We explain what aesthetics is, its characteristics throughout history, and its relationship to art. We also explain aesthetic qualities. Please read other MTV articles for more information. If you share it, it will be of little help to us.
What is aesthetics?
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy dedicated to studying art and its relationship to beauty, both in its essence (what it is) and in its perception (where it is found). The latter includes other aspects such as aesthetic experience or aesthetic judgment. When we value a work of art as beautiful or sublime, for example, we are using our capacity to make an aesthetic judgment.
Although in contemporary philosophy aesthetics is not considered a “science of beauty,” its origin and history are intertwined with this aesthetic category, as well as with the sublime.
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History and Etymology
The word aesthetics comes from the Latin aestheticus, and the latter from the Greek αἰσθητική (aisthetiké). Both indicate a relationship with the senses, and therefore aesthetics is used to name the knowledge perceived through sensitivity. Thus, this discipline can be understood as the philosophy of perception in general.
The first to consider aesthetics was the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427–347 BC), particularly in three of his dialogues: Hippias Major (on the beauty of bodies), Phaedrus (on the beauty of souls), and The Symposium (on beauty in general). These dialogues feature a search for a universal concept of beauty, which tends toward the notions of proportion, harmony, and splendor.
Throughout the history of philosophy, the concept of beauty has changed. This characteristic has intrigued humankind, who rely on art as a tool to think about and produce beauty, in addition to the natural beauty of the world.
The classical notions of antiquity, which linked the good, the beautiful, and the true, gave way to more complex senses of aesthetics. During the Middle Ages, for example, beauty was conceived from a moral perspective, while the Renaissance returned to a concept of beauty as an ideal of forms and proportions. Modernity, for its part, conceived an idea of beauty assimilated not to the object but to the artist’s eye.
Today, beauty is conceived in different ways, whether as something that escapes or opposes utilitarianism, as something useless, as a prey to subjectivity, or even as completely nonexistent. There are many ways of thinking about what beauty is or whether there is such a thing as beauty itself. The task of aesthetics is to consider these points of view and bring them into dialogue in the best possible way.
Aesthetics as a Philosophical Discipline
Although the history of aesthetics is vast and complex, it was not until the 18th century—with the publication of the Critique of Judgment by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant—that it was conceived as a strictly philosophical discipline. Much of its work revolves around explaining what taste consists of, beyond beauty or the sublime.
The word aesthetics, used to refer to the “science of the beautiful,” was first used in 1750 by Alexander Baumgarten. Edmund Burke, the Irish philosopher, also focused on the categories of the beautiful and the sublime. However, the first to systematically give theoretical form to judgments of the beautiful and the sublime was I. Kant. In The Critique of Judgment, he explains and reflects on the meaning of judgment, its origin, and the reason why something seems beautiful or sublime to us. As a general idea, the faculty of judgment is considered an intermediary between understanding and reason. It is through the use of judgment that we can suspend our knowledge of objects and experience the wonder their form awakens in us.
Aesthetics emerged as a result of the Enlightenment (18th century) and the Enlightenment period (19th century), as Kant called them. The Enlightenment was divided between empiricists and transcendentalists. Empiricism, led by Burke, was closer to salon culture. The Kantian Enlightenment, on the other hand, conceived of aesthetics from the perspective of the universal and aesthetic judgment as a right.
The Kantian difference between beauty and the sublime lies in the type of pleasure that things arouse in us:
- Beauty is that which compels us to life and can be combined with charm and imagination. It is a positive type of pleasure.
- The sublime is a pleasure that arises indirectly through the suspension of our vital faculties. It is a negative pleasure, even though it remains a form of pleasure.
The centuries of the Enlightenment and the works of Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant were followed by other philosophers, thinkers, and schools. Authors such as Schlegel, Schelling, and Fichte introduced and enhanced the concepts of taste, interest, and beauty with ideas such as the aesthetic appetite and the desire for novelty. The same was true of the works of Nietzsche, Hegel, and Heidegger, for example, and Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida.
The history of aesthetics is a history in constant construction, whose discussions remain relevant regardless of the period in which it is situated.
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Aesthetic Periods According to the Idea of Beauty
The idea of beauty changes from one era to another. What we consider beautiful or pleasing today has in other eras been considered ugly, mundane, or incomprehensible.
