What is the definition of beauty?

Beauty is a very attractive word and a fascinating mystery. Throughout the ages, it has been inextricably linked with people's lives. Probably everyone will agree that there can be no beauty in life, so people often talk about beauty when they speak and write articles. So such as the beauty of mountains and rivers, the beauty of youth, the beauty of mind, the beauty of language, the beauty of behavior, the beauty of environment and so on. Often taught. But does this mean that people have a very clear understanding of beauty? Don't!

Socrates, an ancient Greek saint, debated with Hippocrates about "what is beauty". In the end, I failed to give an ultimate and essential definition and had to sigh "beauty is difficult". Until the prosperity of science and philosophy, the question of "what is beauty" is still a difficult "Sphinx mystery" and is still in endless debate. Although countless philosophers, aestheticians and thinkers made arduous explorations in different ways to uncover the mystery of beauty, they all put forward various ideal answers at that time. But they all failed to finally take off the jewel in this aesthetic crown.

The reason why it is difficult to answer "what is beauty" is that what it requires is not to make aesthetic judgment or experience description for individual objects, but to find out the universal essence of beauty among all kinds of beautiful objects, or to find out its special essence by comparing with non-aesthetic objects. Beauty is not fixed and metaphysical. Under the concept of beauty, it contains all kinds of completely different things in nature. From the macro world to the micro world, such as the sun, the moon, stars, flowers and trees, all kinds of labor products and even the quality, movements, looks, expressions, manners and so on. Everything about people can be regarded as an aesthetic object and a beautiful thing. Of course, it is extremely difficult to generalize the universal essence of beauty from these very different things. Moreover, beauty changes with the development of social history. In the dynamic space-time structure, due to the differences of times and society, the connotation and extremely valuable significance of beauty are also very different. To sum up, it is the broadness, complexity and even variability of the concept of beauty that casts a mysterious veil on the essence of beauty.

Some people think that beauty is subjective. They believe that beauty can only be produced when people's subjective feelings, consciousness and objects are combined to achieve the unity of subjectivity and objectivity. According to them, "a chair will not become a chair unless it is occupied." However, this view was opposed by objectivists. They believe that whether a thing can become an aesthetic object depends not only on subjective conditions, but also on something on the object, that is, some objective aesthetic nature or quality of these things themselves. So they retorted, "Why should we sit in a chair instead of a pile of dirt? Because dust is not as stable as a chair. "

So what is the so-called "aesthetic essence" or "quality"? Why can symmetry, balance, rhythm and order give us a sense of beauty, but ugliness, absurdity and disorder can't? Can it be summed up as "unintentional", "rational" and "ingenious"? Obviously not. It is reasonable for the traditional Gestalt psychology school to explain the origin and origin of aesthetic essence with the theory of "isomorphism" and "isomorphism" of subject and object. However, it gives a purely physiological answer to the formal correspondence between people and things and the aesthetic quality of things, which obviously has its limitations.

At this point, the best way is the Marxist view on the essence of beauty. Marx controlled the theory of human nature and introduced practical viewpoint into epistemology and historical materialism, which laid the theoretical foundation of materialist dialectics and historical materialism for scientifically clarifying the essence of beauty. According to this methodology, to reveal the essence of beauty, we must scientifically explain the essence of human beings and correctly explain the essence of social life. First of all, man is the subject of free creation, "free and conscious activities are precisely the characteristics of man" and "human nature … is the sum of all social relations"; Secondly, "social life is essentially practical". Therefore, the ultimate source of beauty lies in people's free creation and labor, or a kind of "humanized nature". Beauty is the organic unity of human subjectivity, objectivity and sociality of things. In fact, it is not difficult to understand that a stone and a pile of soil are not beautiful in themselves, but they are beautiful after being processed and carved into exquisite works of art by artists-statues.

However, Mr. Zhu Guangqian, an old man of aesthetics in China, summed up his experience in aesthetic research all his life after he was 80 years old and said: "There can be no formulaic and unchangeable conclusion on the question of' what is beauty'. Different eras, different schools, different starting points and different conclusions. " This can be seen from the change of China's aesthetic concept in the 20th century. China's aesthetics in 20th century can be divided into four stages:

The first stage: 1900— 19 19. This is a period when classical aesthetics is generally doubted, deeply criticized and tends to collapse. During this period, with the disintegration of the feudal dynasty and the fierce criticism of thousands of years of orthodox Confucianism, the ideal of classical harmonious beauty slowly took off the golden crown of the past, and was gradually converged by the aesthetic orientation of Chinese people and put on the head of lofty aesthetic ideal.

