Beauty By Influence

 While we focused a lot on our own definitions of beauty or what most of us would objectively find beautiful, we never really covered that sometimes society tells us what to find beautiful through trends and fads. The class with Stu and Trina touches on this a little bit, but throughout the eras of society, the standards of beauty (for humans, art, nature, etc) change constantly, and most people ebb and flow with it. There are probably multiple different reasons this occurs, like the change in culture, economics, and societal standards, and also trends set by elites. A great example of this is the story of the Mona Lisa. When it was first created in the early 1500s, many artists agreed that it was not Leonardo Da Vinci's best work, and even considered it to be quite plain. It was not discussed in the art world and was purposely largely ignored due to it being a disappointment. Interest in the painting did not come about until the 1800s when writers eventually started to add it to their works. The true turning point came when the painting was stolen in the 1900s. After its return, everyone was interested in the painting that had originally just been hanging on a wall in a gallery. Today, it is one of the most known pieces in the world, that is not to say that everyone finds this painting beautiful, but a lot of people do, and those people might not have ever heard of the painting unless it had gotten stolen over 100 years ago.