The Concept of Beauty and Its Evolutionary Basis

Beauty has been defined by the Oxford Dictionary as a combination of qualities, such as shape and color, that pleases the senses, especially the sight [1]. Even though beauty may be difficult to define, it is easily recognizable. The fascination with aesthetics dates back from the ancient Greek times through the Renaissance to modern surgical practice. The classical position that attributes beauty to a few key specifics, such as symmetrical proportions, has been a matter of debate [1]. Human aesthetic judgment is a complicated mixture of objective, subjective, and sociocultural factors or trends. The subjective component of beauty is influenced by the individual beholder and goes beyond symmetric measurements [2]. David Hume argued that beauty is entirely subjective, a matter of feelings and emotion [3]. What is beautiful to one observer may not be so to another. Immanuel Kant also believed that aesthetic judgment is based on feelings of pleasure that depend on personal taste [4]. Plato and Aristotle viewed beauty as objective in the sense that it is not localized in the eyes of the beholder. Plato believed that beauty resides in the domain of the forms, not in the observer’s experience [3, 5]. Aristotle held a similar view and considered beauty to be defined by characteristics such as symmetry, order, balance, and proportion [3]. This chapter explores perceptions of beauty over time across different cultures, the research behind evolutionary theories, and the reasoning behind beauty ideals.