Aesthetic Beauty Research Articles

The semantics of Félix Candela’s thin shell structures: a case study of two churches

Félix Candela’s contribution to modern architecture is internationally acknowledged. Regarded rather as structural art than architecture, his notable thin shell structures combine structural rationality, extraordinary form efficiency, and high aesthetic value. But his radical designs have so far been mainly studied from a constructive point of view. Scholars have focused on the spatial and formal characteristics of the hyperbolic paraboloids, the geometric form Candela worked most intensely with. The aesthetic beauty of these forms has also been considered only in its relation to the function, efficiency, and economy of these structures. In this article, I focus on the semantics of Candela’s structures and the meaning they convey. I use the methodology of semiotic analysis to study selected examples of churches designed by Candela in Mexico. I argue that understanding the inherent logic of the structure and reading the encoded symbolic meaning of the form leads to the intuitive perception of architectural space as a sacred place. The impact of these forms on the subconscious level is especially important in ecclesiastical architecture, which is both a community space for social gatherings and a very special personal space for contemplation and divine experience.

In situ dynamic investigation on the historic In situ dynamic investigation on the historic "İskenderpaşa" masonry mosque with non-destructive testing masonry mosque with non-destructive testing

Turkey is a transcontinental country located partly in Asia and partly in Europe, and hosted by diverse civilizations including Hittite, Urartu, Lydia, Phrygia, Pontius, Byzantine, Seljuk's and Ottomans. At various times, these built many historic monuments representing the most significant characteristics of their civilizations. Today, these monuments contribute enormously to the esthetic beauty of environment and important to many cities of Turkey in attracting tourism. The survival of these monuments depends on the investigation of structural behavior and implementation of needed repairing and/or strengthening applications. Hence, many countries have made deeper investigations and regulations to assess their monuments' structural behavior. This paper presents the dynamic behavior investigation of a monumental masonry mosque, the Iskenderpasa Mosque in Trabzon (Turkey), by performing an experimental examination with non-destructive testing. The dynamic behavior investigation was carried out by determining the dynamic characteristic called as natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios. The experimental dynamic characteristics were extracted by Operational Modal Analysis (OMA). In addition, Finite Element (FE) model of masonry mosque was constructed in ANSYS software and the numerical dynamic characteristics such as natural frequencies and mode shapes were also obtained and compared to experimental ones. The paper aims at presenting the non-destructive testing procedure of a masonry mosque as well as the comparison of experimental and numerical dynamic characteristics obtained from the mosque.

Moral and Political System as Objects of Aesthetic Beauty and the Case of Shelly

Researchers and critics, most of the time, have drawn the poets of revolutionary and political ideologies and ideals to the description of aesthetics qualification. Percy Bysshe Shelley's aesthetics of Romanticism tackles a new dimension in appraising and understanding the Romantic spur of poetry. The aspect is aesthetics as a moral and political system of Romantic poetry. In this study, Shelley has been studied from the lens of moral and political dimensions as to how through moral and political engagements, he resisted the prevailed system. The method used for such investigation was textual analysis. Shelley's works hold reformist, moral, political, and radical bases, thus motivating his people from within. In a similar pattern, the poet tries to shape his work in a way that intensely substantiates his idealism for the transformation of sustained rigid structure prevailed that time throughout England, especially, and Europe in general.

On the epidemic of food waste: Idealized prototypes and the aversion to misshapen fruits and vegetables

Food waste is a significant problem and consumers’ tendency to reject misshapen produce has been identified as a key contributing factor. The current work investigates the implications of consumers incorporating aesthetic beauty into their prototypes—mental renderings—of fruits and vegetables. It is proposed that consumers have idealized prototypes for produce and this impacts the aversion to misshapen produce. The authors draw on prototype theory to predict that consumers’ personal experiences will influence the extent to which their prototypes for these foods have been biased towards aesthetic beauty and, consequently, how they respond to produce that is misshapen. Across three studies, the authors demonstrate that consumers who have direct experience with produce cultivation view produce that is low in aesthetic beauty as more prototypical, less disgusting, and more desirable. This work contributes to the food waste literature by offering novel insights into the psychological basis of the aversion to misshapen produce. These findings also present important implications for food policy.

