Many people see natural beauty in the rose.

A nymph with morning glory flowers by Lefebvre. The image of the young woman is a symbol of human beauty, and a dominant theme in art.

Images of beauty from Hasht-Behesht palace in Iran.

The emphasis on thinness as beauty in supermodels has been criticized in modern culture.

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Beautiful

Beauty is a quality of a person, object, place, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, affirmation, meaning, or goodness. The subjective experience of "beauty" often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature. more...

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This leads to powerful feelings of attraction and emotional well-being.

In its most profound sense, beauty may engender a salient experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one's own existence. An "object of beauty" is anything that reveals or resonates with personal meaning. Hence religious and moral teachings often focus on the divinity and virtue of beauty, and to assert natural beauty as an aspect of a spirituality and truth.

The literal opposite of beauty is ugliness, i.e. the perceived lack of beauty, which stimulates displeasure and engenders a deeply negative perception of the object.

Aesthetics

Understanding the nature and meaning of beauty is one of the key themes in the philosophical discipline known as aesthetics.

The composer and critic Robert Schumann distinguished between two kinds of beauty, natural and poetic. The former is found in the contemplation of nature, whereas the latter lies in man's conscious, creative intervention into nature. Schumann indicated that in music, or other art, both kinds of beauty appear, but natural beauty is merely sensual delight. Poetic beauty begins where the natural beauty leaves off.

A common idea suggests that beauty exists in the appearance of things and people that are good. A good apple will be perceived as more beautiful than a bruised one. Also, most people judge physically attractive human beings to be good, both physically and on a deeper level. Specifically, they are believed to possess a variety of positive traits and personality characteristics.

The stereotype, "beauty is good" has many significant counter examples. These include such things as a glacier, or a ruggedly dry desert mountain range. Many people find beauty in hostile nature, but this can be bad, or at least unrelated to any sense of goodness. Another type of counterexample are comic or sarcastic works of art, which can be good, but are rarely beautiful. Additionally, people may be good and not beautiful, or beautiful but not good.

It is well known that people's skills develop and change their sense of beauty. Carpenters may view an out-of-true building as ugly, and many master carpenters can see out-of-true angles as small as half a degree. Many musicians can likewise hear as dissonant a tone that's high or low by as little as two percent of the distance to the next note. Most people have similar aesthetics about the work or hobbies they've mastered.

Origins of beauty

See also: Ideal beauty in the classical world

The earliest theory of beauty can be found in the works of early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period, such as Pythagoras. The Pythagorean school saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. In particular, they noted that objects proportioned according to the golden ratio seemed more attractive. Ancient Greek architecture is based on this view of symmetry and proportion. Modern research also suggests that people whose facial features are symmetric and proportioned according the golden ratio are more attractive than those whose faces are not.