Aesthetics
aesthetics
(Greek: aisthenesthai, to perceive, feel)
The perception of the beautiful; the science which determines the norm or rule by which beauty is perceived and the criticism which points out wherein a person, object, literary composition, poem, painting, statue, structure, or other artistic work, possesses or lacks the elements of beauty; a science of the fine arts based on philosophical principles. According to the variations of these principles the science differs. Materialists see beauty, or lack of beauty, only in matter, in things which appeal to the senses. Idealists perceive it only in ideals which suit their philosophy. As all beauty consists in order, proportion, symmetry, harmony, there is a spiritual and supernatural beauty, invisible to the senses but perceptible to the spiritual view or intuition, the conformity of a life with God’s law of life. This supernatural beauty may be perceived throughout the Holy Scriptures, but especially in every page of the Gospels; in lives of Christ, like that of Saint Bonaventure, Le Camus (tr. Hickey), Coleridge’s “Vita Vitae Nostrae”; in lives of the Saints, such as Montalembert’s “Elizabeth of Hungary,” Fraser’s “Frances of Rome,” Concannon’s “Columbanus,” Enid Dinnis’s “Mystics All.” The conformity of human life and conduct with the divine idea is admirably explained in the “Art of Life,” by Monsignor Kolbe, and in the “Life of All Living, the Philosophy of Life,” by Fulton Sheen.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Aesthetics
(Gr. aesthetikos, perceptive) Traditionally, the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty or the beautiful, especially in art, and with taste and standards of value in judging art. Also, a theory or consistent attitude on such matters. The word aesthetics was first used by Baumgarten about 1750, to imply the science of sensuous knowledge, whose aim is beauty, as contrasted with logic, whose aim is truth. Kant used the term transcendental aesthetic in another sense, to imply the a priori principles of sensible experience. Hegel, in the 1820’s, established the word in its present sense by his writings on art under the title of Aesthetik.
Aesthetics is now achieving a more independent status as the subject (whether it is or can be a “science” is a disputed issue) which studies (a) works of art, (b) the processes of producing and experiencing art, and (c) certain aspects of nature and human production outside the field of art — especially those which can be considered as beautiful or ugly in regard to form and sensory qualities. (E.g., sunsets, flowers, human beings, machines.)
While not abandoning its interest in beauty, artistic value, and other normative concepts, recent aesthetics has tended to lay increasing emphasis on a descriptive, factual approach to the phenomena of art and aesthetic experience. It differs from art history, archeology, and cultural history in stressing a theoretical organization of materials in terms of recurrent types and tendencies, rather than a chronological or genetic one. It differs from general psychology in focusing upon certain selected phases in psycho-physical activity, and on their application to certain types of objects and situations, especially those of art. It investigates the forms and characteristics of art, which psychology does not do. It differs from art criticism in seeking a more general, theoretical understanding of the arts than is usual in that subject, and in attempting a more consistently objective, impersonal attitude. It maintains a philosophic breadth, in comparing examples of all the arts, and in assembling data and hypotheses from many sources, including philosophy, psychology, cultural history, and the social sciences. But it is departing from traditional conceptions of philosophy in that writing labelled “aesthetics” now often includes much detailed, empirical study of particular phenomena, instead of restricting itself as formerly to abstract discussion of the meaning of beauty, the sublime, and other categories, their objective or subjective nature, their relation to pleasure and moral goodness, the purpose of art, the nature of aesthetic value, etc. There has been controversy over whether such empirical studies deserve to be called “aesthetics”, or whether that name should be reserved for the traditional, dialectic or speculative approach; but usage favors the extension in cases where the inquiry aims at fairly broad generalizations.
Overlapping among all the above-mentioned fields is inevitable, as well as great differences in approach among individual writers. Some of these stress the nature and varieties of form in art, with attention to historic types and styles such as romanticism, the Baroque, etc., and in studying their evolution adopt the historian’s viewpoint to some extent. Some stress the psychology of creation, appreciation, imagination, aesthetic experience, emotion, evaluation, and preference. Their work may be classed as “aesthetics”, “aesthetic psychology”, or “psychology of art”. Within this psychological group, some can be further distinguished as laboratory or statistical psychologists, attempting more or less exact calculation and measurement. This approach (sometimes called “experimental aesthetics”) follows the lead of Fechner, whose studies of aesthetic preference in 1876 helped to inaugurate modern experimental psychology as well as the empirical approach to aesthetics. It has dealt less with works of art than with preference for various arbitrary, simplified linear shapes, color-combinations and tone-combinations.
If the term “experimental” is broadly understood as implying a general mode of inquiry based on observation and the tentative application of hypotheses to particular cases, it includes many studies in aesthetics which avoid quantitative measurement and laboratory procedure. The full application of scientific method is still commonly regarded as impossible or unfruitful in dealing with the more subtle and complex phenomena of art. But the progress of aesthetics toward scientific status is being slowly made, through increasing use of an objective and logical approach instead of a dogmatic or personal one, and through bringing the results of other sciences to bear on aesthetic problems. Recent years have seen a vast increase in the amount and variety of artistic data available for the aesthetician, as a result of anthropological and archeological research and excavation, diversified museum collections, improved reproductions, translations, and phonograph records. — T.M.