Reading Keats’s “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”: The Materiality and Mortality of the Fragmented Marble

Keats’s sonnet “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” (1817) records the poet’s aesthetic reaction to Greek marble statues installed in the British Museum, which were originally part of the Parthenon in Athens and transported to Britain by Lord Elgin. The marbles’s aesthetic effect on Keats, I would argue, is inextricably bound up with his instant recognition of their materiality, which becomes plainly evident to him in their fragmentary state. The syntactic fragmentation of Keats’s sonnet (especially its sestet) appears to imitate, ekphrastically, the fragmented forms of the sculptures. The aesthetic experience related in the sonnet arises from Keats’s intense awareness of the decay of the marbles: they have eroded away over time and were cut into pieces by man’s activity. In Keats’s view, the aesthetic power of ancient artifacts has a basis in their material limits. While most of the enthusiastic reviews of Elgin’s collection at the time disregarded its fragmented condition, Keats is made painfully aware of that condition―perhaps thanks to his lack of in-depth knowledge of classical Greek art―and thereby of his own mortality. In his sonnet on the Parthenon marbles, thoughts of materiality and mortality are closely interwoven. The state of physical deterioration to which even the great art of the past succumbs―that is to say, the obvious fact that even the marbles do not outlast time―forces him to contemplate his own death, and further, the fragility of poetic fame. The broken nature of the marbles held in the museum leads Keats to appreciate their aesthetic beauty in relation to the history in which they are steeped. The material decay that temporality has caused to the Elgin Marbles overwhelms the poet with a sense of mortality, fate that he himself and all artistic achievements, perhaps his own poetry, cannot be spared.

Aesthetic Beauty of Old English Poetry: A Critique

An examination of 23 Old English expressions of good aesthetic feelings is the subject of this essay. These expressions have to do with looks, character traits, and pleasant memories. In order to have a better understanding of how Anglo-Saxon English people saw aesthetics, this research is being undertaken. Here's how I went about creating one: The database was built using a variety of software and lexical tools, as well as a variety of corpora. I used a variety of sociolinguistic criteria to annotate the evidence in the corpus. After analysing these pieces in detail, it became clear that the Old English poets used two distinct approaches to describing beauty: one focused on the object's objective aesthetic features, while the other emphasised the subject's subjective experience of it. In religious writings, these two alternatives were often combined.

VIOLATION OF PATIENT’S LEGAL RIGHTS IN AESTHETIC BEAUTY CLINIC

Beauty Clinic is an outpatient health care facility that provides medical services(consultation, examination, treatment, and medical action) to overcome variousconditions / diseases which relate to person's beauty (aesthetic appearance) that is performed by medical personnel (doctors, dentists, medical specialist, and dentalspecialist) based on their expertise and authority. However, behind the rapid growth of beauty clinics, there are several negative sides and one of them is when the consumer has already paid costly for beauty products services and beauty services, the consumer experiences complications in its use which actually worsens the condition of consumer's skin. Moreover, it needs efforts from authorized stakeholders in order to protect legal rights for aesthetic beauty clinic patients. Various methods and motives of violations which are committed lead to mere profit. Furthermore, the research method that was used in this research was legalsocial (non-doctrinal) research method by an interactional (micro) approach with qualitative analysis or qualitative methods.

