DIANA BAHR

When ancient philosophers were contemplating the virtues necessary for the good life, their lists included truth, goodness and an appreciation for beauty. What is beauty and what does it do for us? It’s been said that what is beautiful is a subjective aesthetic judgment. Not one definition of beauty will suit everyone. Some theorists believe, in fact, that the formal qualities of a piece of art are not what make it beautiful; rather it is the ability of the beholder to appreciate beauty that makes it so (Prettejohn 202). 

 
Although every person’s account of what is beautiful may be different, what is common is a psychological need for beauty in one’s life. The philosopher Friedrich Schiller claims beauty “fulfills a core human need” (Winston 72) and psychologist Abraham Maslow suggests beauty is a virtue that should be strived for at the highest level of self-actualization (Boeree). If it is true that beauty is in the ‘brain of the beholder’ (Landi) and is a psychological prerequisite, what can be made of our current capacity to appreciate beauty in contemporary art? Beauty as a feature of art has been underappreciated, and at worst, disdained, since the birth of modernism. “Science has dominated Western discourse in the last century and has brought humanity many gifts, however, [it’s] divorced itself from beauty” (Diessner 21). A new appreciation for beauty must be developed in order to again fulfill our psychological need for it through art.

What Happened to Beauty: Modernism to Today
Beauty played a role in art for a long time. In Plato’s age, beauty was a “source of the keenest pleasure and the deepest pain” (Nehamas 13). Not only did it provide aesthetic pleasure, Plato equated beauty with love and an elevated and better life (Nehamas 6). The Greek and Roman statues of antiquity were examples of beauty as conceived through the idealization of the human form. Through much of the romantic period as well, “the pursuit of the aesthetic experience [was] an end in itself” (Harvey 19). 

 
However, by the time Immanuel Kant founded the philosophical branch of modern aesthetics in the late 1700s, disagreements on the value of beauty were surfacing. Critics claimed “placing a high value on sensory experience was mere hedonism…irresponsible…and immoral” (Prettejohn 40). Alexander Baumgarten had coined the term “aesthetic” in the mid 1700s after the Greek for “things perceived by the senses,” and now a period was emerging where things were being perceived more with the mind (Prettejohn 40). 

 
The birth of the industrial period marked such a period of change for art. Modernism, a pre-war reaction to the machination and urbanization of society, embraced the related virtues of power, efficiency, technology and perhaps most characteristic: speed. Time was fleeting and ephemeral. In order to stand out and ‘freeze time’ in what theorist David Harvey calls “a field of continually changing meanings” (12), artists like Manet and Pollock had to come up with new codes and often resorted to “shock tactics and the violation of expected continuities” to convey their message (Harvey 21). One such ‘continuity’ subject to violation was beauty. It was a goal of modernism “to detach the value of art from its appearance” (Danto qtd. in Nehamas 24). This could be seen in the Cubist, Surrealist and Dada movements. In the area of painting, for example, the beautiful was replaced with the self-reflexive; painting became more about the act of painting itself (Schwabsky 5). This was a step forward according to some art critics. Arthur Danto claims that “the discovery that something can be good art without being beautiful is one of the great conceptual clarifications of 20th century philosophy of art” (Nehamas 21). 

 
As people strived to come to terms with the change happening around them, however, artwork became increasingly less about content and more about concept; it was less emotional and more cerebral. Or, as was the case in one stream of art, it was neither. Kitsch art was a phenomenon and product of the industrial revolution that was neither really conceptual nor beautiful. It was a “diversion” of commercial, popular and mechanically reproduced items that “demanded nothing of its customers” (Greenberg 12). In any case, “mistrustful of passion, the 20th century came to doubt beauty” (Nehamas 3). Eventually, modernism not only mistrusted the sentimentality of aesthetic pleasures, according to Barnett Newman it “sought to destroy beauty,” and it had some success. In a study on human values at the time it was found that “Americans considered [beauty] to be among the least important values in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Diessner 3). 

 
It may no longer be, in post-war postmodern and contemporary art, that we are trying to destroy beauty. Now, it might simply be irrelevant. “Beauty’s role in society has reached a kind of critical mass and no longer fascinates philosophers” (Wall). Yet artists still seem to get categorized in one of two ways, either as commercial (read aesthetic) or reactionary (Pettejohn 9), with those in the former category facing similar irrelevancy. Although some of the conditions that birthed modernism remain today, times are changing again and there will be a psychological imperative to, as Gropius said, “bring art back to the people through the production of beautiful things” (Harvey 22).

The Psychological Need for Beauty
Beyond just the pleasure beautiful things provide, there is evidence of a psychological need for beauty, both on an individual and societal level. The psychologist Abraham Maslow studied the motivations behind human behaviours, conceptualizing a universal hierarchy of needs (Boeree). At the base of his hierarchy were physiological needs: shelter, food and water. As these needs were met, he said, people would move on to have safety, belonging, esteem and then self-actualization needs. Part of Maslow’s motivation theory was that human beings who were at the self-actualization stage had greater psychological needs: a need for meaning, wholeness, creativity and beauty. “Beauty is a b-value, a value that may guide one’s growth toward wholeness: (Diessner 4). 

