Expression of Art and Beauty in Rural Communities

A10 4

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Abstract

With a look at the rural communities and simpler life forms, we find out that despite the simple way of doing things and lack of modern amenities, we are still able to see various expressions of art in the objects made by rural people that they use in their daily life. Since beauty is often taken to be the measure of quality for art, the question here then arises as to the relationship between characteristics of beauty and intrinsic tendencies of human being and the question that why beauty is an inseparable part of human life even in its most simplest form. Due to their nature, human beings are complicated and have many needs. As Abraham Maslow said, in his theory of hierarchy of human needs that people’s needs fall in two categories: primary and secondary needs. Primary needs are physiological and if not meet physical disorders occur; while secondary needs are sublimed and human beings confront them only after their primary needs are satisfied and appear as innate and their absence results in dishearten and discontent. Therefore, it can be said that the need to beauty is one of the secondary needs of human beings and emerge after primary needs are meet. In this paper we take a look at Iran’s rural communities and see whether existing manifestations of beauty in their clothes, shoes, handicrafts, tools and especially in their architecture emerge after their primary needs are meet. Thus the hypothesis is that according to Maslow, beauty is an important secondary need and has serious presence even in the simplest forms of human communities. In order to test this hypothesis we first define beauty, various kinds of beauty and then valuate the role of beauty in relation to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and for this reason Iran’s rural community is chosen as a sample due to existing simplicity in its everyday life.