Aesthetics and morality judgments share cortical neuroarchitecture

Philosophers have predominantly regarded morality and aesthetics judgments as fundamentally different. However, whether this claim is empirically founded has remained unclear. In a novel task, we measured brain activity of participants judging the aesthetic beauty of artwork or the moral goodness of actions depicted. To control for the content of judgments, participants assessed the age of the artworks and the speed of depicted actions. Univariate analyses revealed whole-brain corrected, content-controlled common activation for aesthetics and morality judgments in frontopolar, dorsomedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Temporoparietal cortex showed activation specific for morality judgments, occipital cortex for aesthetics judgments. Multivariate analyses revealed both common and distinct whole-brain corrected representations for morality and aesthetics judgments in temporoparietal and prefrontal regions. Overall, neural commonalities are more pronounced than predominant philosophical views would predict. They are compatible with minority accounts that stress commonalities between aesthetics and morality judgments, such as sentimentalism and a valuation framework.

Beauty and the reef: Evaluating the use of non-expert ratings for monitoring aesthetic values of coral reefs

Aesthetic values are a key driver of tourist and recreational visitation to natural areas and are listed among the selection criteria for World Heritage properties. However, assessment and monitoring of aesthetic values in natural areas, and coral reefs in particular, have proven to be challenging. In our study we explored the value and limitations of a rapid assessment approach involving non-expert ratings of aesthetic beauty as a potential tool for long-term monitoring of aesthetic values in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Australia. We investigated the sensitivity of a rating scale for detecting change and sampling requirements for monitoring, as well as observer biases, using an online survey of 1417 Australians in which respondents rated the aesthetic beauty of 181 coral reef images on a ten-point scale. Our results show average aesthetic rating scores ranged from 4.35 to 8.34 on a scale from 1 (ugly) to 10 (beautiful), with potential to detect differences of statistical significance within one point, indicating sufficient sensitivity to change for monitoring purposes. We found that a sample size of c.100 ratings per image provided a reasonable balance between cost (i.e. sample size) and accuracy (i.e. error). Older respondents (>65 years) with higher levels of coral reef visitation, experience and interest were more likely to give extreme ratings, however, there was no apparent predictor for this bias to be positive or negative (high or low ratings). Based on these results we provide recommendations to assist coral reef managers in their use and interpretation of non-expert aesthetic ratings in coral reef monitoring.

A Sustainable Approach to the Threatened Landscape Through the Visual Arts

During recent decades, global warming and rapid climate change have led to an increase in forest fires worldwide and especially in the territories of south-central Chile and Chilean Patagonia, modifying the landscape of these areas. These events generate a fracture in the aesthetic perception of territories. The natural, ancestral landscape is threatened by imminent transformation. Fire destroys its ancient forests and its biodiversity. Paradoxically, this dramatic, catastrophic action generates an image of rare beauty; an “aesthetic of devastation”, born of its ineluctable disintegration. Everything is transformed from live plant matter to the inert remains of what was once a dense, flourishing, ancient forest. The green woodland is transformed into charred trunks, charcoal, and finally ashes. Erosion threatens to change the image of our landscape and the life that inhabits it. Artistic creation reflects this implacable process, and how nature is transformed into something different; what appears to be an equilibrium of astonishing aesthetic beauty becomes an anti-aesthetic natural phenomenon with its own strange beauty, now disfigured and warped by disaster. Today violation, systematic destruction, waste of resources and the total lack of protection for our environment wake in the artist an act of reaction-creation, the representation of which through art can show this loss of equilibrium and express the progressive vulnerability of our environment and its inevitable perdition. Artistic creation is a medium which can emphasise the importance of caring for our natural heritage in order to maintain the sustainability of this equilibrium.

Forensic and Toxicological Tests for Protecting the Patients of Esthetic Beauty Clinic as the Constitutional Right in Indonesia

Esthetic beauty clinic is many people’s need, but the critical point of protection for its patients is still weak. Many problems often affect the patients of esthetic beauty clinic. Patients deserve protection of medical service standard constituting something important to maintain and to improve. Forensic and toxicological medical sciences are needed to give adequate protection to the patients of esthetic beauty clinic. Through its scientific method, the state could prove, prevent, and take action all at once against the esthetic beauty clinics operated haphazardly. The clinic selling, concocting, using, and promoting hazardous and toxic drug and cosmetic can be detected and acted on, while forensic test was intended to prove the consequence or output of esthetic beauty clinic’s service. This scientific method supported the protection and the right of patients of esthetic beauty clinic, corresponding to the constitution.

