--Moderation.
Just from hearing the commentary on the first painting, Yanis immediately understood Iver's aesthetic preferences.
Moderation was not a derogatory term. It was the principle she herself followed on the Path of Beauty.
The Path of Beauty would influence her on a material level, gradually bringing her appearance and bearing closer to her ideal of "ultimate beauty." Yanis was neither tall among humans nor short among elves; her figure blurred the traits of both men and women, while her features and bearing could be called neither mature nor childish.
Because "moderate aesthetics" were the aesthetics with the broadest appeal.
That was Yanis's personal understanding of the Path of Beauty. It was also why she walked the Equilibrium Path.
Unlike Iris's sharp-tongued, hypercritical professional commentators—they could always find points Yanis herself had never thought of, details she had never even noticed, and then lose themselves in the void, rambling on about them.
A creator inevitably lost something when turning inspiration into a work.
Those viewing a painting could never truly enter its world, nor truly place themselves in the artist's position and feel what the artist had thought and felt while creating it.
They could only appreciate it through their own understanding and perception.
True "beauty" shared certain qualities. It could move people of different races, genders, backgrounds, ages, and cultures. But when it came to "why they felt beauty," everyone would give a different answer.
Because rather than saying they felt beauty through the artwork, it would be more accurate to say they saw their own reflections in it.
Their own lives, fantasies, fears, and dreams.
Thus, the answers given by those viewing a painting would inevitably be colored by their own inclinations, to one degree or another.
Yanis liked asking others for their opinions of her paintings. As