An eye for beauty

A couple of days ago I was wearing an amber pendant that belonged to my late mother. At the airport, a woman came up to me to comment on how beautiful it was. I agreed, and she told me a story about buying an amber necklace in Turkey for herself.

I thought about the incident afterwards, and about how my mother had a refined aesthetic sense. Now I love beauty but I can't say I always can pick out, say, a specially pleasing handbag. Yes, that's a trivial example perhaps, but I think it's a telling one. My mother could do that and I could generally rely on her advice when it came to clothing, home decorating and so on. She brought something special to these realms that was appreciated by others.

Where does such a talent come from? I think it's learned to some degree, but not entirely. My maternal grandmother might have passed it on, but then why was this unevenly taken up by her three daughters? To some extent a refine aesthetic sense must have something to do with the quality of observation. At least, that's the only theory I can come up with.