It is a natural ramification of living as a human to grow distinctly fond of artful things. Drama and music stand as old as anything. All things that win a human’s favor in this way usually hold a similar, foundational trait in common. Art is art only if it is communication. A work is artful only if, through it, stuff is said. That is its function.
With this as my starting point, I want to hunt down beauty, pin it by its tail, and drag the tip into the realm of scientific, measurable knowledge. Yes, Beauty is only Beauty when it reflects the truth and glory of God. Yes, emphatically, Beauty stretches beyond this world and pulls us into the next. But there’s a raw, material, physiological aspect to beauty that lies in the physical realm. I aim here to touch on how capacity for beauty can be an objective, measurable trait. Because of this, we should work to discern how the art around us physically affects us.
Look back at the first paragraph of this article. It lacks a fundamental tool of communication at home in the medium of English writing. It lacks the letter E. Take away the letter used five times as often as any other, and you severely limit the writer. Objectively, without E, my capacity for precision and complexity in communication drops a couple notches.
Imagine if I were regulated to just four letters of the alphabet. Could my paragraph convey as much information as a work wielding the whole gang of 26? Measurably not. Capacity for communication is limited by the variety of tools available for expression. As my capacity for conveying meaning drops, so does my capacity to convey beauty.
Variety, though, is less than half the puzzle. A language with twelve thousand visually distinct characters would be an unsightly beast. There would be too much information for the poor little human brain to digest. Variety must always be tempered by structure.
A painting made up of a million randomly colored dots objectively has less inherent meaning to offer than a painting where those million dots are structured to form a ponderous expression on an old man. The human brain is built to recognize shapes like this. A song with a spatter of unrelated notes objectively has less inherent meaning to offer than a passionate, tragic melody. The human brain is built to emote in response to sonic expressions like this.
Additionally, specific combinations of variety and structure in pitches, colors, words, shapes and textures scientifically convey specific things to us no matter where we’re from or what we wish they would convey. Certain musical intervals are scientifically stressful. Sharp angles empirically strike us as aggressive. Warm food produces a psychological effect of comfort.
Suspended above the reach of opinion, capacity to convey meaning is an objective matter of how well a work of art fits into the natural grooves of the human process of intake. Hundreds of years of experience and expertise in every artistic field imaginable cooperate to show us this. Therefore, any artistic expression can be executed effectively or ineffectively. Of course subjective taste plays a large part in how art affects us – but only in addition to universal scientific principles.
To use Kant’s terminology, beauty can be judged aesthetically and teleologically. An aesthetic judgment would be concerned with the truth, goodness and beauty of what a thing has to say. A teleological judgment would be concerned with how well that thing actually said what it set out to say. Both metrics are vital to a seeker of wisdom. Being aware of how beauty works teleologically, or physically, can help us in two ways.
First, an awareness of objective capacity for beauty in art can guide us towards making our lives more legitimately enjoyable. Modern Christianity is drowning in art that says fine things but says them very poorly. We used to make things that were designed to be as maximally pleasurable to the soul as possible. We used to use far more letters in the language of our art. Old movies rock. Strong, colorful melodies can be really fun. Ornate church buildings are really cool. Hunt such things down not out of some elitist craving for sophistication but out of a desire to have a really good time. Beauty’s barrier to entry is low, and there’s a lot of buried treasure.
Second, an awareness of the physiology of art can inform what we let shape our soul. We listen to songs. We watch shows. We paint our rooms. The content of what we decorate our lives with is often harmless or even good, while the forms that mediate such subject matter to us can be unfitting and prohibitive. The medium is the message, of course, and so is the color scheme and the melodic structure and the word choice and the shaky cam. Be careless with the letters you throw into your language and you will end up communicating something you don’t mean.
What is the media you consume telling you about God, despite the words that are being said? How does its framing affect your view of yourself? Does the way it sounds make you want the right things? Does it encourage you to be content? Does it reward patience? Does it move you to be sad? Angry? Thankful? Trusting? Is it pleasant because it augments the unsifted whims of your selfish, sleep-deprived soul? Or is it pleasant because it counteracts your natural desires and pulls you outside yourself and towards the stars?
Do some research on how specific shapes and beats and camera angles and decorations psychologically affect you. Opinions on the physiology of art have been around and well-supported since ancient times. Pay attention to how things make you feel. Attend to the state of your soul after it’s eaten something. Be a little bit of a scientist about it.
Satan often works more effectively through form and mood than he does through content. Don’t neglect the teleological judgements of life’s pleasures. Love good things that communicate in an objectively good way, and your life will be incalculably richer.
