Accidental Aesthetics and Romance of Power Wires

Japanese artists have depicted power lines and telegraph wires as aesthetically interesting subjects for over 170 years, beginning with an 1854 sketch of a telegraph apparatus and continuing through woodblock prints and modern photography, while Western culture tends to view such infrastructure as ugly or conspiratorial. This cultural difference suggests that appreciation for industrial infrastructure's aesthetics is not inherent but learned, and people can develop their own aesthetic values rather than accepting predetermined judgments about what is or isn't beautiful.