Aesthetics – We explain aesthetics, its historical characteristics, and its relationship with art. In addition, the aesthetic qualities.
What is aesthetics?
Aesthetics is the division of philosophy dedicated to studying art and its relationship with Beauty, both in its essence (what it is) and perception (where it is). The latter includes other facets, such as aesthetic experience or judgment. When we value a work of art as beautiful or sublime, we use our capacity to make an aesthetic judgment.
Even though in contemporary philosophy, aesthetics is not considered a “science of the beautiful,”. Its origin and history are intertwined with this aesthetic category and the sublime.
History and etymology
The word aesthetic comes from the Latin aesthetics and the Greek αἰσθητική ( aisthetiké ). Both indicate a relationship with the senses, so aesthetics names the knowledge perceived through sensitivity. Thus, this discipline can be understood as the philosophy of perception in general.
The first to think about the aesthetic 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 Banquet (about Beauty in general). There is a search for a universal concept of Beauty, which tends to notions of proportion, harmony, and splendor.
Throughout the history of philosophy, the concept of Beauty has been changing. This characteristic has intrigued the human being who uses art to think and produce the beautiful in addition to the world’s natural beauty.
The classical notions of Antiquity, which made the good, the beautiful, and the true coincide, gave way to more complex aesthetic meanings. During the Middle Ages, for example, what was stunning was thought from morality, while in the Renaissance, he returned to a concept of Beauty as an ideal of forms and proportions. Modernity, for its part, thought of an idea of Beauty assimilated not to the object but to the eye of the artist. Today Beauty is believed to of different, either as something that escapes or opposes utilitarianism, as something useless, prey to subjectivity, or even as non-existent. There are many ways of thinking about what Beauty is or if there is such a thing as Beauty itself. The task of aesthetics is to consider these points of view and make their 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 thought of as a strictly philosophical discipline. Much of his work revolves around saying what taste consists of, beyond Beauty or the sublime.
The word aesthetic, used to refer to the “science of the beautiful,” was used for the first time in 1750 by Alexander Baumgarten. Irish philosopher Edmund Burke also considered the beautiful and sublime categories. However, the first to give theoretical form to the judgments of the beautiful and the sublime in a systematic way, was I. Kant. In The Critique of Judgment, he explains and reflects on the meaning of judgment, its origin, and why something seems beautiful or sublime. As a general idea, the faculty of judging is considered an intermediary between understanding and reasoning. We can suspend our knowledge of objects through judgment and experience the wonder their shape arouses in us.
Aesthetics arose due to the Enlightenment (18th century) and the Enlightenment century (19th century), as Kant called them. The Enlightenment was divided between empiricists and transcendentals. The hand of Burke, the empiricist, was the one closest to the culture of the salons. On the other hand, the Kantian Enlightenment thought of aesthetics from the categories of universal and aesthetic judgment as a right.
The Kantian difference between the beautiful and the sublime is in the type of pleasure that things arouse in us:
- Beauty drives us to life and can be united with charm and imagination. It is a kind of positive pleasure.
- The sublime is a pleasure born indirectly, thanks to the suspension of our vital faculties. It is a negative pleasure, although it remains a form of happiness.
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 strengthened the concepts of taste, interest, and Beauty. The with ideas such as aesthetic appetite and the desire for novelty. The same happened with the works of Nietzche, Hegel, and Heidegger, for example, Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida.
The history of aesthetics is a history of constant construction. Whose discussions remain valid beyond the period in which it is found.
aesthetic qualities
Aesthetic qualities are elements that make an object or work of art valuable.
The aesthetic qualities must be able to be perceived by the spectator. The aesthetic gives us pleasure when we perceive an object in a broad sense.
In this sense, there are three different types of aesthetic qualities:
- Sensory qualities. They make an object pleasing to the senses (for example, its texture, colors, brightness, or timbre). These qualities are perceived through their importance, and the pleasure they produce varies depending on who experiences them. For example, the notes of a musical melody are sensory qualities that make pleasure when perceived.
- Formal qualities. They have to do with how the elements that comprise it are combined in the object 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. They refer to an object’s existential or experiential content, that is, to the ideas it evokes. The feelings it transmits, or the experiences it recovers. These qualities do not reside in the object itself but can be reached by the observer through it. Those objects that can evoke the most meanings occupy a privileged place concerning 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.
Only in the 18th century, with the rise of Enlightenment culture and philosophy, did aesthetics become a philosophical discipline per se. For the cultural canon, those who could appreciate the beauty of an object possessed culture, taste, and the ability to decide what was beautiful and what was not. This gave way to a new cultural figure: the figure of the critic. New relationships between the artist, the work, and the pub appeared with him.
The question about taste led to the question about the work and, from there, to the question about art in general. What is art and what is specific to the job are questions whose presence gained relative importance towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It has even been questioned whether art ever existed.
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