Beauty in artistic expressions through the eyes of networks and physicsPerc, Matjaž (Avtor) complexityentropynetwork sciencedata scienceself-organizationBeauty is subjective, and as such it, of course, cannot be defined in absoluteterms. But we all know or feel when something is beautiful to us personally.And in such instances, methods of statistical physics and network sciencecan be used to quantify and to better understand what it is that evokesthat pleasant feeling, be it when reading a book or looking at a painting.Indeed, recent large-scale explorations of digital data have lifted the veilon many aspects of our artistic expressions that would remain foreverhidden in smaller samples. From the determination of complexity andentropy of art paintings to the creation of the flavour network and the prin-ciples of food pairing, fascinating research at the interface of art, physics andnetwork science abounds. We here review the existing literature, focusing inparticular on culinary, visual, musical and literary arts. We also touch uponcultural history and culturomics, as well as on the connections betweenphysics and the social sciences in general. The review shows that the syner-gies between these fields yield highly entertaining results that can oftenbe enjoyed by layman and experts alike. In addition to its wider appeal,the reviewed research also has many applications, ranging from improvedrecommendation to the detection of plagiarism.20202024-08-23 04:14:48Znanstveno delo90133UDK: 53COBISS_ID: 25167112DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2019.0686ISSN pri članku: 1742-5689sl