"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Surely you've heard that line before. It's a notion that's been around since ancient Greece—but massaged and re-purposed for the likes of Shakespeare, David Hume and even that revolutionary pragmatist, Benjamin Franklin.
It's very easy to see why. We all have different tastes, we are all attracted to different things. Beauty, once you look beyond the fashion magazines, would seem to be an utterly subjective thing. There may even be too much variability to help direct the scientific study of physical attraction.
But as it turns out, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder after all. In fact, a neuroscience laboratory at University College London has found that our internal concept of beauty instead resides in the orbito-frontal cortex.
Such a statement requires a little more background, methinks. Semir Zeki is a professor of Neuroaesthetics at University College London and a pioneer in the neuroscientific study of love. I spoke with him at length for DIRTY MINDS: HOW OUR BRAINS INFLUENCE LOVE, SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS. When we discussed the brain and romantic love, he asked me if there was a particular poet or author who I thought captured love well. Frank O'Hara came immediately to mind. As did Margaret Atwood. Then he reminded me that any person can immediately recognize love in art and literature—and that's because we experience the same thing. Our brains can easily recognize our own experiences.
"Love is often written about in literature," he told me. "When you read these texts, you see it is irrelevant if the author was a man or a woman, or heterosexual or homosexual. The same sentiments have been appropriated to express love. No matter whom you are or whom you love, it all comes back to the idea of being united through love."
