Definition of Beauty
Beauty is difficult to define in exact terms. The author attempts to present some of the definitions through a number of publications. Selected without comment are a few thoughts starting with early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period and cont
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Definition of Beauty Toma T. Mugea
Defining Beauty To talk about beauty is always pleasant. It’s easy. Everybody have an opinion, not necessary accepted by others. You know just when you start it, but you never know when you will finish the subject. But, To have a definition for Beauty, Is not easy, It’s a balance between two points, In a continuous moving, According to the Judge perspective, According to his feelings, Or to his culture. It’s much easier to show beauty that to define it! Painting, Playing, Singing, Counting, Or thinking. You can see Beauty only comparing with something Known, Unknown, Existing, T.T. Mugea, M.D., Ph.D. Department of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery, Oradea Medical University, Oradea, Romania Medestet Clinic, 9/7 Cipariu Square, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected]
Or Not. So, Beauty has no Definition, It’s a Diamond with infinity faces, One for each of us. Just to have your own idea on this complex subject, the author selects, without comments, a few thoughts starting with early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period and continuing in our days. The Pythagorean School [1] saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. In particular, they noted that objects proportioned according to the golden ratio [2] seemed more attractive. But, Edmund Burke, in 1756 [3], describes in his masterpiece philosophic work “On the Sublime and Beautiful” the definition for beauty in a very modern and complex analysis, blaming the role of proportion and measurements in it. “By beauty, as distinguished from the sublime, I mean that quality or those qualities in bodies by which they cause love, or some passion analogous to it. I also distinguish love, or the satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating anything beautiful, from desire, which is an energy of the mind that hurries us on to the possession of certain objects. In what does beauty consist? The usual answer to this question has been that it consists in certain proportions of parts; but I very much doubt whether it has anything at all to do with proportions. Proportion is the measure of relative quantity; but beauty has
T.T. Mugea, M.A. Shiffman (eds.), Aesthetic Surgery of the Breast, DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-43407-9_1, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
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nothing to do with measurements and, as a matter of fact, the parts of plants and animals which are found to be beautiful are not constantly formed upon certain measures.” “This prejudice in favor of proportion has arisen from an impression that if deformity will be removed, beauty must result. But deformity is opposed, not to beauty, but to the complete, common form; and beauty affects us as deviating from the common. The true opposite to beauty is ugliness, and between them is a sort of mediocrity, which has no effect upon the passions” [3]. Later, in connection with his scheme for golden ratio-based human body proportions, Adolf Zeising, whose main interests were mathematics and philosophy, wrote in 1854 of a universal law “in which is contained
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