What does ‘to be beautiful’ mean? And what is the beauty? It has been always seen as an universalia, as something requiring no analysis in the popular consciousness. Working on this project I tried to analyse the beauty and its display.
In the view of Plato, beauty is not something attached to a certain thing, it is rather its perception by an inspired human who admires it. That means the thing is not beautiful per se, it is the human who sees the beauty in it. But people tend not to see the beauty in temporary, non-eternal things. And while Plato is a western philosopher, it is important to look at the problem from the other side.
In Japanese culture there is a term ‘Mono no aware’ meaning ‘the pathos of things’. According to Japanese aesthetics beauty can be seen as the things that wither and pass away, as do flowers. Withering and observation — that is the beauty. This conception is also important for understanding Ukiyo-e, ‘pictures of the floating world’. It tries to catch this passing beauty.
The photo may also work this way, catching the beauty we tend to deny, and the photo as a symbol can
