But I think both experiences of beauty are possible; intrusive beauty and hidden beauty; exoteric and esoteric.

Yes, but I think what we find, what is hidden is only available to us based on our understanding of the narratives surrounding what we experience. You might find 12 tone beautiful because it appeals to some theoretical conceptualization that you understand and thereby can find beautiful, but I have a hard time with it.

Cheers. I love medium format film. :) — jamalrob

(Y) thank you!

I see what you mean here (12 tone being a hidden form of beauty? Not readily apparent?) But I'm thinking in much simpler terms, actually. It has more to do with your state of mind than anything else. I live in a large city; there's countless beautiful, fleeting human interactions to witness as you walk down the street, but I tend to just be annoyed by the crowd.

I'm not into 12 tone music by the way. I am into some weirder harmonies, and I love noise, distortion, and weird sounds in music. I think that's more of an acquired taste than a hidden form of beauty.

The point I was trying to make with that song is that "ugliness" (the first minute) can exist alongside beauty (the next minute) — Noble Dust

I don't know if I'd agree with that . . . but just because the stuff that other folks are calling "ugly" I'm not going to think is ugly if the work overall is beautiful in my view. It's kind of like I don't agree with the "so bad it's good" meme re films. I feel those films are just good, not bad.

When we look at something beautiful we also feel that the object has a purpose, eaven though we know that there is none. — UngeGosh

That's way off re my reactions. I don't think that anything has a purpose--at least not an objective purpose. Purposes are simply a way that some people think about some things. Paintings, pieces of music, landscapes, etc. are not people thinking about something.

Beauty, on the other hand, is not morally neutral. — Noble Dust

?? I don't think about morality at all in connection with beauty.

?? I don't think about morality at all in connection with beauty. — Terrapin Station

?? I do.

but just because the stuff that other folks are calling "ugly" I'm not going to think is ugly if the work overall is beautiful in my view. — Terrapin Station

I agree, the ugliness can contribute to what makes a piece beautiful. They aren't necessarily so binary.

Okay, so you're just telling us something about yourself and not beauty in general then?

That's interesting for what it is, but it's difficult for me to even imagine associating morality with beauty.

I agree, the ugliness can contribute to what makes a piece beautiful. They aren't necessarily so binary. — Noble Dust

But I'm saying it wouldn't be ugly to me in that context.

Okay, so you're just telling us something about yourself and not beauty in general then? — Terrapin Station

No, you were doing that with your response to my comment on morality and beauty. That comment was in the context of a larger paragraph where I explained a little bit of my thoughts on beauty/morality.

But I'm saying it wouldn't be ugly to me in that context. — Terrapin Station

So if "the work overall is beautiful in [your] view", then the ugliness isn't ugly to you? Or what does "overall" indicate in that sentence?

So if "the work overall is beautiful in [your] view", then the ugliness isn't ugly to you? Or what does "overall" indicate in that sentence? — Noble Dust

Whether something is ugly or beautiful or whatever is subjective. I'm saying that when I think something is beautiful, I don't think that parts of it are ugly.

I suppose it wouldn't be impossible for me to think about something, "This would be beautiful if it weren't for such and such part (which I think is ugly)," but then I'm mentally separating that part from the beautiful part.

I suppose it wouldn't be impossible for me to think about something, "This would be beautiful if it weren't for such and such part (which I think is ugly)," but then I'm mentally separating that part from the beautiful part. — Terrapin Station

So you don't think an ugly aspect can contribute to something's beauty? Think about Guernica.

So you don't think an ugly aspect can contribute to something's beauty? Think about Guernica. — Noble Dust

Guernica isn't one of my favorite Picasso paintings, but this is, for example:



The point is that there's nothing at all ugly about that painting to me. Maybe to other people, yes, but not to me.

There's nothing at all ugly about Guernica to me, either. But it's just not a favorite, and it's not really beautiful in my opinion, either.

I would love to read all the posts on this topic before contributing my own thoughts but there are just too many and they're coming in too fast!

My opinion on beauty is; (among other things already mentioned skimming through the replies) lack of understanding.

For example, growing up I listened to all kinds of music, jazz was my favourite. A younger version of myself found those chords and melodies and time signatures a thing of beauty. I couldn't fathom how playing a handful notes at specific times evoked an emotion in me, be it happy or sad or excited or relaxed. Now that I've spent years practising the piano, taken lessons, studied music in college, I understand how to make those sounds on my own. And although I may take myself by surprise sometimes and play something I think sounds beautiful, for the most part I am acutely aware of what i'm doing, and most of the beauty is in the ear of the listener rather than the person making the noise.

That's exactly why I don't study sunsets, I think I'd rather not know and just look at it instead.

So do you think an ugly aspect of a piece can contribute to it's beauty or no?

So do you think an ugly aspect of a piece can contribute to it's beauty or no? — Noble Dust

To me, no.

I don't know why it's so difficult to communicate this. For me, "ugly" and "beautiful" are opposites.

I don't know why it's so difficult to communicate this. For me, "ugly" and "beautiful" are opposites. — Terrapin Station

Like this!:

To me, no. — Terrapin Station

But I disagree, there's certainly a yin/yang relationship between them, but that's exactly it: they require each other. So saying "there's nothing at all ugly" about a painting you like doesn't resonate with me. Pure beauty is like getting sick on sweets.

What do you find ugly about Ravel's Sonatine No. 3, for example?

