Humans have always been drawn to beauty. Of course, beauty standards change all the time. What one culture considers beautiful, another might consider ugly. What our own culture considered beautiful 200 years ago, or even 50, isn’t beautiful to us anymore. But that hasn’t changed the fact that we love to look at beautiful things, and even more than that, we wish to be beautiful ourselves.
If The Odyssey is so good that it is still in print after thousands of years, don’t you think it might be worth a read? If Bach is still treasured 250 years after his death, would you consider that there is something you’re missing? The question of art and beauty is not abstract and philosophical, it immediately concerns what it means to live a good life and enjoy the best possible experiences. The postmodern axiom, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, turns out to threaten your happiness! The Christian impulse, which sees beauty in the universe, grounded in the nature of God, once again matches our deepest intuitions and our critical conclusions about art, beauty and the good life.