Opening page…
Can someone be wrong about what's beautiful?
We speak of taste as personal, then argue as though someone has missed the truth.
11 people have answered this.
Your answer
A little context
You tell a friend the film you both just saw was beautiful, and they shrug and call it slow. You say fine, taste is personal, and then you keep talking anyway, pointing at the last shot and explaining what they missed, as if there were something there to get right.
Read alongside it4
ReadingA universal delightThe beautiful is that which, apart from concepts, is represented as the object of a universal delight.
The beautiful is that which, apart from concepts, is represented as the object of a universal delight.
ReadingA quality in bodiesBeauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies, acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses.
Beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies, acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses.
ReadingStrangeness in the proportionThere is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
ReadingPleasure, objectifiedBeauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing.
Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing.
Nearby questions
- Does knowing change it?A piece of writing moves you to tears. Then you learn a machine wrote every word. Does that change it?
- What would you still love if no one could ever see you loving it?Private pleasure, public approval, and the preferences that survive without an audience.
- Can something ugly be great art?Goya's black paintings, a scream in a symphony, a novel built to bore you. Some of the most admired work is hard to enjoy.
- The aura on your screenYou know the Sistine Chapel from images. If you went, what exactly would you be going for?
- The blade and the canvasIf you were angry enough at what it stood for, could you ever be right to put a blade through a painting?
