For the past few months, I’ve been working on a theory of art with a specific goal: to define it. Yes, I want to put into words what we mean when we say, “this is art.” That desire has grown over the years—since I first stepped into the art world. I’d be unfair to my grandmother if I didn’t say it started with her. She was a painter, and she gave me the brush early on. As much as she hoped I’d be the next Diego Rivera, I was terrible. But the passion didn’t fade. It just moved from painting to paintings. I became an admirer.

​

Then there was my grandfather, who introduced me to classical music and opera. He felt like a character from a film: elegant, self-made, a banker with impeccable taste, above-average height, a love for history and churches, and a passport filled with entries to almost every country in the world. He would take me to New York, and once, we visited the MET.

​

Years later, as a teenager, my mother gave me a book. That changed everything.

​

Over time, my taste in the arts has grown and refined. I consume more and of better quality. I’ve also become stricter, although I didn’t realise just how much until recently. While writing my theory of art—which will eventually support the full definition—I’ve had to explore areas I had only glanced at before. This time, I dove deep. And what I found was a philosophical ground as rich as one can imagine. What struck me most was how that ground operates at a level of abstraction that, by itself, brings pleasure to the mind. I keep finding moments where I break through mental walls, just humbly trying to understand.

​

At the core of all artistic theory lies one thing: beauty. It has always been the most common aesthetic feature, experience, or judgment that we encounter in art, whether as an artist striving to create something beautiful or as an admirer seeking it in every artwork. But clearly, art isn’t only about beauty. Is it?

​

There are works that evoke pain, horror, desperation, and even disgust. That’s precisely why we can’t build a definition of art on the assumption that beauty must be present. Art can enhance a range of emotions. Another obstacle—commonly raised—is that beauty is “subjective.” What looks beautiful to me might not be for you. Imagine the chaos of a definition built on purely subjective terms. 

​

But the more I study beauty, the more intrigued I become. We’ve all experienced it, but do we know its origin? How does it arise? Where is it located—in us, or in the thing we’re looking at?

​

The first and most intuitive answer is to look for beauty in the object itself, as if all beautiful things share a trait that makes them beautiful. The second is to say that beauty is in us—a psychological response, perhaps, to something in the object. But both of these views have problems. We still haven’t identified any common trait that unites all beautiful things. And we don’t have a satisfying psychological explanation of beauty either.

​

So, how can we understand it? One answer comes from philosophy—and it’s brilliant. For Kant, one of the most important thinkers in Western philosophy, beauty is a pre-cognitive, pre-linguistic, non-conceptual, non-intentional content of judgment. That sounds complex, but what he means is simple: beauty occurs when our senses encounter a form for which our understanding finds no fitting concept. If you’ve ever experienced real beauty, you’ll remember struggling to describe it. That’s because beauty can’t be pinned down—it doesn’t exist as a thing. It’s something we judge to be there. When we say “oh, that’s beautiful,” we’re pointing to something that arises in us.

​

There are two components at work: the activity of the mind searching for a concept (and failing to find one), and the feeling that this failure causes—pleasure. All beautiful things give us pleasure. But not all pleasurable things are beautiful. Pleasure cannot cause beauty. Neither can intellect. But when they appear together, something happens. Then we can say: that is beauty.

​

Beauty is not in the object, though the object is a condition for it. Beauty is in the subject—in us. Sadly, we cannot summon it at will. That’s why beauty is not at anyone’s disposal. Though clearly, it has its favourites—just ask Wagner.

​

In Kant, in Plato, and in others, beauty occupies a sacred place. It is pure, untouched by the degradations of the mind. An encounter with beauty feels like contact with something that does not belong to this world. That’s why it has always commanded respect.

​

As I explored all this, I realised something unsettling. My taste has quietly grown more severe. I pretend to like more than I actually do. Over time, I’ve learned to hide it, but I wasn’t always honest with myself about what I truly liked and what I was forcing myself to admire. That was a mistake. Not a deliberate one, but still a mistake. It took me time to understand that true experiences of beauty are undeniable. They arrive uninvited and can’t be ignored. Everything else we like is just that: “likeable.” But when beauty shows up, there’s no doubt.

​

Of course, beauty can be hidden, and we must train our sensitivity to detect it. That begins with education, or at the very least, with an intellectual effort to recognise quality. There are a few creators of beauty out there. But there is hope. Millions of us still possess the capacity to experience it. And as long as some geniuses remain at work—or at the very least, as long as we continue to preserve the masterpieces of the past—then we’ll be fine.

​

Even if we end up drowning in a sea of noise, nonsense, and artistic trash—like so much of contemporary and conceptual art—there will be one last saviour: nature. There is always beauty in nature. Endless. Flawless.

​

And if one day we lose even that, then we still have one place left to look. God.

​

As long as God exists, there will be beauty.

​

And maybe, just maybe—there will be beauty in hope.