Theories of Beauty in Classic and Gothic Architecture

Architecture is about impressing self and others. Perhaps the main goal of an architect is to influence individuals and societies by her artistic passion and ideas. Therefore the judgments of individuals have centric roles in architecture. However the criteria of these judgments have been changed through the time, locations, and societies. One of these criteria is indeed the sense of beauty and aesthetics of art and architecture.

Since the emergence of human civilisation and communities the human perception towards the beauty and what is beautiful has evolved. People from different regions, different cultures and beliefs have not seen beauty in a same way; the fact which has enormously affected on various architectural styles and thoughts through the course of art history. In ancient Egypt; what sense the Egyptians meant a thing was beautiful was the fineness and quality of used material and the thoroughness of execution (Pointon & Peltz, 1997), as it could be seen in the building of pyramids and pharaohs’ temples. Greeks architecture on the other hand had more focused on beauty as the view of symmetry and proportion. They were qualified mathematicians of the era, in this sense any object proportioned according to the golden ratio of math, proposed by Greek Philosopher and Mathematician Pythagoras (450BC), was perceived as more attractive and beautiful.

The philosophical stand toward the nature of beauty, the aesthetics of art, has evolved throughout the centuries of human experience. Up until the late 17th to the early 20th century, when the modernism philosophy has come into view in West. European thinkers of the time proposed that beauty is the cornerstone of art, and for them everything to become labelled as art should have aimed at absolute beauty (Scruton, 1979). For example Emanuel Kant, a German Philosopher, believed that the experience of beauty is a “universal truth”; in his idea for a flower to be called beautiful, all people should agree on the

References: Amborse, J. (1993). Building Structures. 2nd. ed. London: Wiley. Armstrong, H. R. (2001). Art, Beauty [online]. [Accessed 4th Jan 2011]. Available from: . Branner, R. (1961). Gothic architecture: University of California. Chapuis, J. (2000). The Metropolitan Museum of Art [online]. [Accessed 3rd Jan 2011]. Available from: . Characteristics of Gothic Architecture [online]. (1915) [Accessed 29th Dec 2010]. Available from: . Cobb, W. S. (1993). "The Symposium" in the Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato 's Erotic Dialogues. New York: State University of New York. Cross, R.C. (1964). Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary. London: Macmillan. Davies, B. (2004). Aquinas: An Introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. Frankl, P., Crossley, P. (2000). Gothic architecture. Second. ed.: Yale University Press. Palmer, A. L. (2008). Historical dictionary of architecture: Scarecrow Press. Pointon, M., Peltz, L. (1997). History of art: a students ' handbook. Fourth. ed. London: Routledge. Scruton, R. (1979). The aesthetics of architecture: Methuen. Spark Notes (Immanuel Kant) [online]. (2007) [Accessed 10 th Jan 2011]. Available from: . Stoddard, W. S. (1972). Art and architecture in Medieval France: Medieval architecture, sculpture, stained glass, manuscripts, the art of the church treasuries: Westview Press. Tzonis, A., Lefaivre, L. (1986). The aesthetics of architecture. First. ed. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Vasari, G. (1998). The lives of the artists: Oxford University Press. Vitruvius Pollio (1960). Vitruvius the ten books on architecture.. New York: Dover Publications.