Beauty: What is it?

I want to be surrounded by beauty. It feels good. I love intricate designs and details. Some people just embody it. But what is beauty, and what makes something beautiful?

Is it something that only meets the eye? Or can a person’s character be beautiful too?

Have you seen those articles or memes about how minimalism is killing everything? I came across a thread by The Cultural Tutor that talked about how modern design has slowly stripped away detail, and with it, character. They compare different time periods, where design, architecture, and art were rich with detail. The contrast is striking. It makes it feel like time has stripped away our ability to create beauty around us, especially in newer cities and modern design.

It resonated with me.

Oddly enough, I do appreciate minimalism too. But there is something deeply soulful and heartwarming about the way those earlier periods paid so much attention to detail. You can feel it.

In philosophy and art history, beauty has often been described as harmony, balance, and symmetry. Leonardo da Vinci explored the idea of measuring relationships between parts. And we know this feeling. When we step into a space that is well curated, where everything flows, maybe even aligned with something like feng shui, we relax into it. It feels different than a space that is chaotic or disconnected.

But what is beautiful to one person is not always beautiful to another. You see people completely in awe of their partner and sometimes you think, what’s the hype?

So beauty must be individual, even if there are some shared threads like harmony, balance, and proportion.

What I really think it is feels similar to what people say about love. That it reflects something within you.

“Love is a mirror reflecting your inner world, showing not just who you love, but who you are, your hidden insecurities, and your capacity for growth. The traits you admire or criticize in others often reflect your own strengths, shadows, and level of self-love.” — Diana Skander

I think beauty works the same way.

What if I see a woman who looks nothing like me, and I still find her beautiful? How does that resonate?

It might come down to how we have been shaped. Not in a negative way, just through experience. Your first encounters with beauty, the people, the environments, the textures, the colors. Maybe something about her connects back to those early impressions. Something familiar, even if you cannot name it.

So I think it is a mixture.

Beauty often carries elements of order, pattern, symmetry, harmony, and balance. But each of us filters those through our own internal system, shaped by culture, memory, and personal experience. That blend creates our individual sense of what is beautiful.

And as far as beauty being only what we can see, I do not think so.

Beauty can exist in a person’s character. In a moment. In a relationship. In a song.

It is something we can create, not just observe.

I am on a mission to do that. To create more beauty wherever I can.

I hope you will join me.