Why Beauty is More Important Than You Think

The nuts and bolts of running a museum—operational hiccups, budget limitations, and the pressure to define measurable learning outcomes—can distract us from the more profound aspects of childhood, which lie at the heart of every good museum’s mission. Our mission statements remind us that we serve the causes of inspiration, creativity, and curiosity, but it’s not always easy to keep those values at the forefront.

I recently wrote about the need to revive children’s sense of wonder amid a lockstep educational system. Museums, too, can lose sight of the child’s spirit, prioritizing logistics and efficiency over aspirations such as wonderment. But perhaps the greatest loss is that of beauty. In our “get it done” culture, beauty is often the first thing sacrificed in the name of practicality.

The cost, however, is deeper than we realize. As poet John O’Donohue writes, “Beauty is not a luxury, but a necessity of the soul. Without it, the soul becomes numb, depressed, and weary.” While the consequences may not be immediate or obvious, an ugly world is profoundly impractical. We need beauty to sustain our human spirit—and children need to encounter beauty if they are ever to develop such a spirit themselves.

What Is Beauty?

In everyday language, “beauty” is often a feel-good word, used broadly to affirm something positive: “What a beautiful day,” or “She’s a beautiful person.” These are expressions of general good will, rather than precise aesthetic evaluations. But beauty, especially in relation to art, quality of life, and childhood development, deserves a more precise definition.

Though there’s little consensus in art theory, visual cognition, or psychology, we can start with a common understanding: beauty is visual harmony. It’s the integration of visual parts into a unified whole. Patterns emerge, the elements resonate with each other, and we recognize a cohesion. The human brain is a pattern-seeking machine; we’re hardwired to find pleasure when we see the whole among the parts, which helps to reveal the nature of a thing. Discovering beauty satisfies this deep cognitive craving. As Elaine Scarry writes in On Beauty and Being Just, “Beauty quickens. It adrenalizes. It makes the heart beat faster. It makes life more vivid, animated, living, worth living.”

Beauty is also closely tied to order—it’s the visible expression of a world that makes sense. Walk through a nature preserve and you’ll encounter countless examples: the intricate pattern on a butterfly’s wing, a fresh blanket of snow, the flowing choreography of a murmuration of starlings, the chiseled geometry of bedrock. In each case, there is a regularity, an echoing of form—whether sharp or soft, subtle or dramatic—that binds the parts into a compelling visual whole.

Children’s Need for Beauty

Natural beauty has long served as a model for human design, and this includes museum architecture and exhibits. When a museum invests time and care into replacing utilitarian, office-like spaces with intricately designed, immersive environments, it makes a bold statement: beauty matters.

The first step in cultivating children’s aesthetic awareness is to surround them with beautiful spaces. These spaces might include patterned spatial compositions, nuanced materials, and unexpected inlets of natural light—light that filters, glows, or washes across a room in ways far more poetic than the standard window. Thoughtfully framed views of surrounding nature—a garden, a park, a distant landscape—can also connect children to moments of natural beauty.

The Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education emphasizes this idea. Children are encouraged to notice beauty through exotic, well-crafted materials placed throughout a space—on walls, ceilings, floors. These materials offer subtle colors, rich textures, and visual unity, inviting exploration and careful observation.

In such environments, children naturally slow down. The setting itself promotes attention, inviting the kind of deep noticing that parents and teachers sometimes encourage through games: “I spy with my little eye, something green.” But in a beautiful museum, the game is built into the space. The place itself calls to the child, urging them to look more closely and discover how every detail—every surface, every color, every form—knits together into a beautiful whole.