Robert Burns in soviet social commentary of 1930 – 1950s

The article deals for the first time with the systematization and comprehending of journalistic responses to the literary work of Robert Burns in the Soviet periodicals of the 1930s – 1950s. The article «Robert Burns» written by A.A. Anikst, published in №. 4 of the magazine «Young Guard» for 1938, raises the question of the historical role of Robert Burns in the development of English literature. The poetry of the Scottish poet is considered not from the position of her belonging to a certain literary direction, but from the point of view of her uniqueness, which expresses in the amazing closeness to ordinary people and melodiousness, similar to the folklore compositions of the Scots themselves. A.A.Anikst noted in the article the simplicity, naturalness and sincerity of the poetical works of the Scottish bard, who was «not a voluntary philanthropist who looked down on the people», but «a man from the masses», singing in his poems the everyday life of ordinary peasants, poor people, their joys and sorrows, having earned the worldwide fame of a folklore’s songwriter. Burns admired the author of the article not only by his cheerfulness and optimism, but also by the depth and complexity of his emotions, expressed in a sensitive understanding of nature, its aesthetic beauty, the ability to notice the smallest details, to sympathize with an ordinary wild mouse and wildflower, sincerely, together with the people, laugh over the rich, speaking out against their stinginess and emotional poverty. In contrast to A.A. Anikst, G.I. Gerasimov, the author of the article «Scottish Bard», emphasized the international recognition of R. Burns’s work, wrote about the phenomenon of finding his poems «second homeland» in the vastness of Soviet Russia, which became possible thanks to the appearance of talented translations of S. Ya. Marshak, who managed to convey not only the meaning, but also the «spirit and melody» of the works of the great Scots. The article highlights issues related to the reception of the work of a Scottish songwriter in the Soviet Union, lists the facts reflecting the extraordinary interest to his poetry by ordinary citizens, which manifested itself in a high readership demand for his books. The author of the article also wrote about the universal values sung in Burns's poems, as well as about friendship, the ability to value leisure and enjoy life despite all difficulties

Robert Burns in soviet social commentary of 1930 – 1950s

The article deals for the first time with the systematization and comprehending of journalistic responses to the literary work of Robert Burns in the Soviet periodicals of the 1930s – 1950s. The article «Robert Burns» written by A.A. Anikst, published in №. 4 of the magazine «Young Guard» for 1938, raises the question of the historical role of Robert Burns in the development of English literature. The poetry of the Scottish poet is considered not from the position of her belonging to a certain literary direction, but from the point of view of her uniqueness, which expresses in the amazing closeness to ordinary people and melodiousness, similar to the folklore compositions of the Scots themselves. A.A.Anikst noted in the article the simplicity, naturalness and sincerity of the poetical works of the Scottish bard, who was «not a voluntary philanthropist who looked down on the people», but «a man from the masses», singing in his poems the everyday life of ordinary peasants, poor people, their joys and sorrows, having earned the worldwide fame of a folklore’s songwriter. Burns admired the author of the article not only by his cheerfulness and optimism, but also by the depth and complexity of his emotions, expressed in a sensitive understanding of nature, its aesthetic beauty, the ability to notice the smallest details, to sympathize with an ordinary wild mouse and wildflower, sincerely, together with the people, laugh over the rich, speaking out against their stinginess and emotional poverty. In contrast to A.A. Anikst, G.I. Gerasimov, the author of the article «Scottish Bard», emphasized the international recognition of R. Burns’s work, wrote about the phenomenon of finding his poems «second homeland» in the vastness of Soviet Russia, which became possible thanks to the appearance of talented translations of S. Ya. Marshak, who managed to convey not only the meaning, but also the «spirit and melody» of the works of the great Scots. The article highlights issues related to the reception of the work of a Scottish songwriter in the Soviet Union, lists the facts reflecting the extraordinary interest to his poetry by ordinary citizens, which manifested itself in a high readership demand for his books. The author of the article also wrote about the universal values sung in Burns's poems, as well as about friendship, the ability to value leisure and enjoy life despite all difficulties

