

People love Gothic cathedrals. I know no one, religious or not, who can be in one without getting inspired. It is universally beautiful, with huge surfaces covered with patterns, art and colourful detailed windows. Clearly you can make a recipe for a good building, just follow the rules for making Gothic cathedrals - they are all over Europe. Modern architects however, only occasionally, almost by accident make beautiful buildings. If we discover a more universal formula for buildings that appeals to our universal, not a culturally varying sense of beauty, it would help mankind a lot. This brings my back to why I am interested in the underlying explanation of why we find something beautiful - a pattern, a colour combination etc. If you understand why, it is a lot easier to deduce what.

What astonishes me is how few people seems to ask these questions. If anyone has good reading material on this, please let me know!! I don´t really care about what Nietzsche thought was good art or How Plato believed art can corrupt people, only to relevant, modern theories on what we find universally beautiful, and why.
I have found some interesting theories and ideas, mainly through Denis Dutton and Nikos Salingaros.

Id love to go in details into their thoughts on what we love innately and why, but this is getting too long as an opening post.

In my view, the first step is to convince people that humans has an identifiable, universal sense of beauty. I think this is plainly obvious, but for some reason highly controversial. The second step is to convince people that science or at least some ways to find out the truth is in the picture at all. The third and fourth is to find out what we find beautiful, and why.

Any thoughts are appreciated. I have a lot more arguments and examples to to back up my many claims, but I need to keep this first post short.

I think this relates to what I have been talking about in other threads, that is, that there are objective criteria, apart from cultural values, that make something beautiful or not. For example, symmetry, the use of color, detail, the use of light, and a myriad of other things that an artist uses to create their work.

For example, why do people think that Michelangelo's David is beautiful. Is it just a matter of opinion, or is it the the attention to detail by the artist? There is a certain amount of subjectivity involved, because some people disagree about which is more beautiful - Angelina Jolie or Ava Gardner - personally I find Ava more beautiful. However, if someone said that the Hunchback of Notre Dame was physically more beautiful than either Angelina Jolie or Ava Gardner, then I would say that something is definitely wrong here, because it is not a matter of opinion. In my very humble opinion.

Pale Blue Dot, I think you are largely right on modern art, where an experimentalism replaced universals. It's cultural and parochial. I think something can be art once, but it's a lot less enduring than the patterns that drive consensus on beauty.

I would appreciate you expanding on why you don't care what Nietzsche thinks about art. Thanks

PaleBlueDot wrote: In order to find out more about what people find beautiful, I need to know why they do. I am convinced it is more than mere culture, we are not taught what is beautiful. Why?

Why would you need to ask what is beautiful, why wouldn't you just know?

Partly based on Kant as well as my own reflections, it recently came into my head that people experience something as beautiful when they feel/think of it as harmonizing with them. Inasmuch as people's personalities differ, this explains the relativity but also the objectivity of beauty. And if something could be identified as harmonizing with human nature in general, we could show that it was universally beautiful.

Does any of this sound relevant to your interests, PaleBlueDot?

Motorcyclist wrote:
Pale Blue Dot, I think you are largely right on modern art, where an experimentalism replaced universals. It's cultural and parochial. I think something can be art once, but it's a lot less enduring than the patterns that drive consensus on beauty.

I would appreciate you expanding on why you don't care what Nietzsche thinks about art. Thanks

I don´t know what Nietzsche wrote about art, I just naturally assume it is not worth attention. In my experience, philosophers older than 100 years are pretty much either wrong, or they teaching are common sense. But if you think his views on art are interesting in this context, I would be very happy to hear about it.