I cracked it: We store patterns in our head. And we can only store things once we have their elements. You walk into a house and it feels vague and new and you feel on alert, ready… Once you break that house into elements and memorize them, it becomes normal.
Now what is beauty? We find beauty in things that have order. We understand the algorithm behind their generation and therefore we can regenerate them.
Many years ago I saw this video that said: What media perceives as beautiful people have simpler faces to remember. It is really not that other people aren’t beautiful, it is that these people are much easier to remember.
So I guess it is like this: The more order and algorithm is behind something, we find it more beautiful as it is easier to remember. And we feel bad about the other things that are impossible to break down into elements, and order.
Think about why Bauhaus and industrial design just somehow feel “right” over a victorian design, because more and more we have rules that are coherent, and easier to grasp.
Now there is of course a very interesting zone that defines beauty, too much complexity and it feels mysterious and hard to comprehend, no one naturally remembers Château de Versailles other than those who have looked at French architecture enough to remember all the elements that have made the place (although they as well would have a hard time), and then the Flat design for example is crap as well, it has nothing to digest.
But then think about Apple’s liquid glass. Why is it so beautiful? Because it is a perfect algorithmic glass, we understand glass and a glass that always perfectly reflects gives us enough variety on the looks and designs, but we still can understand its element and algorithmically store it (as it always renders given one rule…)
There is so muuuuuch to understand about beauty. But I assure you, the fact about algorithmic storing is basically the “coherence” and “harmony” all artists talk about.