For the author, the true challenge in dental technology involves imitating nature perfectly and creating oral harmony. An understanding of the interaction between contouring, functioning and surface morphology as well as the influence of light is essential for creating restorations with pleasant aesthetics. He uses various examples to describe how the understanding of beauty has changed and how multi-faceted the challenge of interaction between the initial status and patients' expectations, as well as those of the dentist, is. This is especially true where anterior restorations are involved.