Mechanics Of Beauty

Words by Makan Negahban

Flesh no42. Mixed media. Makan Negahban. 

I’ve often heard it said that modern and contemporary art actively rejects “beauty” and that we are worse off because of it. Wrapped in these claims is a call for a return to an appreciation of and involvement with beauty, as this relationship affords humanity a sense of meaning and order.  

This position isn’t new and neither are the responses as to why modern or contemporary art has the qualities that it has, but what was interesting to me is this call for a “return” to beauty, the implication being that there is some objective set of qualities that make a thing beautiful and that we are passive recipients and observers of the beautiful event. I find this to be misguided as it doesn’t agree with the mechanics of how we experience beauty. 

What renders something as “beautiful” has in large part to do with how we actively engage with things or events. In other words, beauty is not a passive receiving of some objective set of qualities but instead a function of an intrinsic behavioral quirk in humans to take the conditions afforded us and to find and make beauty within them. 

To begin, let’s consider the mechanics of beauty: 

A thing qualifies as beautiful if this engagement produces a “beautiful experience”, which is of an intuitive and visceral nature. It is not arrived at critically or discursively. It is “felt” and it is known in a way that all directly apprehended things are. Education, cultural influence, and critical analysis can shape a person to be more or less receptive to “beautiful experiences” from various kinds of interactions, but the point remains that the “beautiful experience” occurs. This is the quality that separates beauty from appreciation or respect, which are states that a viewer can arrive at through critical analysis.

Can the engagement with some things/events elicit this “beautiful experience” more readily than others? Surely yes. It goes without saying that on a psycho-physiological level there are certain vistas, environments, activities and contexts that agree more with our constitution than others. The Biophilia Hypothesis argues for our inherent preference for and gravitation towards the sights, sounds, and textures of nature; even if this instinct may be more or less pronounced for some populations, there is a substantial set of evidence that corroborates the idea that we benefit from having a relationship with nature. Similarly, communal activities are well documented in the pleasing and salubrious effects that they can afford people. So we must submit to the idea that there are conditions that are ubiquitously pleasing across space and time for human beings, and while a pleasing experience doesn’t in and of itself qualify as “beautiful”, they are certainly fertile ground for beauty to manifest. So it stands to reason that a predisposition to have an affectively positive relationship with certain stimuli means that we have a predisposition to experience beauty within the confines of these relationships.

But how do we account for beautiful experiences as a function of things/events which are not considered conventionally beautiful (and may even have been considered repulsive at one time or another)? How do we account for a poverty of beautiful experiences for things once enjoyed? These questions begin to pile up, and our experience shows the incredibly elastic nature of beauty. But, again, it is evident that beauty is relative but the pertinent question is can beauty be extinguished from our lives, such that we must “return” to it?

Flesh no24. Mixed media. Makan Negahban.

Flesh no23. Mixed media. Makan Negahban.

Let’s consider some fundamentals of human experience - 

We engage with the world. This engagement is characterized by excitements, horrors, curiosities, banalities, attractions, rejections, repulsions, etc. and this is an indelible quality of the human experience. We shape and organize what it is we engage with, either consciously or unconsciously, and in so doing begin to develop narratives and hierarchies of values. Within the set of what is “given by life” some things achieve the status of “beautiful”

But why would a set of conditions HAVE to make something beautiful? Is it not presumptuous to say that beauty would necessarily manifest itself? 

Consider the concept of the hedonist treadmill which describes the tendency, in spite of our conditions, to calibrate to a baseline level of happiness. I’d argue that the underlying mechanism that is at play, this emotional recalibration that disregards external conditions, also applies to how we experience beauty. In other words, if the character and quality of our affective state is conditioned largely by internal factors, and if we are to agree that the experience of beauty is an affective one, then it stands to reason that our relationship with beauty is mediated in large part by internal forces.

If beauty exists at all, it’s because we actively express something innate within us. It is almost as if we have within us reservoirs of beauty, or a natural tendency to “find” beauty within the conditions provided. Insofar as you are not in a situation specifically designed to induce maximal displeasure (i.e. torture... but even then, who knows!), even seemingly bland, sober, or ugly situations can fashion themselves into hotbeds of beauty. Unless there is some sort of seismic disruption to how humans experience life, then I don’t think beauty can ever truly be lost.

Ultimately, the case made is one for the human spirit - for the idea that beauty is in us, that we always find a way, and that to engage with beauty, despite the conditions, is our natural instinct. Beauty isn’t something waiting out there to be rediscovered—it’s something we actively bring forth. So while the shapes and expressions of beauty might change, the rhythm of how we find and experience beauty stays intact. It's part of who we are.

About Makan Negahban:
Makan, a self-taught, first-generation Iranian-American artist based in Los Angeles, initially dedicated himself to writing and performing music for the better part of a decade. He later transitioned to painting and has since participated in various group and solo shows. His work encompasses a broad range of techniques, compositions, and the application of mediums. This approach allows him to leverage the diverse array of artistic languages available to a contemporary artist, enabling a more nuanced expression and exploration of the vast ecosystem of human experience.