The second stage:1920-1949. This is the early stage of China's sublime aesthetics in the 20th century. Its main feature is that it emphasizes misery, blood and fire, sacrifice and pursuit in aesthetics, so it can be called a tragic stage. At this stage, the people of China are immersed in great sadness, pathos and tragic emotions. Its emotional identity, aesthetic orientation and new theoretical thinking are all inseparable from the word "sadness".

The third stage:1950-1979. This is the later period of lofty aesthetic thought. Its main feature is to emphasize the victory after hard struggle and the greatness in heroic dedication, which is the condensation of aesthetic pursuit to a variety of heroic images. We can call this period the heroic period. In this period, beauty and aesthetics are permeated with a tone of pride and optimism.

The fourth stage:1979-the end of the century. This is a period when lofty aesthetic thoughts fall back or spiral up. In this period, a higher level of "harmony" became the dominant aesthetic consciousness. This new concept of harmony, which is very different from classical harmony, contains historical richness and national complementarity, making aesthetic pursuit multi-source and multi-level. It emphasizes not the local and external harmony, but the overall harmony between man and nature, individual and society, subject and object.

It can be seen that our understanding of the essence of beauty changes with the change of social existence or aesthetic field. We can't just be satisfied with the definition of "the essence of beauty" that has been obtained and now seems more scientific. Beauty is a concrete history. With the development of social practice, eternal and absolute beauty does not exist at all. Therefore, "the essence of beauty" is by no means a frozen concept definition. What we can do is to grasp it in the dynamic and improve it.

Rodin said: "Beauty is everywhere. For our eyes, it is not the lack of beauty, but the lack of discovery. " In our diversified world, quiet and beautiful street parks, all kinds of avant-garde and fashionable costumes and elegant court music can be seen and heard everywhere. At the same time, with the development of the times and the improvement of material living standards, people's pursuit and understanding of beauty has also made new progress. So, in the real society, how should we treat beauty? Next, I want to talk about my views.

First, beauty should be natural. The ancients always liked to describe the beauty of women with the metaphor of "closing the moon and feeling ashamed of flowers, sinking fish and falling geese" Indeed, naturally beautiful girls always make people shine. People's physical beauty is innate, even in expensive and high-quality cosmetics, it is difficult to achieve. Youth around the age of 20 is the most beautiful stage in a person's life. It doesn't need much decoration. A natural smile is always permeated with a youthful breath, which comes from people's external manifestations and even from people's hearts, just as people say: "The beauty of birds lies in their feathers, and the beauty of people lies in their hearts." Similarly, more beauty lies in a feeling and a mood between oneself and the viewer.

In fact, the beauty of human heart is the most important thing. It should be said that in some cases, it is a real beauty beyond the beauty of appearance. People can't have a beautiful appearance, but they can't have a beautiful heart, because the appearance is superficial after all, but the heart is the root, essence and deepest layer of people. I think many people have read the story of Snow White. The new queen and Snow White in the story are both beautiful. The queen is ugly for life because of jealousy and vanity, but the kind princess has escaped the clutches of death again and again because of her beautiful heart. I think this is not only from the imagination of Andersen's subjective thought, but also truly reflects people's views and wishes of abandoning evil and promoting good.

If Snow White impressed readers with her beauty in appearance and soul, then quasimodo in Notre Dame should be pure in heart! He was once considered as the ugliest person in this city, and no one cared about him, only people laughed at him. However, when the heroine is in danger, he resolutely puts out his ugly but warm hands ... quasimodo is ugly, but beautiful and lovely at the same time. Just because he has a warm and loving heart, even if it is valuable to have a beautiful and beautiful heart, those who look ordinary but have a hot heart will be loved and praised by people.

In short, in my opinion, beauty is always an illusory thing. Like air, it exists in our life. It is close to us, but far away. We can't figure out its shape, but it is closely related to our life. Beauty is such a thing. It comes from nature and is embodied in our hearts.