… the neuroscientist Semir Zeki, who pioneered the so-called science of neuroaesthetics, offers an explanation of why we share the same appreciation of beauty as the ancient Greeks. Roughly, it’s because our brains are wired to seek symmetry, and symmetry is what makes for beauty. And yet, the most symmetrical faces in the exhibition, such as those of the kouroi, aren’t beautiful but rather appear as eerie pastiches of beauty. They are unsettling rather than attractive. The ancient Greeks knew that true beauty is not a question of symmetry but rather of balance, a reflexive notion that can’t be hardwired because it’s responsive rather than programmed.Robert Herrick knew this:
Delight in Disorder
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
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