Pure beauty

Having taken Media Aesthetics this semester, at the end of the first assignment we were posed with two major questions.

1. Were we, as a group, able to come to one conclusion about which of two subjects was more beautiful/ aesthetically pleasing?
2. Is there such a thing as pure beauty?

For the first question, it was a no then yes. No because we all had different opinions, different justifications about why this certain subject was beautiful over the other. It only came to a yes when we compromised and pulled back some subjective point of views and try to look at it more objectively. We agreed that curves on architecture is beautiful, that flawless skin on people was beautiful and a catchy beat in a song was beautiful. Even though we didn't really feel something was beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, we saw that yes it looks interesting and we can all agree on it, settled.

For the second question, I think there is. However, we cannot describe or explain it in words. We find this pure beauty from somewhere inside, its an experience and if we really have to explain it, the best we can say is "it's beautiful". I also believe that it has to be something natural and not man-made. Finally, to truly know what is pure beauty, we have to be pure ourselves. Unfortunately I think most of us are corrupted all the way round. Kids and animals know this pure beauty. When kids see something pleasing they smile and laugh and both kids and animals don't walk around worrying, wondering and thinking; basically pollution of the mind and distortion of perception.

The very fact that we can discuss about whether this or that is more beautiful with valid points means our very idea of beauty has been corrupted. We actually are able to convincingly say what is less beautiful.

In terms of designing, beautiful should be replaced with aesthetically pleasing. So is there a pure aesthetically pleasing design? There's no way. Even the most humane concept; like starving children or awareness of a cause, for a design with the most warm and light hearted elements placed in it will find controversy. Besides, we work for the clients which works to please the mass of the public. Aesthetically pleasing is based on a work that gets the least amount of disagrees and, even though we may not really feel it, we can still nod and say "yea, that looks fine".