From a purely aesthetic point of view, I find I must concur with this gentleman. I do understand what you’re saying, though.

As a self-styled artist (a writer, in particular), I’ve arrived at several tentative conclusions about art and beauty in general and in various specifics. My mantra has become “No beauty but of necessity.”

The easiest way to explain it is by example. If I can, I’ll make a lady blush and cover her face with her hands, so I’ll use you as the example. Your eyes would not be nearly so lovely and drownable-in if they were an inch higher. Just as true, if everyone else’s were an inch higher and yours were just as they are. (Have you ever seen the Twilight Zone episode entitled Eye of the Beholder?)

Eyes are something capable of beauty only because they are supposed to be there. I then extend this necessary beauty to all forms of art. In architecture, I despise faux-columned façades. Wooden half-columns bolted to the front of the house are not beautiful, they are ridiculous. It would be as if you had peacock feathers growing from the back of your head. Sure, in and of themselves they may be decorative, but you’d still be embarrased about your “tail.”

This extends to my writing very naturally. In a narrative, nothing that does not advance the plot, setting, or character development is beautiful, because it is only so much window-dressing. In a poem, only the words which simply must be there have any place in the piece. (Consequently, I don’t tell writers to look for the right word to express their thought, but the inevitable one.)

So there. My short treatise on beauty: “No beauty but of necessity.” I believe that principle can be applied to any form of aesthetic endeavour, encompassing physical beauty, letters, the visual arts (which is why some abstracts are art and some are junk any five-year-old could do better), and even architecture!