The collector’s world

ABSTRACT The article discusses the figure of the collector. We start with positioning the collector in relation to a lack, emphasizing that collecting is not about aesthetic beauty, pleasure or even perfectness, but primarily about filling a gap. The collection itself is merely a by-product of the desire to collect. Discussing how this desire is socially mediated, we move on to contextualizing the collector in relation to the distinction between the useful and the useless. We stress, in this context, that collecting is an inoperative praxis. This is followed by a discussion of the collector’s psychopathology in terms of affects and interpassivity. Finally, we turn to the history of the collector and to collecting as a field in sociological terms, and end with articulating a typology of the collector.

Assessing Impact of Freshwater Lake Ecosystem on Residential Property Prices using Hedonic Property Pricing approach: Evidence from Vellayanilake of Kerala

ABSTRACT The ecosystem services provided by wetlands can be direct or indirect. The direct services can be mostly valued through market prices, but the indirect service like aesthetic beauty and its impact on property prices surrounding the natural resource cannot be directly measured. To single out the economic effect of particular amenity which influenced the land property prices, the advanced valuation technique Hedonic property pricing was most popularly used. In this study, it was attempted to assess using the hedonic property pricing technique, the impact of the presence of the freshwater body, the Vellayani Lake on land property prices surrounding it. The results revealed that the marginal implicit price of getting one cent of land with lake view evaluated at mean property price of Rs. 2,44250 was Rs.79171. The total aesthetic value of land with the scenic beauty of the lake was Rs. 275.92 crores.

Media, Cosmetic Surgery and Aspirational Beauty Aesthetics of the Ageing Body in South Korea

ABSTRACT This article examines how thinking about technologies of the body and beauty outside mainstream youth-focussed discourses complicates prevalent media arguments that posit aesthetic preferences in South Korean society as primarily driven by a desire to radically alter or to “Westernise” Korean bodies. This article draws on in-depth qualitative interview data, examining aspirational beauty aesthetics of a sample of 20 urban Korean women between the ages of 64 and 93. The participants were asked to reflect on the visual presence of the ageing bodies of celebrities in contemporary Korean popular culture, and to consider how this corresponded with the interviewees’ own aesthetic preferences and practices in later life. The findings illustrate how images of older celebrities are read and consumed by participants, who, rather than yearning for an unobtainable “fountain of youth”, actively identify with and aspire to beauty ideals that are considered both fashionable and age-specific. An analysis of the participants’ narratives of beauty, celebrity beauty and care of self illustrates the important role that beauty work plays in ageing women’s everyday lives as a tool to maintain social etiquette, design ageing, and maintain age-specific aspirational appearances.

Cheaters Never Prosper? Winning by Deception in Purely Professional Games of Pure Chance

ABSTRACT I argue that in purely professional games of pure chance, such as slot machines, roulette, baccarat or pachinko, any instance of cheating that successfully deceives the judge can be ‘part of the game’. I examine, and reject, various proposals for the ‘ethos’ that determines how we ought to interpret the formal rules of games of pure chance, such as being a test of skill, a matter of entertainment, a display of aesthetic beauty, an opportunity for hedonistic pleasure, and a fraternal activity. Ultimately, I argue that ‘winning the benefit’ is the only ethos that can apply in purely professional games of pure chance, and that if we interpret the formal rules according to this ethos, cheating that is undertaken with respect for the judge’s authority, but that attempts to cause the judge of the game to ‘voluntarily’ relinquish the benefit of the game by deceiving them into thinking that the formal rules of the game have been followed, is impermissible but acceptable cheating, and is therefore within, rather than outside, the game. Here, I define ‘games of pure chance’ as games in which chance is the only determinant of winning.

