The relevance of the topic “beauty” is inexhaustible. In this article, it is considered as the unity of two opposites – chaos and harmony. This unity is the basis on which art is built, as an activity inextricably linked with beauty. The study subject was these two concepts, and the study object is the entire aesthetic thought from ancient times, considering beauty as a combination of chaos and harmony. The study purpose was to show how this idea of the unity of two opposites, embedded in the structure of the universe, is the main driving force of any creative activity. Human culture is considered at the same time as a process aimed at harmonizing chaos, and art as an opportunity to give this process expressive forms. In the study, along with the philosophical and aesthetic methodology, methods of other sciences such as hermeneutical, axiological, existential-phenomenological, semiotic, and psychological were applied. When writing the study, there were used a wide range of sources: works of ancient thinkers Hesiod, the pre-Socratics, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Russian aesthetic and psychological thought of A.F. Losev, V.S. Solovyov, N.A. Berdyaev, Yu.N. Lotman, Yu.B. Borev, L.S. Vygotsky, works of Russian and foreign scientists, including A.V. Voloshinov, Yu.V. Taboyakova, B. Mandelbrot, H.-O. Paytgen, P.H. Richter, N.T. Rymar, G.P. Menchikov, studies in the field of ornament art of V.V. Ivanov, V.N. Toporov, V. Gruzdev, K. Buher, and T.V. Kolchev. The author concludes that the unity of chaos and harmony is represented in art as a natural reality in which opportunity and action are combined. In this strange dyad is the basis of what we call creativity. And all this is contained in the universe, as a certain formula by which the beauty of the world and the beauty of art are built.