Beauty and the Visual Arts

By definition, the visual arts — painting and drawing, sculpture, photography and architecture — are closely connected to beauty. This tie is axiomatic: Without beauty, the plastic arts do not exist. Often, artists intuitively introduce beauty into their works; sometimes, they consciously do so on the basis of a formal theory. Less than a century ago, a trend appeared, particularly in advertising and related fields, that proclaimed a relationship between objects and the visual arts that was devoid of any association with beauty. However, no such relationship can exist. Attempts to express ideas by plastic means will fail if beauty does not take precedence in their outcomes.