Facing the beautiful (lecture)

Traditions and challenges in facial aesthetics

Future Face of Beauty was a lecture I recently attended at London College of Fashion which comprised of a series of lectures about the nature of beauty. There were three in particular that really stood out to me and this is one of them. Young-Jin Hur MSc Psychology of Fashion Course Leader shared his findings on the psychological and scientific definitions of beauty which provided a lot of food for thought. Here are my notes:

Aesthetics

• What is aesthetics - study of pleasure and beauty 

• The experience of beauty is achieved through contemplation of unchanging forms and ideas - Plato 

• Empirical aesthetics - 

• study of aesthetic experiences “From the bottom” - study what people actually find beautiful by studying observable behaviour, rather than relying on theoretical deductions (Gustav Fechner)

• Study of interactions of artworks - e,g, our reactions to paintings, literature etc…

Beautiful Faces

• Is there such thing as a beautiful face 

• Certain object features within the face that makes the viewer think it is beautiful 

• E.g. symmetry  

Beyond Features

• Must consider individual tastes when defining beauty 

• Environmental preferences also have an influence

• Objective features also work together with context, preferences, expectations before we form our judgement on aesthetics 

What now?

• Redefine what beauty means as scientists 

• It goes beyond sexual attraction, must also consider trustworthiness, prosociality 

• Be aware of the consequences of beauty 

• Beauty in this society is idealised 

• Purpose of science: understanding , improvement, prevention