The Concept of Beauty

Beautifull is a misspelling of the word “beautiful” that is used to describe things, people or places. The term beauty can be used to refer to the appearance of someone or something or it can be used to express a positive emotional state, such as love and joy. Some common synonyms for beautiful are pretty, charming and attractive. The word beautifull can also be used to describe a person’s features, such as their skin tone, eye color or hair.

The concept of beauty has a long history in philosophy and art, with the debates surrounding it extending to broader cultural issues. Aquinas, for example, defines beauty in terms of integrity and proportion: “Beauty is the perfect harmony of those parts of an object that are most worthy of praise, so that each part is proportionate to the whole” (Summa Theologica I, 39, 8).

A recurring theme in ancient treatments of the subject is to emphasize the pleasures induced by a perception of beauty. For instance, Plotinus writes that “beauty is that which produces in the beholder a feeling of wonder and delicious trouble and trembling that is all delight” (Ennead I, 3).

Eighteenth-century philosophers such as Hume and Kant, however, argued that an objective sense of beauty was essentially impossible to attain, given that people respond to different objects with varying degrees of pleasure. They further noted that people with certain illnesses or conditions may see colors differently, such as the fact that to a person with jaundice the world takes on a yellow cast and that the same object can appear different in various light settings.

Despite the philosophical objections to an objective sense of beauty, many contemporary writers have continued to debate it. For example, there was a revival of interest in beauty in something like the classical philosophical sense in the 1990s, partly centered on feminist-oriented reconstruals or reappropriations of the concept (see Hickey 1993, Brand 2000, Irigaray 1993).

In addition to these philosophic approaches, some modern artists have sought to define the concept of beauty more broadly in terms of the experience of it. In particular, the artist Andy Warhol suggested that the concept of beauty could be defined as an aesthetic experience, in which one is able to identify what is beautiful and why it is so.

Abbie Smith Sprunger is a writer and mother who works alongside her husband, Micah, as caretakers of Wesley Gardens Retreat in Savannah, Georgia. She is the author of multiple books for young adults and families, as well as an avid blogger. She lives with her daughters, Elliana and Aaliya, and son, Micah Jr. She is an advocate for women’s empowerment and is passionate about bringing out the beauty in all people. Her blog, titled What Is Beautifull?, is a personal place to share her story of recovery from eating disorders and exercise addictions.