Editing Beauty (section)

=== Classical ===
[[File:Analysis of Beauty Plate 1 by William Hogarth.jpg|thumb|upright=2|alt=An engraving depicting various statues in a yard, surrounded by analyses of their proportions|In [[Analysis of Beauty]], [[William Hogarth]] depicts the effect of changing proportions and attempts to define what proportions are beautiful.]]
The "classical conception" (see [[Classicism]]) defines beauty in terms of the relation between the beautiful object ''as a whole'' and its ''parts'': the parts should stand in the right proportion to each other and thus compose an integrated harmonious whole.<ref name="StanfordBeauty"/><ref name="BeautyandUgliness"/><ref name="DeClercq2013"/> On this account, which found its most explicit articulation in the [[Italian Renaissance]], the beauty of a human body, for example, depends, among other things, on the right proportion of the different parts of the body and on the overall symmetry.<ref name="StanfordBeauty"/> One problem with this conception is that it is difficult to give a general and detailed description of what is meant by "harmony between parts" and raises the suspicion that defining beauty through harmony results in exchanging one unclear term for another one.<ref name="StanfordBeauty"/> Some attempts have been made to dissolve this suspicion by searching for ''laws of beauty'', like the [[golden ratio]].

18th century philosopher [[Alexander Baumgarten]], for example, saw laws of beauty in analogy with [[Scientific law|laws of nature]] and believed that they could be discovered through empirical research.<ref name="BeautyandUgliness"/> As of 2003, these attempts have failed to find a general definition of beauty and several authors take the opposite claim that such laws cannot be formulated, as part of their definition of beauty.<ref name="Zangwill"/>