In a general overview, we can distinguish four major periods of beauty: classical, medieval, modern, and contemporary. This classification should be understood as an idea of beauty and what is visually valued, especially in art, throughout the different eras of humanity.
Classical Aesthetics:
The idea of beauty of Ancient Greece and the Romans is the foundation of future notions of beauty in the West. For them, beauty, goodness, and truth were one and the same, and their nature had to do with moderation, harmony, justice, and conformity to the ideal of an era.
Medieval Aesthetics:
The Middle Ages were a predominantly religious era in the West, in which Christian thought prevailed. Thus, the concept of beauty was related to fundamental Christian values: faith in God, sacrifice, passion, and purity—that is, to morality rather than appearances.
Modern aesthetics:
The Renaissance broke with Christian tradition and reclaimed the classics within the framework of the ideas of humanism and the Enlightenment, for whom reason was considered a central concept. The ideas of beauty of the period were attributed to the planned, the structured, the symmetrical, and the harmonious. Beauty was conceived as perfection and order, leaving no room for extravagance or disproportion.
Contemporary aesthetics:
In recent times, many traditional ideas about beauty have been challenged in line with other ways of thinking about reality and culture. For example, evolutionism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and nihilistic philosophical schools. Beauty was subjected to a process of dispersion that allowed for the emergence of abstract art, conceptual beauty, and the beauty of the meaning of things, rather than the fulfillment of a canon that distinguished between the aesthetic and the mundane. Indeed, on many occasions, the horrible, the everyday, and the incomprehensible have been proposed as models of beauty.
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Aesthetic Qualities
Aesthetic qualities are elements that make an object or work of art valuable.
Aesthetic qualities must be perceptible to the viewer: aesthetic qualities are those that give us pleasure when we perceive, in a broad sense, an object.
In this sense, there are three different types of aesthetic qualities:
Sensory qualities:
These make an object pleasing to the senses (for example, its texture, colors, shine, or timbre). These qualities are perceived through the senses, and depending on who experiences them, the pleasure they produce varies. For example, the notes of a musical melody are sensory qualities that produce pleasure when perceived.
Formal qualities:
These have to do with the way the elements that compose an object are combined, or the relationship that can be perceived between them. For example, the combination of words that make up a poem are formal qualities that can produce pleasure.
Vital qualities:
These refer to the existential or experiential content of an object, that is, the ideas it evokes, the feelings it transmits, or the experiences it evokes. These qualities do not reside in the object itself, but rather the observer can access them through it. Those objects that evoke the most meaning occupy a privileged place over others.
Relationship between aesthetics and art
Aesthetics has its philosophical origin in the question of beauty. For two thousand years, the question of beauty, in general terms, existed outside of art.
It was not until the 18th century, with the rise of Enlightenment culture and philosophy, that aesthetics became a philosophical discipline per se. For the cultural canon, those who could appreciate the beauty of an object were those with culture, taste, and the ability to decide what was beautiful and what was not. This gave rise to a new cultural figure: the critic. With it, new relationships emerged between the artist, the work, and the public.
The question of taste led to the question of the work, and from there, to the question of art in general. What is art and what is specific to the work are questions whose presence gained relative importance towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. It has even been questioned whether art ever existed.
Throughout the 20th century, the aesthetic field expanded not only to painting but also to literature, poetry, music, and architecture. Even though for some thinkers it is impossible to say what makes a work a work, the contemporary world is already the stage for aesthetic discussion par excellence: is it still possible to speak of art?
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References
All the information we offer is supported by authoritative and up-to-date bibliographic sources, which ensure reliable content in line with our editorial principles.
- Benjamin, W. (1988). The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism. Peninsula.
- Adorno, T. W. (2004). Aesthetic Theory. Akal.
- Danto, A. (1999). After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Borders of History. Paidós.
- Formaggio, D. (1992). The Death of Art and Aesthetics. Grijalbo.
- Bozal, V. (ed.). (1996). History of Aesthetic Ideas and Contemporary Art Theories. Visor.
- Eagleton, T. (2006). Aesthetics as Ideology. Trotta.
- Aesthetics (Philosophy) in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- Aesthetics Definition, Concept, History, and Aesthetic Qualities – concepto.de
