Gentle Firmness: Reconstructing Maslow: The Origins of Aesthetic Need
- Cathy Shen
- Dec 31, 2025
- 6 min read
Bosch's triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights hangs quietly in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The left panel depicts the purity of Eden, the center portrays humanity's unbridled revelry on earth, and the right panel reveals hell's darkness and punishment. Five hundred years ago, this Northern Renaissance painter crystallized human desire, fall, and redemption onto wooden panels with brushstrokes both absurd and meticulous. When I first encountered this painting in an art book, I couldn't decipher its strange symbols, yet something in my subconscious told me this seemingly chaotic scene was beautiful. It was from that moment I began to ask: What is beauty? What is aesthetic appreciation? Where does it come from, and does it truly matter?
The psychologist Maslow proposed his famous hierarchy of needs, arranging human needs into a pyramid: physiological and safety needs at the base, social belonging and esteem in the middle, and aesthetic appreciation and self-actualization only at the apex. This theory has been so influential that "one must be well-fed before discussing art" has become common sense. Under this view, aesthetics is seen as mere embellishment after material abundance—a luxury one earns only after attending to "serious matters."
Yet when I truly entered the history of art, I discovered this "common sense" stands in stark contradiction to the authentic portrait of human civilization.
Let us trace the footprints of aesthetics through human history.
The earliest evidence comes from Chauvet Cave, thirty thousand years ago. Primitive humans used crude tools to paint bison, horses, and lions deep within dark caverns. This age was an era of eating raw flesh and blood, of precarious existence—humans couldn't even guarantee a stable food source. According to Maslow's logic, they should have devoted all their energy to foraging and evading predators. Yet not only did they paint, but they also painted with extraordinary care. These murals remain breathtaking after tens of thousands of years, permanently recording the luminous moments of ancient civilization. This lesson tells us that in the very cradle of civilization, aesthetics already walked alongside humanity.
Ancient Egyptian civilization endowed aesthetics with a sacred function. Egyptians believed that perfect form could preserve the soul, as evidenced by the geometric proportions of the pyramids, the solemn postures of pharaonic statues, and the meticulous depictions in tomb murals. Here, aesthetics intertwined intimately with religion and mortality, becoming the central ritual of civilizational continuity. Ancient Greece elevated aesthetics to unprecedented heights. The Greeks first contemplated "beauty" as an independent subject. Plato believed beauty was a projection from the realm of Ideas; Aristotle analyzed in his Poetics how tragedy purifies human emotion through beautiful form. Simultaneously, the golden ratio of the Parthenon, Myron's Discobolus, and the sculptures of Praxiteles pushed the beauty of the human body to its zenith. For the Greeks, beauty was not dispensable decoration but a path toward truth and goodness.
Medieval Europe is often mischaracterized as the "Dark Ages," yet aesthetics never vanished—it merely transformed. Gothic cathedral spires pointed toward the heavens, stained glass windows transmuted sunlight into sacred radiance, and every illuminated initial in manuscripts was entwined with intricate vines and angels. Here, aesthetics served faith, becoming a ladder guiding people to look upward toward God.
The Renaissance revived a human-centered worldview, and aesthetics returned to the earthly realm. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael—these names still resound through the ages. This era's northern reaches gave birth to Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, which so astonished me in my childhood.
Surveying this history, one fact emerges with clarity: whether in caves where humans ate raw flesh and blood or beneath the shadows of pyramids, whether in the agoras of Athens or under the vaults of Gothic cathedrals—aesthetics has never been absent. Every ancient civilization placed aesthetics at its core, making it a constitutive element.
And aesthetics is essential precisely because it directly concerns the formation of personhood.
What is aesthetic appreciation? It is not simply saying "this looks good" or "that looks bad," but a composite ability: perceiving the world around us and making value judgments about what we perceive. This process engages both our sensibility and rationality simultaneously.
