9 BEAUTY
THE AESTHETIC RESPONSE
The idea that a work of art should be beautiful or should in some way offer the experience of beauty is widely held. But just exactly what beauty is and what objects and artifacts can or cannot be considered beautiful are questions that have been debated since ancient times. Moreover, we extend the judgment of beauty to a broad array of subjects, including landscapes, physiognomy, and mathematical proofs. We might well ask what it is exactly that all these things share. Is it possible to identify the components of beauty? To what extent is our comprehension of beauty conditioned by the culture in which we are immersed, and to what extent is it an innate response to certain stimuli? And then is beauty, after all, ...
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