 
Like the ancient philosophers and Maslow, current psychologists are seeing the benefits to beauty as well. Researchers Costa and McCrae also consider an “appreciation of beauty as a character strength; a psychological ingredient of the virtue of transcendence” (Diessner 4). Observance of beauty in a person’s surrounding increases appreciation according to psychologists Haidt and Keltner and triggers “self-transcendent emotions such as awe, admiration and elevation” (Diessner 7). In their study on beauty, Haidt and Keltner go further to determine what these feelings could actually manifest. They predicted a relationship between gratitude and appreciation of beauty and also proved a connection between beauty and satisfaction with life (Diessner 10). In another recent study, researchers created an Engagement with Beauty Scale (EBS) and noted that “as levels of engagement with beauty increase, a person’s trait of gratitude grows stronger, spiritual transcendence grows loftier and life is more satisfying in general. Also, the higher the level of engagement with beauty, the less likely a person is to be materialistic” (Diessner 16). Since “what we choose to call art reflect our values” (Wall), it would seem there is a benefit to appreciating beautiful art more often, for individuals wanting to increase their quality of life and for a society racked with commercialism and struggle.

Bringing Beauty Back
So how can an appreciation for beauty be fostered in order to create such psychological rewards? A few presumptions need to be addressed in the search for an answer. The first is the idea of beauty as too subjective to define and is therefore irrelevant. Although no one may share the same idea of beauty, “showing beauty as subjective renders it no less valuable” (Fenner 14). What’s brings value to human life, as indicated above, is an appreciation for beauty, not the object itself. Beauty, despite depending on appearance, is also not superficial—another argument one might make for discounting the subject. The aesthetic experience may begin on the surface, but as the field of psychology has proven, the benefits are deep. Nor is an appreciation of beauty simply ‘nostalgic,’ a desire for qualities of the past. What will assist in the development of an appreciation for beauty is understanding that beauty is now, it is in the mind of the beholder. As the artist Agnes Martin writes, “when a beautiful rose dies, beauty does not die because it is not really in the rose. Beauty is an awareness in the mind” (Prettejohn 202). 

 
Another crucial presumption to address is whether we should expect psychological fulfillment from art at all. Perhaps not. But since we do gain some conceptual understanding of our world through art, why not expand our vocabulary of experience to include a sensory understanding as well? Therefore, one way to foster a greater appreciation (and application) of beauty is to understand that while the 20th century is more cerebral, the mind is not the only way of seeing the world. Great works of art used to evoke significant emotions in people, as James Elkins describes in his book Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings. As the philosophers have said and our own psychology demonstrates, an emotion-filled life and a life engaged with beauty is a good life: “a work that does not invite sentimental intervention leaves [man] without a cue” (Ortega y Gasset qtd in Nehamas 3).
A final presumption to attack is the notion that artists have to choose beauty versus concept when creating work; they are representational or abstract, commercial or political. It may be true that “the discovery that something can be good art without being beautiful is one of the great conceptual clarifications of 20th century philosophy of art” (Nehamas 21). However, why not strive for great art by embracing both idea and emotion? The goal is not to destroy concept in the way modernism sought to destroy beauty. Instead, why not foster an appreciation, as John Ruskin famously said, for work “in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together”? 

 
It must be said of course that beauty has never disappeared from art altogether. The French academies and the Hudson River School of artists of the 1800s for example kept beauty alive in their work. Today, there is a resurgence of the classical concept of beauty in atelier-style realist schools of painting as well. What is needed however is a new concept of beauty in art because its virtues, as determined by the ancient philosophers and as proven by researchers today, cannot be underestimated. “Art should expand” as it did in modernism, and “beauty-production is no less worthy than any other” (Fenner 24). Since beauty is in the mind of the beholder, it is possible to develop an appreciation for it and the results are psychological rewards that benefit both the individual and society in general.

References

Boeree, Dr. C. George. “Personality Theories: Abraham Maslow.” 2006. April 13, 2010. Web.

Diessner, Rhett, et al. "Engagement With Beauty: Appreciating Natural, Artistic, and Moral Beauty." Journal of Psychology 142.3 (2008): 303. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 13 Apr. 2010.

Elkins, James. Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings. New York, Routledge, 2001. Print.

Fenner, David E.W. “Why Was There So Much Ugly Art in the 20th Century?” Journal of Aesthetic Education. 39.2. 2005, 13-26.

Greenberg, Clement. “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.” Collected Essays and Criticism. Ed. By John O’Brian. Vol. 1: Perceptions and Judgments, 1939-1944. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 5-22.

Harvey, David. “Modernism and Modernity.” Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change.” Cambridge, MA.: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Landi, Ann. “Is Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder?” ArtNews. New York. January, 2010. Web.

Nehamas, Alexander. Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art. Princeton University Press, 2007. Print.

Prettejohn, Elizabeth. Beauty & Art. Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

Schwabsky, Barry. “Painting in the Interrogative Mode.” Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting. London: Phaidon Press, 2002, p. 5-10.

Wall, Kathleen. “Ethics, Knowledge and the Need for Beauty: Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and Ian McEwan’s Saturday.” University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 77, number 2. Spring 2008. Print.

Winston, Joe. “An Option for Art But Not an Option for Life: Beauty as an Educational Imperative.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education. v. 42 no. 3 (Fall 2008) p. 71-87