You have noted the calming effect that the experience of cute things has on you. Beauty has the same effect, perhaps even more so, since too much cuteness can be grating, whereas the beautiful seems never to tire us. This calming aspect is key, many think, to the importance of beauty. Friedrich Schiller said that “the inevitable effect of the beautiful is freedom from passions.” Some things make us happy by satisfying our desires (a chocolate bar, the Leafs scoring), but beauty doesn’t work this way. This makes the experience of beauty special in a consumer-oriented culture. It isn’t only that negative images stress us; even the things that make us happy involve stress, since we spend so much time and energy trying to (a) figure out exactly what we desire and (b) obtain that. Beautiful things, in contrast, make us happy in and of themselves. Beauty can actually remove us from our desires, taking us beyond our personal wants and calming the spirit.
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