How do we determine beauty in our culture? Is it a necessary component in Art, in humans?
Every person’s idea of beauty is different, and what may be beautiful to one person may seem hideous to the other. How then do we determine what is beautiful in our culture? There is no clear standard for something to be considered beautiful. In fact, the idea of beauty changes with the times and with the culture. I guess we can say that in general something is considered beautiful if it is extraordinary and is considered beautiful by majority of the people in the culture. For example in some cultures it is considered beautiful to have a long neck, so women put special necklaces on to elongate their neck. While that is considered beautiful in that culture, many people in America would consider this the complete opposite of beautiful: disgusting. Our personal definition of beauty varies with our experiences. The more diverse our experiences are the more diverse our definition of beauty will be. Therefore, I say that beauty changes over time. In this modern age we have the opportunity to go to almost any country, to see what their culture is like, and therefore enriching our own culture, and thus changing our definition of beauty. As times change and we have more opportunities to explore new things, our definition of beauty will keep changing. What once was considered beautiful, will now be only ordinary.
Beauty is a necessary component in Art. This is an important component in art because its definition varies so greatly. If everybody’s perception of what is beautiful was the same, then we would get many VERY similar paintings, and songs, and plays. It is beauty and its variety that creates different types of art and art movements. It is responsible for providing us with different types of music such as Jazz, Classical, Pop, Punk Rock, and many more. So for this reason I say that yes, beauty is a necessary component of art.
