Schönheit, Kunst

Nowadays beauty is felt to belong primarily to human art and therefore it is the object of art theory. In antiquity, by contrast, beauty is first attributed to physical objects. In Greek philosophy before Platonism it was thought to be based on symmetrical relations. For Plotinus, however, the doctrine of beauty is connected with his ontology: Every being has beauty insofar as it is being. So the degree of beauty depends on the degree of functional unity, i.e. the perfection, which a multiplicity of parts has reached. Discovering traces of beauty around her the human soul is fascinated, feeling an erotic desire and climbing up a hierarchy of beauty that begins from bodily beauty and, via soul and Intellect, ends up with the One as the principle of all beauty. Analogously to natural beauty, the beauty found in human technique and art also depends on the degree of unity the artist realizes in matter. As it shapes its sensible objects by leaving aside all physical contingencies, art can provide a more perfect insight into the essence of immanent forms than nature could. Thus art can fulfil an anagogic and pedagogical function.