← The five pillars

Pillar 05 of 05

Aesthetics

The one pillar we never had to learn.

The wordaisthesis

Ancient Greek for what we feel through the senses.

1735A new science

The philosopher Baumgarten gives it a name: aesthetics, the science of beauty.

1790Kant

When we call something beautiful, we expect everyone to agree.

Is there a universal beauty?

Tastes differ. But science keeps finding the same few things that move every human, everywhere.

place in the brain

Beautiful music and beautiful paintings light up the same area of the brain, the medial orbitofrontal cortex.

Ishizu & Zeki, UCL, 2011

countries, one painting

Asked what painting they want, people in 14 countries chose almost the same one: calm water, trees, open land, in blue and green.

Komar & Melamid, 1994 to 1997

average face

A face blended from many faces is rated more beautiful than almost every real face in it.

Langlois & Roggman, 1990

60%

less stress

The repeating patterns of nature, in trees, clouds and waves, can lower stress by up to 60 percent.

Richard Taylor, University of Oregon

Nature did it first

Count the spirals of a sunflower.

They almost always follow the Fibonacci numbers, often 34 one way and 55 the other. The most efficient pattern is also the most beautiful.

Where you can see it.

Three thousand years, three continents, the same rules.

Architecture

**The Parthenon**Athens, 447 to 432 BC
Its floor curves up and its columns lean in, so the eye sees perfect straight lines.

**The Pantheon**Rome, c. 125 AD
The dome is exactly as high as it is wide: a perfect sphere of 43 metres fits inside.

**The Taj Mahal**Agra, 1632 to 1653
Every side mirrors the other, and the water mirrors it all.

Sculpture

**Venus de Milo**c. 150 to 125 BC
The body rests on one leg, so the whole figure moves in a soft S curve.

**Winged Victory**Samothrace, c. 190 BC
Wind, wings and wet fabric, frozen in marble for over two thousand years.

**David**Michelangelo, 1501 to 1504
Five metres of marble in the calm second before action.

Painting

**The Birth of Venus**Botticelli, c. 1485
Soft lines, pale sea and a figure that seems to float.

**Girl with a Pearl Earring**Vermeer, c. 1665
One light from the left, one look, one pearl. Nothing else is needed.

**The Great Wave**Hokusai, c. 1831
Each curl of the wave repeats in smaller curls, like nature itself.

Five signs of beauty.

01Symmetry

Two halves in balance.

02Proportion

Parts in the right size to the whole.

03Rhythm

Shapes that repeat, like waves.

04Light

One clear light that guides the eye.

05Nature

Water, green, open space.

A beautiful myth

The golden ratio in the Parthenon? Careful measurements do not confirm it. Beauty is simpler: balance, rhythm, light.

Beauty is not a luxury.
It is a need we were born with.

That is why we paint.

See the collection

Sources and image credits

Ishizu, T. & Zeki, S. (2011). Toward a brain based theory of beauty. PLoS ONE.
Kawabata, H. & Zeki, S. (2004). Neural correlates of beauty. Journal of Neurophysiology.
Langlois, J. & Roggman, L. (1990). Attractive faces are only average. Psychological Science.
Komar, V. & Melamid, A. (1994 to 1997). The People’s Choice / Most Wanted paintings.
Taylor, R. Fractal fluency and stress reduction, University of Oregon.
Baumgarten, A. G. (1735, 1750). Meditationes; Aesthetica. Kant, I. (1790). Critique of Judgment.
Markowsky, G. (1992). Misconceptions about the golden ratio. College Mathematics Journal.