The chord structure from 1:29 to 1:54 in that video I posted has some "ugly" elements, but it's beautiful at the same time. Ugly isn't really the best word to be honest. But again, I don't see beauty and ugliness as binary categories. There's beauty and ugliness in those chords. That piece isn't particularly ugly though. The more I say that word the more I realize I don't actually think about ugliness in art, it's just the way the word has come up in this discussion. I'm arguing that there's a spectrum to beauty...it's hard to describe; language starts to not work with this topic. Ugliness and beauty aren't binary to me, that's the best I can do.

Maybe it's more that things can be beautiful in different ways or for different reasons. For example, with musical harmony, there's beautiful consonance and beautiful dissonance.

Sure, I think we're just thinking of it from opposite spectrums. To me there's a continuum of beauty; consonance and dissonance for instance. Beauty can exist anywhere on the spectrum, so beauty by default contains all those elements. Maybe we're saying the same thing, I don't know.

You are a musician, what you hear is the same as what I hear, but perhaps because of your training, experience, and practice you hear more than what I can hear, what you find beautiful in the music you find beautiful is more than my unsophisticated taste. That what is hidden from me is not hidden from you the sounds that entrance you may not affect me. — Cavacava

I don't think that you can be better at finding beauty through training. What you are talking about is rather appreciation for the work behind the piece, and that derives from a deep knowledge of music. I believe that beauty is something else, a more subtle quality that is there and doesn't depend on complexity. Beauty does not come with taste, and you cannot train yourself to find it, mabye to create it, but not find it. Moreover I think beauty is often confused with other feelings, for instance pleasentness or attraction.

I'm not talking specifically about music, though. And I'm saying I'm as blind to the beauty in the world as anyone else, just that I've had moments where I realize how much of it I don't see, which lead me to that thought about it's hiddenness. — Noble Dust

I agree, sometimes you have to focus and really take things in in order to find beauty. But I dont think you have to think about the object you focus on using words, rather just taking it in and letting it affect you.

Would beauty exist without us humans, or is it through our perception that things become beautiful?

Okay, I was a bit sloppy in my writing. What I meant was that almost always there is a reason for us liking it. For instance, we find other people sexually attractive BECAUSE our biology tells us to. We enjoy a fast car BECAUSE it gives us a thrill when we go at high speeds. With beauty, we can't (and this is quite Kantanian) say why something is beautiful, it simply is.

What makes something beautiful? — River

I'm not sure whether beauty is made. It seems fairly clear, however, that beauty is found under various or varying conditions. Sometimes regularly, such as when there is symmetry, but regular beauty can fade away, as in becoming redundant. If there ever was a 'what' that made someone or something beautiful yesterday it might not succeed today nor in the future. But beauty can always be found, and re-discovered.

(1)I see a beautiful person and become attracted to them.
(2)I see a beautiful architectural structure and praise its form.
(3)I see a beautiful sky and revel in its hues and clouds.
(4)I see a beautiful flower and am entranced by its colors and shape. — River

Their beauty is not made by your experiences, you find their beauty by experiencing them. The reason that you see, become attracted to, or entranced by someone or something is their beauty.

I don't think that you can be better at finding beauty through training. What you are talking about is rather appreciation for the work behind the piece, and that derives from a deep knowledge of music. I believe that beauty is something else, a more subtle quality that is there and doesn't depend on complexity. Beauty does not come with taste, and you cannot train yourself to find it, mabye to create it, but not find it. Moreover I think beauty is often confused with other feelings, for instance pleasentness or attraction.

I think in learning, training and experiencing we broaden the connections (in our imagination) and that affects how we experience what we experience, connections that we would be difficult to imagine otherwise. The beauty that strikes us in a work of art depends on how sensitive we are to what we are experiencing and that sensitivity can be learned, trained and broadened in most cases (it is normative). If someone is tone death, no amount of training will enable them to sense the beauty in Ravel's music

The biologic/somatic component is a necessary part of beauty. Matter's ability to enable us to see new possibilities must be driven emotively and intellectually. The more we learn, experience and understand the broader our ability to be affected what is beautiful. Taste is developed, fine tuned, & cultivated, it is not available in the same measure to all; even the most knowledgeable may lack the somatic sensibility of some much less knowledgeable. It is why I am not a fan of Thomas Kinkade "Painter of Light".

But I dont think you have to think about the object you focus on using words, rather just taking it in and letting it affect you. — UngeGosh

Does thinking require words?

Would beauty exist without us humans, or is it through our perception that things become beautiful? — UngeGosh

There's really no real answer; so the best answer is an experiential answer, not a logical answer. The human perception of beauty, in all it's manifest forms, feels like a notion of something metaphysical; it seems almost ontological. Beauty is part of the fabric of reality. So, beauty exists with or without human experience. What's my evidence for that statement? None, or rather, only experience.

The more it is like me, the more it is beautiful.

The thing is, whether it's music or buildings or poetry or people, is "beauty" one aspect of the whole, or is a summation of the whole?

I didn't see a complete answer to this question. One of the reasons why Adorno railed against Toscanini is that he accented the 'beautiful parts' of musical works, the flourishes over the rest of the work. (Adorno was an opinionated snob, but an absolutely brilliant theoretician).

A musical work, work of poetry, film or some other processional work of art has parts, and some parts may be beautiful and other parts ugly as pointed out. Nietzsche thought the ugly is the source of the beautiful, which may be why we might find it scary. I think it may be more of a dialectical relationship.

Among School Children
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Full poem here

The last stanza of the poem is fantastic in my opinion. The poem takes off slow in the beginning and it reaches a kind of vast crescendo at the end....(ha)

VIII

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

How is beauty connected to perception? Why did it take humanity so long to decide that this sort of music was beautiful? We here this now, and we easily label it as beautiful. But imagine the world in which these harmonies did not yet exist.