What is beauty?

Why are things beautiful
The answer may surprise you, but the logic is inescapable. This is one of those proofs that points to success in your own life, and proof of God. When you look at a great painting or sculpture why do you find it beautiful? The realist will tell you that your mind has evolved to appreciate balanced geometric patterns or shapes. But if you look at a balanced picture of modern art comprised only of triangles and squares of differing colors, you will not say it is beautiful and you will not feel it is beautiful. And you will hold no honest respect for it as art.

When you look at the great works of Rembrandt you define it as beauty. Why is this? If you look at an automobile designed to offer basic transportation and another that is designed meticulously to look beautiful and perform at a high level, you will acknowledge the beauty of the latter and the utility of the former. You will hold in your mind and in your heart a kind of reverence. Now consider some of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch which depict suffering and hell. While aesthetically you may not define these as beautiful you still appreciate them, admire them, and feel somehow captivated. Lastly let us consider a famous equation that many have described as beautiful; E=MC2. Why is this seen as beauty? And what is the common thread among all of these things? All of them are clearly the result of a great deal of work.

The post modern artist may be provocative, but when no work goes in to the product, the art must be subsidized and we are told must be seen as art through a filter, or as seen in context. In context with what? We are never told. When we question the designation of something as art we are told that we do not understand it. The fact is you understand it all too perfectly. It cannot be art, because there is no work involved. Consider for just a moment the things around you that you consider beautiful, or that you admire and respect. From a well manicured lawn, to a fine piece of furniture we celebrate the craftsmanship that went in to creating the object. The more we consider what we perceive as beautiful and admirable the more profound the logic. There must be a great deal of work behind the object or we will not consider it either art or beautiful.

The secular atheist, the realist, and the pure objectivist will tell you that this is correct and to be expected. Evolution and life experience have led you to a point where you understand that the result of work brings value to life. A great painting eases the mind and turns your focus away from anything but itself for a time. This is refreshing. The well crafted piece of furniture provides exceptional utility and it lasts a long time. When we see the detailed adornment, and we know this was done by man, we reason that the man put the same level of quality throughout the piece. Thus our perception of beauty is just our natural way of acknowledging value. Why then do we say that flowers are beautiful. Why does a snow capped mountain range, a blowing field of wheat, or a painted desert take our breath away? For the same reason the Rembrandt painting inspires you. God’s work and creation are behind the flower and the mountain range. This of course is not a mathematical proof of God. I believe that logically this will always be out of reach of man’s mind, and that is by design. But when you reason through the process and build logic based on observation you start to build a rational case for the nature of beauty. When that case is built soundly upon observances of human beings and the world we inhabit, does it not make sense that the same logic may hold true for God? As we change our focus away from the single piece of evidence and towards the mounting bits of evidence as a big picture it turns out that God is hiding in plain sight.