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The notion that beauty is subjective has permeated our culture in such a way that some might think it unreasonable to speak of Beauty “herself”. I, however, cannot help but pay heed to the words that a Mantinean woman spoke to Socrates in his youth: “It is at this place in life, in beholding the beautiful itself, my dear Socrates, that it is worth living, if—for a human being—it is [worth living] at any place.” Images of beauty abound in the world that surrounds us. Contemplating the colors of a picturesque fall afternoon, I’m reminded of the scenic sunsets behind the Agua Volcano in Guatemala that I saw as a child, and hearing a jazz ballad sung in Ella Fitzgerald’s charming voice takes me back to the apartment where I flipped through pictures of Frank Lloyd Wright’s skillfully designed buildings and discussed them with an attractive lover. The diversity of Beauty’s incarnations is reflected in the many adjectives that can be ascribed to the things where she is present, yet there seems to be something common to them. From the lines of the sunset and the almost perfectly triangular shape of the volcano to the carefully studied proportions of architectural designs and the sharply defined muscles of an athlet