“ Virtue itself is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that no aspect of its invulnerable to jest; and for all fairness we have to seek to the flowers, for all sublimity, to the hills”.[1]
When Immanuel Kant argues how aesthetically pleasing an entity can be he looks to nature, a comparison is made, he argues that ‘free beauty’ is proper beauty, this applies to in particular nature i.e. birds, flowers, trees.
Kant argued that both are the equal when analysing the importance of nature and that of art. Without acquiring knowledge of what is beautiful it seems from a very young age it was instilled into us that nature is pleasing to the senses. This could possibly be where the concept of natural beauty originates, where childhood, innocence and purity coincides.
Kant stresses the importance of beauty being subjective and he states that beauty is in its nature to be admired. This admiration is applied to the object from the feeling of pleasure we would obtain.
Is the application of good taste not subjective? A judgement that treats beauty as a projection of a state of mind on to an article, if it is not of a sensory output it is of a psychological state of mind established by the manoeuvre of an individual’s cognitive faculty.
Many argue that beauty is in the eye of the beholder so how can something by definition ‘beautiful’ only gain that label through popularity.
By Ellie Welsh
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