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WITHIN THE PHILOSOPHICAL, PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXTS)

Essentially, beauty is something that is deeply felt, appreciated and desired by everyone of us (or even dismissed sometimes but it is impossible to ignore). In fact, it is worshipped by some! However, when it comes to defining beauty, there is no straight forward answer. It varies drastically from person to person and often becomes a subject of scrutiny and comprehension. It is crucial for designers to have a profound understanding of aesthetics and its role in design.

We desire beauty in almost every aspect of our lives from choosing what we wear to where we live. Its influence on our lives is not limited to only achieving perfection in physical form but also in human relationships. Beauty has multiple dimensions. These dimensions can be explored based on philosophical, physical and psychological points of view.

Early Greek philosophers, Pythagoreans, saw architectonic beauty is nature around 500BC. They explored pattern in music, human body and cosmos. They were some of the pioneering explorers to provide mathematical reasoning to patterns which we call geometry. Pythagoras theorem is one of the examples. During 18th century, David Hume describes realization of beauty or ugliness as feeling and not a thought. Beauty is an attribute of mind and not of design as per him. Immanuel Kant described beauty as mental realization of universal harmony. Another philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer believed that aesthetic contemplation provides relief to worldly pain arising out of human desires and will to live.

Architects and artists believe in various physical principles of design for the likes of symmetry, balance, contrast, pattern, repetitions, rhythm, scale and proportions among others contributing directly to the concept of beauty. Vitruvius compared architecture beauty from proportion and symmetry in human body in 80BC. During 15th century, Alberti describes proportion in design induces pleasure and emotions. Renowned artist & scientist, Leonardo Da Vinci, emphasized on proportion as the primary element for inducing beauty in geometry, human body and cosmos. Whereas, Sir Uvedale Price, argued that “Picturesque” landscape is beautiful without traditional believes of symmetry in design.

Psychology is a field of science which study human mind and its functioning. In 1890s, psychologist William James proposed “law of association” describing linear relationship of sensation, perception, idea and action. He believed that aesthetic emotions arise from sensation of certain lines, masses, combination of colors and sound. The primary pleasure of these feelings is Beauty. Sensation results in physiological changes induce emotions. During 1950s, Koffka, Wertheimer and Köhler proposed Gestalt Laws of Perception. Perception is a unitary process of holistic arousal from combination of mosaics of information gained from multiple sensations through nervous system. Thus beauty in design becomes subjected to an individual’s perception, in other words, they are relative instead of being bound by the strict rules of definitions.

A design can be perceived through physical as well as psychological dimensions. Whereas physical aspects are evaluated on the basis of principles of design, on the other hand, beauty becomes a rudimentary mental realization to be judged in terms of harmony in design. And beauty leads to triggering of subconscious emotions at times, more often than we care to realize. Since, our mind processes knowledge by combining multiple information gained from various sources and senses, every individual has a unique perception regarding the idea of beauty, leading it to become a subject of realization. Thus, Hungerford’s famous statement “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” becomes true to the context of philosophical, physical as well as psychological explorations in beauty.