Appreciating beauty is part of most people’s everyday lives. We find it in the natural world, in one another, in art and even in ideas. It feels good when we see something beautiful.
But this appreciation of beauty presents a slight paradox.
Studies on human aesthetic preferences have found that our evaluations of beauty converge on certain features: simplicity, symmetry, juxtapositions of color, and particular shapes, ratios and geometries. And yet, individuals can possess vastly different notions of beauty, particularly when it comes to their taste in music, art, clothing and other domains of human creativity.
It would appear that beauty standards are partially objective — while simultaneously subjective. How does science explain this apparent enigma?
