Whenever you hear that phrase, chances are someone is trying to settle a matter. They’re trying to disqualify all critique and escape scrutiny by implying that beauty is subjective, a matter of taste. But is it really? In this essay, I want to break this phrase down and then revisit it from a different perspective.
What even is beauty?
Beauty has long been described as qualities that please the aesthetic senses. But in philosophy, beauty has long been understood as more than a sensory pleasure. Plato, in The Symposium and The Republic, linked beauty to the eternal Forms: the Good and the True. For him, beauty was not just about aesthetics but a pathway to perfection, a visible trace of what is highest and most true. Ugliness, on the other hand, was not simply unattractive but distorted, a deviation from the real, a visible untruth. And therefore, a lie.
In The Republic, Plato even warned that art which misrepresents or deceives (mimesis) is a kind of ugliness, because it obscures truth. To present distortion as reality is to lead the soul away from the Forms. Beauty, then, was not subjective taste but an ethical and metaphysical concern: a bridge between perception and truth.
While Plato framed beauty as a pathway to eternal truth, later thinkers and poets carried this idea forward in their own language. Centuries later, John Keats famously stated “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This suggests a deep connection between the aesthetic experience and the nature of reality itself. The claim implies that beauty, in its purest form, can reveal profound truths about the world and ourselves. Keats presents this as a fundamental concept, stating it is “all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Not all thinkers agree, Kant, for example, separated aesthetic judgment from both logic and ethics. Still, the conviction that beauty discloses truth has endured, and it is this tradition I lean into here.
This raises the question of truth itself. Truth is often understood as correspondence with reality, though philosophers have offered other accounts, from coherence to pragmatic theories. For our purposes here, let’s stay with correspondence, because it anchors truth to something outside our opinions.
But philosophy alone does not settle the question. Our human perception complicates this ideal, urging us to reconsider how we actually experience beauty.
Now let’s start over.
Let’s indulge the broader more philosophical perspective for a moment and assume beauty is synonymous with truth. Truth is generally defined as correspondence with reality. And reality is the state of things as they actually exist, whether we recognize them or not. Which makes truth, at its core, objective, NOT subjective. This would imply that beauty is something that cannot be reduced to mere opinion.
Yet beauty is still observed, and observation is flawed. The human eye doesn’t simply see, it interprets. And interpretation is limited by experience. Sometimes we miss what is in front of us simply because we have not yet lived enough to see it.
So maybe “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” doesn’t mean beauty is whatever we choose to call it. Maybe it means that the ability to recognize beauty depends on what is in us. That in order to perceive beauty in the world, we must already hold some measure of it inside ourselves. That our ability to recognize beauty is proportional to the measure of truth we hold.
And if this is the case, then yes, beauty IS indeed in the eye of the beholder. But when someone drops that line with the intention of settling a matter, I often respond with the phrase: “then so too must be the absence thereof.” And if you’ve ever heard me say that, now you know what I mean.
Increase your measure
Creating anything is a powerful act. It is godlike to take a thought or an idea and manifest it into the world. As artists, we begin with limited experience. We start with only a small measure of beauty. At first we love everything we create, and we love it simply because it exists, because we could make it.
But over time, we look back and hate many of our creations. Not because they were worthless, but because our measure has grown. The more we create, the more experience refines us. Layer by layer, the onion is peeled back from our eyes, revealing new depth, new nuance, new meaning. We begin to see more than we once could.
And yet, when critiqued by someone else, we feel pain. We internalize disapproval and reject it. We defend ourselves with the familiar phrase: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” We say it in order to liberate ourselves from the pain. But I want to offer another perspective. As artists, our objective should be to increase the measure of beauty we hold. And to remember that anyone who critiques our work does so with the measure they hold.
Our measure of beauty grows through experience, reflection, and the willingness to see through another’s eyes. Each act of creation or encounter with critique adds to it, if we let it.
So the first response should be this: try to see through their eyes. Validate their assessment before you react. When you share your work, already brace for the sting. Slow down and let it pass before you react. Ask questions that will help you better understand their perception. Sometimes you will find they possess a smaller measure than you do. They cannot recognize your intent. This is your chance to share your measure of beauty with them, if they are able to receive it. Remember, it takes a measure of beauty to recognize it in another. And that goes for you too. Others may hold a measure you do not yet have. And the moment you allow yourself to see what they see, their measure becomes yours. And no one will ever be able to take that away.
So the next time you feel that sting of critique, ask yourself: “do I have the measure to see theirs, or do they have the measure to see mine?” These are not easy questions. It takes a measure of beauty to ask them, and a measure to answer them. It takes time, humility, restraint, reflection, introspection, and extrospection. When tied together, these become virtue, a beauty in and of itself. This is why I believe the very act of being conscious of this, and intentional about this, will automatically increase your measure.
I would like this phrase not to be used to shut the door, but to open one. Not as armor against critique or a curtain hiding our growth, but as a challenge: to expand our measure, to seek what others see, and to share what we see with them. Each act of creation, each moment of reflection, is a chance to increase your measure of beauty, by striving to understand not only the world as it is, but also the eyes that gaze upon it. Progress, humility, and connection are themselves acts of beauty. And in reaching for a greater measure, you may discover that beauty lies not only in your eye, but in your openness, your willingness to see anew. That, in the end, is all any of us can truly hold, and all we need to know.