For most people, art is synonymous with the idea of beauty. Immediately after this association, a variety of problems arise: what is beauty for me? What is beauty in general? What makes something be considered beautiful? Is beauty the fundamental category of an artwork? What is the connection between aesthetics and beauty? What remains after beauty disappears?

Independent of these categories, there is an indisputable connection between this concept and the idea of time. Since everything is transient, ephemerality offers a value that derives precisely from the fact that something that lasts forever risks becoming ordinary, no longer noticed. At the same time, as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche also observed, knowing that what we admire will disappear gives it a tragic component. This is seen in the contrast between intense emotions of joy and melancholic ones, an example in this regard being the abundance of floral themes and motifs which, most often, speak about exactly this: fugit irreparabile tempus.

Not least, from a psychological point of view, the lack, disappearance, or change of something makes us value it more, rarity being a principle that prevails over importance.

If we leave the realm of passing time, from the point of view of timelessness, beauty can also be understood as harmony or even symmetry, attributes appreciated since Ancient Greece. The ideal forms of beauty, as Plato considered them, were not dependent on time precisely because they descended from the World of Ideas. On the other hand, modern and postmodern aesthetics tend to give crucial importance to culture, history, values, and even current trends in understanding the idea of the ideal in beauty, things being very different regarding what people can consider beautiful, banal, or even ugly. 

Historical changes of aesthetic standards  

In Antiquity and the Renaissance, the ideal of beauty was based on proportions, symmetry, order, and balance. In this case, beauty was synonymous with order and harmony. In the lost treatise of Polykleitos, he explains the ideal proportions of the human body. It had to be rendered according to precise mathematical ratios in sculptural representations. Considering this, the human body was seen as a perfect microcosm, similar to a standard of universal beauty. On this background, and in the Renaissance, through Ficinian Neoplatonism, what still matters remains harmony. Leonardo da Vinci inscribes the human body using Vitruvius' principles, showing how it can be inscribed both in a circle and in a square, based on Vitruvian proportions. In painting, the Fibonacci sequence is used to build balanced and harmonious compositions, as Michelangelo does, for example, in The Creation of Adam. These idealizations are also visible in the statue of David, by the same artist, which respects human anatomy and the ancient canon, but also in numerous other pictorial works where compositions are ordered, and characters are idealized and removed from daily disorder and randomness.

In the modern and contemporary period, values are overturned. Starting with the 19th century, art begins to capture not only beauty in the conventional sense but also ugliness, the bizarre, the absurd, or the banal. This also appears as a result of industrial and social revolutions, the emergence of photography, or even the "crises of meaning" of the era, crises that led to a need to represent the inner reality as well. Beauty becomes plural, personal, and implicitly subjective. Artists like Picasso, Kandinsky, and Brâncuși begin to ignore proportions and harmony; in Picasso’s case, space is completely deconstructed, bodies distorted by multiple perspectives and geometrization. A step further is taken then by the Dadaists, who react strongly to the absurdity of war and the rise of the idea of capitalism, and begin to ironize beauty, succeeding through this to give art a much more provocative dimension. Not least, Surrealism, through names like Salvador Dali or Rene Magritte, brings to the public’s attention art that depicts the bizarre, unrest, dream, and strangeness, far exceeding the "classic" canons. 

Today, beauty is found in imperfections, collages, and unusual materials, in works with unfinished appearance. Idea and message become more important than form, and beauty is a secondary effect, sometimes accidental, something that can also be seen as a new reinterpretation of Platonic principles: if only the world of ideas is perfect, and we tend toward it through what we create, then the underlying concept should prevail. In these perpetual searches, instances such as graffiti, urban art, or street photography capture the beauty of fleeting moments, of urban chaos, of details usually ignored. 

Art beyond aesthetics 

Many artworks maintain their power due to the strong ideas or messages they convey, not just for their pleasing aspect. For example, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica shocks through its fragmented and apparently disorderly style, but remains relevant because it denounces the horrors of war and becomes a universal symbol of protest against violence. In this case, idea and social message transcend any traditional criterion of beauty. 

At the same time, art becomes part of the identity and collective memory of a community when its works become recognized symbols and bearers of meaning. For us, Brâncuși’s Endless Column is not just a famous sculpture but has become a national symbol associated with aspiration, continuity, and the spirit of the people. Internationally, Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night is much more than a beautiful image: it evokes the artist’s sensitivity and suffering and, at the same time, becomes a visual landmark for Western culture. Thus, artworks influence how a community sees its past, builds its present, and projects its future. 

Modern and contemporary artists often explore hard-to-represent areas, such as emotions, traumas, or subconscious thoughts. Marina Abramović uses performance as a form of art in which physical and psychological limits become visible to the public, as in the piece The Artist Is Present, where mere presence and eye contact with visitors generated intense emotions and reflections on vulnerability and humanity. Art can therefore also be a channel for intangible aspects of existence. 

Art that withstands time offers society a space for reflection, dialogue, and self-transcendence, going beyond mere aesthetic pleasure. Relu Bițulescu proposes such a dialogue through his series of beizadele, made from rusty sheets over which he paints portraits of “tin princes.” Not least, art becomes not just decorative but fundamental for personal and cultural development, stimulating critical thinking and consolidating the collective memory of a community. 

Beauty is undoubtedly what attracts the eye and soul at first sight, yet what truly remains after beauty disappears is much subtler and more complex. It is the idea that persists, the emotion that reverberates, the meaning that continues to challenge and shape us. Art does not live only through its pleasing forms but through the power to stir thought, to create bonds between people and time, to remind us who we are and what we cherish. Beyond ephemeral aesthetics remains a living dialogue between creator and viewer, a continuous reflection on the world and on ourselves. 

So, perhaps what remains after beauty disappears is precisely the beginning of another kind of beauty, that of understanding and deep connection. 

Ph.D. Researcher Andrei FĂȘIE