Dr. V.K. Maheshwari, Former Principal
K.L.D.A.V(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
Before we discuss the psychology of aesthetics, it is necessary to make few things clear about the concept of beauty.
The first and foremost is to define the concept of beauty. From the lay-man point of view ,beauty is the effect one feel after receiving or perceiving any stimulus, concrete or abstract. This effect can be pleasing or repulsive.
Actually the above point refers only about the effect of beauty, but” what” aspect of the basic question is still unanswered. Actually beauty is nothing but an equilibrium among the various inherent components in anything, may it be music. Painting, literary work , a thought in philosophy or anything in nature including biological structure or social and cultural impact factors.
Another problem area is determining the nature of beauty, is it subjective or object oriented/ objective?.
The supporters of subjective nature give some significant arguments like,” for the mother, her child is the most beautiful child” or “ why we feel attracted towards one person in one situation and for the same person we may feel the opposite in different situation”
The supporters of the object oriented view argue like, “The sculptures of Ajanta cave , paintings of Leonardo , classical music, or poetry of Rabindra Nath Tagore are beautiful ,if you fail to appreciate them , it is due to your ignorance . So the fault lies in you not in the object.
Both types of arguments carry weight. So it can be concluded that the nature of beauty is both subjective as well as object- centred/ objective.
There can be few topics more certain to lead to furious discussion than those related to aesthetics; there can be few topics within the realm of aesthetics more certain to arouse normally peaceful artists, philosophers, and aestheticians to a pitch of uncontrolled imagination than that which has given this article its title. The idea that objects of beauty, as well their creation and appreciation, are subject to scientific scrutiny appears abhorrent to most people, even as the idea that physicist might study and analyse the colours of rainbow with his objective methods was abhorrent to their grand- parents. There appears to exist a fear that clumsy handling might crush the butterfly wings; an idea that analysis may destroy what is intending to study.
Associated with this fear is perhaps another. Most people hold views regarding aesthetics which they are extremely unwilling to give up, although these views are not based on any objective facts. Indeed the very idea that one’s views ought to be related to factual evidence is usually dismissed, and it is asserted that subjectivity reigns supreme in this field. This, of course, is a tenable view; t is contradicted, however, by the well known tendency of most people to argue about their aesthetic views, often with great acerbity, always with great tenacity, never with that humility witch the hypothesis of complete subjectivity should engender in them. If aesthetics judgements are completely subjective, there would appear as little point in argument as in scientific experiment; if the one is permissible, so surely is the other. Perhaps the objection to scientific investigation is in part due to a fear that facts may be more potent than arguments in forcing one to give up a cherished position, and to acknowledge certain objective factors which one would prefer to overlook.
However that may be, there can be little doubt about the hostile reaction which psychology has experienced on all sides when it attempted to introduce scientific method into the study of aesthetics. A good deal of this hostility is probably based on misunderstanding.
How, then, does the psychology start? He notices that certain type of judgements are made frequently of certain objects; these judgements are phrased in terms of ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly, or some synonymous terms, and apply to various combinations of colours and shapes, as in visual arts; words, as in poetry; or sounds, as in music. The essential datum, with which he deals, therefore, is a relation-a relation between a stimulus (pictures, poems, piece of music) and a person who reacts to this stimulus in certain conventional ways. Usually the response is a verbal one, but it is possible, and has been found useful in certain situations, to record physiological reactions indicative of emotion, such as heart-beat, skin temperature, or the electric conductivity of the skin.
In analysing this relation, the psychologist encounters a twofold problem. In the first place, he must ask himself: Just what is the physical properties of the stimulus which causes a favourable reaction as opposed to an unfavourable reaction in the majority of the subjects with whom he is working? In the second place, he must ask himself: Just what is the reason why one person reacts favourably to a given stimulus, while another person reacts unfavourably? Possible answer to the first question might be in terms of certain ‘laws of composition’. Answer to the second question might be in terms of temperamental traits or types; thus it might be argued that introverts prefer classical, extrovert romantic music.
Inevitably, the psychologist will start his work by experimenting with the simplest possible stimuli- simple colours and colour combinations, simple proportions of lines and so forth. In doing this he is following the usual path of scientific progress from the simple to the complex is here that he frequently encounters the first serious objection on the part of the philosophers and aestheticians, who claim that judgement regarding the relative beauty of simple colours or lines are not in any way related to judgements of more complex stimuli, and the consequently rules and laws derived from simple stimuli can have no relevance to what are considered ’real’ works of art. No proof is offered for the rejection of evidence, other than the subjective feeling of the critic that attempt to argue that these judgements are ‘qualitatively’ different.