When I stand before a painting, I first "perceive" the warmth or coolness of colors, the flow of lines, and the tension of composition—all act directly upon my senses. But I do not stop there. I proceed to "judge": Does this painting move me? Where does its beauty lie? What does it seek to express? This judgment has no standard answer to follow; I must rely on my feelings and thoughts to formulate a response that is truly mine.
Different people facing the same painting will have vastly different responses and judgments. Some are drawn to the strange imagination of The Garden of Earthly Delights, others are touched by its moral allegory, and still others deem it grotesque and incomprehensible. These differences are not matters of right or wrong but reflections of each person's inner world. Your aesthetic judgment reveals what matters to me, what moves me, and how I see the world.
This judgment is subjective, but it is precisely this subjectivity that creates human uniqueness. A person who never makes aesthetic judgments merely accepts external information passively; they lack their own perspective or stance. A person with aesthetic capacity can discern, amid the complexity of the world, what is valuable and what is worth pursuing—and this ability is the very core of an independent personality.
Therefore, aesthetic education is not specialized training for producing a few artists but a foundational capacity for everyone to establish selfhood and cultivate character. It teaches people to see the world's richness, make their own judgments, and be independent.
Surveying human civilization, the importance of aesthetics has never been greater than in our current age.
We are entering an era of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. Code can be written by AI, articles can be generated by AI, and even painting and music are being simulated by algorithms. Those abilities once considered "hard skills" are being conquered by machines one by one. A serious question confronts us: In an age when AI can perform ever more "foundational work," where exactly does human value lie?
The answer lies precisely in those capacities that AI cannot replace—and aesthetic judgment is central among them.
AI can generate content according to rules but cannot truly "judge" what is beneficial. It can imitate styles but cannot create them; it can combine elements but cannot endow them with meaning. Creativity is based on aesthetic judgment: you must first have your own perspective and taste before you can create something original and valuable.
In other words, aesthetic capacity is the foundation of creative capacity. A person lacking aesthetic ability, even if they master every technical tool, can only execute mechanically—they cannot truly create. A person with keen aesthetic sensibility can make judgments and choices among the countless possibilities AI provides, transforming technology into truly meaningful work.
In this age of automation, aesthetic capacity ensures that a person is no longer just a cog on an assembly line but a creator who can actively endow the world with meaning.
Let us return to Maslow's pyramid.
If aesthetics were truly the apex luxury he claimed, how do we explain those primitive people who painted even while cold and hungry? How do we explain ancient civilizations that poured their life's work into temples and sculptures? How do we explain artists who created outstanding works amid war and poverty?
The fact is aesthetics has never been the pyramid's peak but a cornerstone in its foundation. It coexists with humanity's survival needs, accompanying every step of civilizational development. Humans seek beauty while fighting to survive, as aesthetic appreciation is a human instinct.
A society that treats aesthetics as a luxury produces people who function properly but possess impoverished souls. Only a society that brings aesthetics into every person's life can truly cultivate complete personalities and flourishing creativity. Aesthetics is not the exclusive domain of artists, but a capacity everyone should possess, can develop, and is worth cultivating throughout life.
As I write this, I recall the skeptical remarks I've heard over the years: "What's the use of studying these things?" I will not argue back forcefully, because I understand the genuine anxiety and goodwill behind such words. This is my gentleness.
But neither will I waver. Over these five years, from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights to Dunhuang's flying apsara murals, from ancient Greek sculptures to the complex domes of Gothic cathedrals, I know that what I guard is not a niche hobby but a belief about what it means to be human. Aesthetics makes me who I am—not a user shaped by algorithms, not a student defined by scores. This is my firmness.
I hope that one day, everyone will appreciate beauty, not just the "leisure class." I hope that everyone will be able to experience the power of a painting, understand the meaning of a poem, and use their own judgment when making daily choices. Only then can our society truly be called "complete."
Gentleness is not weakness—it is holding mountains and seas in one's heart while remaining silent.
Firmness is not stubbornness—it is advancing without hesitation where righteousness demands.
Comments