Methodological principles of formation land use of defense

The expediency of reviewing the bases of the classification of land in the category of defense substantiated. The classification of the land use of defense according to the degree of ecological and economic risk is determined. A logical and meaningful model of the methodological process of allocation of defense lands by types (subtypes), target and functional use is proposed. Land allocation should base on clearly defined target criteria, parameters and characteristics, the system of which determined by a specific subject area and the requirements of specific groups of land users. However, land redistribution must done according to the needs and interests of the people (society). After all, the earth, as a natural resource, depending on the value and availability of certain natural resources, performs the following functions [8]: the basis of human life, the source of satisfaction of its primary needs, the most important condition for the existence of changing human generations; • the basis of all existing biocenoses and the biosphere as a whole; • the main source of the aesthetic beauty and richness of the whole natural complex as a whole. In this regard, land use of defense must be classified by special and other modes of use and protection of land and other natural resources, by subtypes: - land use with a low degree of environmental and economic risk; - land use with significant environmental and economic risk; - land use with increased ecological and economic risk; - land use with catastrophic degree of ecological and economic risk. Using the concept of the nature of land allocation for defense and security purposes it is possible to formulate its concept. Allocation of land for defense and security purposes - is a process of land allocation taking into account the needs of the state's defense capability, as its ability to protect in the event of armed aggression or armed conflict aimed at satisfying the state's public interest in defense and security needs, with appropriate functional zone use and protection of land and other natural resources (by sub-types of land use) taking into account different degrees of ecological and economic risk. The implementation of a scientifically grounded distribution of land by types (subtypes) of land use, purpose and functional use is one of the functions of the state for the implementation of land policy in the field of defense. Thus, the essence of land allocation lies in balancing contradictions in the needs of the state's land for defense and security purposes and the availability (possibility of allocating zones of subtypes of land use) land and other natural resources of an appropriate amount and regime of land use. Keywords. Land use of defense, land categories, types of land use, land use regime.

‘I had to pop a wheelie and pay extra attention in order not to fall:’ embodied experiences of two wheelchair tennis athletes transgressing ableist and gendered norms in disability sport and university spaces

ABSTRACT When bodies move in certain contexts, it can mean very different things for different people. In our society, some bodies are more valued than others, and detrimentally, this can mean that certain types of bodies are ostracised and segregated to the outskirts of production economies and society. Dis/ability sport spaces, able-bodied sports spaces and able-bodied university spaces have been an under-researched area when considering how the body moves throughout these spaces for elite wheelchair athletes taking part in university courses. To learn more, this paper drew on feminist poststructuralism and new materialist perspectives and shared an insight into how two athletes with dis/abilities transgressed abled and gendered norms in different spaces and how they positioned themselves as athletic bodies and disabled bodies in these spaces. Employing a post-critical ethnographic design, we found that dependent on the space a dis/abled body is in constant flux as to when it feels marginalised and different (typically able-bodied spaces) and when it feels included, valued, and strong (typically dis/abled spaces). Significantly, the materiality of the institutional structures of universities, founded upon historic aesthetics of beauty dictated the physical spaces the athletes entered and created spaces of exclusion based on capitalist and ableist ideologies.

Gaming natural selection: Using board games as simulations to teach evolution.

The world is in the golden age of strategy board games, with thousands of new board games published each year, especially in the past decade (Beard ; BGG ). Recently, we have seen a rise in science‐themed board games (Jolin ). Educational games have been around for decades, but the majority of the old guard are forgettable and dull, limiting their academic value. In the past decade, however, many educational games rival games intended purely for entertainment (e.g., Cytosis by Genius Games). The newest kids on the block are a slew of fun, high‐quality evolution‐themed board games, whose elaborate mechanisms and aesthetic beauty show great promise for engaging and teaching students (West ; Coil et al. ; Chuang ). Our research group (undergraduates, graduate students, and two professors) evaluated the utility of many of these newer games for scientific education in the field of evolution. We also integrated our top‐ranked games into an upper‐level college course that explored the mechanisms that drive the evolution and maintenance of biodiversity through geological time.