How does the psychologist design his experiment? Usually he will provide a series of stimuli whose physical properties are known, and ask his subjects to rank these in order of aesthetic merit i.e. from best liked to least liked. Alternatively he may offer his subjects two stimuli at a time, with the request to say which of the two is more pleasing aesthetically; . All possible combination of stimuli are shown in this manner. Either procedure will result in an average order of preference, and experience has shown that this order will be pretty much the same regardless of the exact method used for deriving it. From this average order of ‘aesthetic’ merit, certain deduction may be made regarding the physical properties associated with high ranking and low ranking objects respectively.
It is here that another objection will often be made. Psychologists, it will be said, are treating the perception of ‘beauty’ as it were essentially similar to some ‘objective’ property like size or shape. But this can hardly be permissible; surely ‘ beauty ‘ is not a property belonging to an object in the same way that one might say the colour green or the triangular shape belonged to the object. Beauty in other words, is essentially subjective; colour shape and other properties of a stimulus are objective. How can one reasonably use methods appropriate to the study of one type of stimuli in the study of other, different types?
This objection is based on an essential fallacy, a fallacy whose hoary age does not prevent it from coming up again and again in modern discussion. An object does not ‘ contain’ the colour green in any meaningful sense of the term; it reflects light of a certain wavelength which some people experience as ‘green’ , others, who happen to be colour blind, as ‘grey’. Similarly, an object does not ‘contain’ beauty in any meaningful sense of the term; it reflects light in certain combinations of wavelengths which some people experience as ‘beautiful. Others as ‘ugly’ or ‘indifferent’.
Now it is necessary to inquire into the precise meaning of those terms, ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, which are so often used to mark the distinction between properties which are supposed to be capable of being investigated by scientific techniques- such as colour and shape- and others which are not-such as beauty. ‘Objective’ is usually taken as synonymous with ‘real’ , ‘subjective’ with ‘unreal’.But we have shown that to call a stimulus ‘green’ is far from being an ‘ objective’ description; all that we can say objectively is that the stimulus object reflects light-waves of a certain periodicity. The experience ‘green’ is subjective, i.e. inherent in the observer rather than a characteristic of the stimulus. If it is nevertheless permissible to try to link up the subjective experience and the objective stimulus in the case of colour or form perception, it is difficult to see why it should not be permissible to do the same in the case of our perception of ‘beauty’.
Now let us consider the factors and characteristics, seems to influences the determination of aesthetic judgement.
First of all, let us note that with respect to colour combination, a certain marked degree of agreement is seen which can be explained on the basis of Gestalt school of psychology. The laws of perception seems to act as a significant force in determining the variation in judgement. Factor relates to the position of the two component colours on the colour circle. The closer together the two colours are on the circle, the lower will be the aesthetic ranking of the combination; the further apart they are, the higher will be the ranking of the combination. Best liked of all are pairs of complementary colours, i.e. colours exactly opposite each other on the colour circle. It is found that those to prove to be good judges on one test involving colour combinations also turn out to be good judges on other tests involving colour combinations and vice-versa.
In the second place, it has been found that people who show good taste in their judgements of simple colours and of colour combinations also do well on the achromatic test of composition. This finding must certainly be somewhat unexpected to the subjectivist; it is accountable in terms of the hypothesis that there exist some properties of the central nervous system which determines aesthetic judgements, a property which is biologically derived, and which covers the whole field of visual art .One deduction, might be that this ability should be very strongly determined by heredity; there is already some evidence in support of this view, but it would require experiments with identical and fraternal twins to make the proof conclusive. Similarly few thinkers believe that this agreement may be due entirely to intelligence; the more intelligent may also be more ‘artistic’, and perhaps the more knowledgeable regarding aesthetic values. This hypothesis falls to the ground because intelligence correlates only to a very slight extent with ‘good taste’; certainly the correlation is much too low to account for the findings.
A more reasonable influencing factor might be one which referred the observed correlations to cultural factors ; the argument might run something like this. A person who is knowledgeable with respect to current views about the aesthetic value of certain painting would also be knowledgeable with respect to current views about the aesthetic value of different types of carpets, or statues, or any other object. Thus the test might merely measure ‘cultural knowledge’ rather than something more fundamental. This point should not be stretched too far; it is certainly is not denied that cultural influences have very great importance indeed.
Studies have shown convincingly that aesthetic preferences are also related to personality temperaments; introvert tends to prefer the older, while extroverts prefers the more modern works.
One last point should be considered. In addition to general ‘good taste’ and style preferences, aesthetic judgements are often determined by highly individualistic and idiosyncratic factors. A man may like blue because his girl always wears blue or he may show an inordinate preference for paintings of sea beaches, because these pictures reminds him of sunny summer holidays on the sandy beaches of Goa. These are extraneous factors which may be of interest in themselves, but which do not affect the determination of our average order; being specific to one individual, they tend to cancel out over large numbers. Essentially, this type of preference determinant is non-aesthetic in nature, being mainly based on associations with particular events which have brought happiness or pain to the individual concerned.