The Western and Yoruba Concept of Beauty: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Beauty is an important phenomenon in human life that cannot be ignored. Even the sceptics and the agnostics are at breast with this term. Just as one hears of Greek philosophy, Indian philosophy, African philosophy we also hear of Aesthetics, that is the study of beauty. This could either be from Western, Eastern or African perspectives. This tends to suggest that like philosophy, Beauty is culture- relative or relative to culture. The subject of aesthetic appreciation in Western culture for example is preserved in museums, whereas in African culture, the objects of aesthetic appreciation take its roots in what Placide Tempel called vital forces, the ontological structure which permeates everything. This serves as the basis for communal values and practical reality of life. It is from this perspective that this paper attempts a comparison between the Western and African esthetical appreciation of beauty and argues the thesis that the African beauty is best appreciated by means of African standards and paradigms of aesthetics.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 8(1), 286-296, 2011