(In response to a post arguing that beauty is subjective, and dependent therefore on the viewer.)

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

It's always good to challenge conventional wisdom.

A few quick arguments about "beauty" in art from Kant.

"Beauty" is always ascribed by language to be a characteristic of it's object, not a judgement of the viewer. I.e., in "the painting is beautiful," beauty is a characteristic of the painting, and nowhere in the language is there a default allowing that it's the opinion of the observer. The same syntax is applicable in German and Turkish. I'd presume it's pretty universal, but don't know that for sure.

Kant does presume that the observer has "good taste." I allow that a calendar photograph of a fluffy kitten is indeed considered to be beautiful by a great number of people, but their pronouncements must be disregarded as those of people without "good taste." And I believe that the preconditions to "good taste" include an intellect, study, and a longing for beauty. Beauty must be something thought about and understood. Just because my Uncle Mildred likes something doesn't mean shit. And, "I don't know about art, but I know what I like," is a lame excuse for ignorance, not a justification of a theory of multiple standards of beauty.

Though "beauty" in this context has to do with art, I'd like to directly confront your example of the missing teeth. The condition of missing teeth is not sufficient to make an individual beautiful, as long blonde hair is not a sufficient condition. If missing teeth were sufficient, then all who knocked theirs out would be beautiful - or 100% of the (female) population is capable of (feminine) beauty. And, Lake Wobegone aside, there is no condition in which the population is all above the average for the population. Both missing teeth and blonde hair may be aids, and I'm sure my Uncle Mildred would find any old blonde attractive. There must be other considerations as well, such as bone structure, skin conditions, etc. Cindy Crawford would also look beautiful missing two front teeth - or as a blonde.

(The preceeding "blonde" noise could just as well have referred to lipstick. Don't anyone get in my face about it - please.)

I'd also like to point out that sexual attractiveness among "Africans" has a very wide range. Uwe Ommer's book Black Ladies shows African women who are clearly beautiful to Westerners as well as to Africans of their region. I'd guess babies shown Iman's face would gurgle nicely too. (After a bit of consideration, I'd like to add Alek Wek, as well - ed.)

OK, still sticking with women rather than artistic beauty, we've learned that the universal male standard of female beauty has it's roots (sociobiologically speaking) in probability of fertility. Young, untouched by disease, smelling not like family, stuff like that. Those characteristics may carry over a bit differently into different cultures, but clear skin, good musculature, posture, and youth are pretty much universal.

I'll stick with the objective nature of beauty for art. And I think there is a pretty good argument for universality of beauty for women as well, though that was sort of a tangent.

For photography, I simply don't believe that photographs can't be judged good or not, just because the photographer somewhere has an Uncle Mildred (or a herd of me-too photographers) that likes them. One sure sign is that if your first reaction is to analyze the photograph, it's already not beautiful. A beautiful one captures you with an immediate aesthetic experience.

-Don