In my opinion, as individuals, we all have a different opinion on what is beautiful or attractive. However, as we spend more and more time in our society, we begin to take on its ideals. This is why when people are asked whether or not something is beautiful, the majority of them are likely to agree. I would say this is similar to spending time with a person. The more time you spend with somebody, the more tastes you acquire from them. Since we are constantly being exposed to societal influences on what beauty is, it is likely that many of us have adapted our views to what is considered mainstream. As much as we’d like to deny that, how many of us can say they would find an overweight person more attractive than a fit person?
Some people would argue that this plays into biology. For instance, in my example above, many would say that a fit person only appears more attractive because they are healthier. However, although that may be partially true, I feel like our society just uses these explanations as excuses. In reality, the media tries to make us care much more about appearance than about our well-being. We are bombarded daily with further criteria for which to judge beauty by and we tend to go to extreme lengths to meet this criteria ourselves. For a long time throughout history, this was the case with art as well. Art was considered beautiful only if it met the ideal of the time. In modern times, the appeal of art does not necessarily have do be its “beauty” but it can be something that makes it speak out to its viewers. Some people would say that if art touches them in some way, that is what they would consider beautiful art. This is why I think art’s vision of beauty is in a way more advanced than society’s vision of beauty. Artists have realized that their art can be unique and still capture the interest of certain people. In other words, art has begun catering to the belief that different people have different tastes.
The last point I want to make is that I think beauty has a lot to do with familiarity. For example, if we meet a person, there may be an initial attraction, but that attraction develops as we get to know them. This also applies to art. I think that generally speaking, the more familiar we are with a style, the more we come to see the beauty in it.
