The concept of beauty has given rise to a number of adamant debates and passionate thoughts throughout the centuries. From Plato to modern neuro-psychological studies, the various facets of beauty have received much attention from philosophers and laymen alike.
One of the most difficult aspects of beauty is its relationship to the individual’s response. In some cases, this has been summed up as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but this does not really capture what is at stake. To the extent that a particular work of art or object of nature is deemed beautiful, it has to have some kind of appeal that is not simply localized within the head of a particular experiencer but which connects observers in communities of appreciation. It is this intersubjective aspect of beauty that was emphasized by the eighteenth-century philosophers Hume and Kant, who argued that the judgments of experts about works of art and literature tend to coincide in the long run, suggesting that the standard for beauty is not completely subjective.
To the ancient Greeks, however, beauty was not merely a matter of personal taste; it was a property that could be objectively measured by mathematics, for instance, through the ‘golden ratio’. In their view, beauty was a kind of perfect proportion that instantiated the ideal Forms of things, like order and symmetry, in man-made objects, such as a statue or building. It is in this classical treatment of beauty that the pleasures of appreciating beauty are often most intensely celebrated, as in Plotinus’s exuberant description: “To this is added a sort of divine pleasure, which is a wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love and trembling” (Ennead I, 23).
It was not until modern times that philosophers began to question the concept of beauty altogether. The emergence of Marxism and social-justice oriented philosophy helped to discredit the idea that beauty was a property that could be merely measured. Moreover, the associations of beauty with hedonism and wealth tended to discredit it as well. For example, many great works of art in the Rococo style, such as the paintings of Fragonard, were hedonist expressions of wealth and decadence, each surface covered with decorative motifs.
Nevertheless, it is possible to make women happy by giving them thoughtful gifts that show that you understand their needs. The key is to avoid compliments that focus on their looks, as these are under her control, and instead to compliment her on qualities that she can demonstrate that she has worked hard to develop: a well-trained skill, a good sense of humor, or a good taste in clothing.