Beauty and "the beast"

What is beauty?

It is said that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
I completely agree with this quote, thinking of beauty as an abstract concept, a characteristic of either an object, a person, a place or an idea that induces a feeling of pleasure or meaning.

Where does beauty come from?

I believe that the beauty of something emerges from the meaning one gives to it. That is the reason why people's tastes are never alike, why two people with different life experiences can appreciate the same object differently.
An object bears a message. It is the symbol of something, a symbol deciphered by our minds with the help of past experiences and transformed into an idea, a thought, which represents the hidden core of every object. The form is just a shell, just like the wrapper of your favorite candy, the cover of your favorite book, the eyes of the one you love... beyond them lies the true object, the nature of which is never physical, but conceptual. It matters not whether "her" eyes are blue, green or black, what matters is that which lies behind them, the person inside, the soul that cares so much about you. The eyes are just doors, windows of the soul, ways in which the soul connects with the world.
To be beautiful, something must mean something special to the mind. Its core must be pleasurable for the mind, it must trigger a "happy response" from it.
Every aspect of an object is a potential "beauty factor", having the possibility of impressing the mind which understands it's message.
The same song can mean different things to different people, sometimes even inspiring opposite feelings. Why that song is beautiful to someone comes down to form and meaning. A song's form is the melody, the succession of notes that create the song's body. It can impress through the skillful use of an instrument (the violin and the piano always impress me) or a catchy sequence or part that appeals to the listener. Deeper than the form is the song's meaning, carried both by the atmosphere created and, if present, by the song's lyrics. Sometimes, a song will impress much more by its strong lyrical message, being capable to transmit some feeling or thought much more accurately than a melody can.

Other than the object itself, the context is a very important factor in the beauty of something. The context can either make, or break, or just complete the object's features by the "whole" it creates along with it. For example, if we take the same snow flake falling from the same sky in different conditions, let's say in state 1 it's snowing heavily and you can't observe a snow flake in itself, and in state 2 our snow flake is falling slowly, hanging in the air for a while before touching the ground in a painfully slow manner, then that one snow flake's beauty in our mind is different, quite different between the states.

What matter are the criteria by which one's mind judges the object as beautiful or not.

One would, not without difficulties at first, but ultimately one would be able to think of an object in the type of "the beast" as beautiful. Some traits, physical or mental, can be the ones that create a beautiful image for "the beast".
Take "the beast" from the famous story by the name of "Beauty and the beast". Even though he is ugly on the outside, he is a wonderful person, very hospitable and a very sensible and caring man. "Beauty" - the girl - eventually sees past his ugliness and recognizes the man within as stronger and more important. Beauty is found in "the beast"'s behavior and feelings towards others. "The beast" is a symbol for all things which, apparently, are "ugly", whatever meaning "ugly" can receive, but in their true nature they reveal themselves as beautiful.

It proves that beauty is far more complex that what the eye can see and that it takes time and attention to find the true nature, the true meaning of something.