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'{{redirect|Aesthetic|the 19th century art movement|Aestheticism}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2012}} {{Philosophy sidebar |Branches}} '''Aesthetics''', or the philosophy of art, is the study of beauty and taste. It is about interpreting works of art and art movements or theories. The term aesthetic is also used to designate a particular style, for example the "[[Industrial Style|industrial aesthetic]]", or the "[[Japanese aesthetics|Japanese aesthetic]]". The word aesthetic is also an adjective and adverb relating beauty trades such as hairdressing. It is also spelt ''æsthetics'' and ''esthetics.'' It is derived from the [[Ancient Greek]] αἰσθητικός (''aisthetikos'', meaning "esthetic, sensitive, sentient, pertaining to sense perception"), which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι (''aisthanomai'', meaning "I perceive, feel, sense").<ref>{{Cite web|title = Online Etymology Dictionary|url = http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=aesthetic|website = www.etymonline.com|access-date = 2016-02-01}}</ref> ==History of aesthetics in western philosphy == The idea of the aesthetic developed from the idea of [[Taste (sociology)|taste]]. The term was introduced into the philosophical lexicon during the early 1700s with the widening of leisure activities in the eighteenth century.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Aesthetics {{!}} Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|url = http://www.iep.utm.edu/aestheti/|website = www.iep.utm.edu|access-date = 2016-02-01}}</ref> The theory emerged at that time partly as a corrective to the rise of rationalism.<ref>{{Cite book|edition = Winter 2015|title = The Concept of the Aesthetic|url = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/aesthetic-concept/|date = 2015-01-01|first = James|last = Shelley|editor-first = Edward N.|editor-last = Zalta}}</ref> In 1818, the [[Lectures on Aesthetics]] were given by [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]. In the late 1700s [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] proposed that most of the arts were impure, since for example one admired the perfection of form of an object. This in contrast to our enjoyment of arbitrary abstract patterns in some foliage. Kant’s theory of pure beauty had four aspects: * freedom from concepts * objectivity * disinterest of the spectator * obligatoriness For [[Oscar Wilde]], the contemplation of beauty for beauty's sake (augmented by [[John Ruskin]]'s search for moral grounding) was more than the foundation for much of his literary career; he once stated, "Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.".<ref>"Oscar Wilde" by [[Richard Ellman]] p 122, pub Alfred A Knopf, INC. 1988</ref> Wilde famously toured the United States in 1882. He travelled across the United States spreading the idea of Aesthetics in a speech called "The English Renaissance." In his speech he proposed that Beauty and Aesthetics was "not languid but energetic. By beautifying the outward aspects of life, one would beautify the inner ones." The English Renaissance was, he said, "like the Italian Renaissance before it, a sort of rebirth of the spirit of man".<ref>Ellman, p164</ref> In 1946, [[W. K. Wimsatt|William K. Wimsatt]] and [[Monroe Beardsley]] published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled "[[Intentional Fallacy|The Intentional Fallacy]]", in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an [[Authorial intentionality|author's intention]], or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was considered irrelevant, and potentially distracting. In another essay, "[[Affective fallacy|The Affective Fallacy]]," which served as a kind of sister essay to "The Intentional Fallacy" Wimsatt and Beardsley also discounted the reader's personal/emotional reaction to a literary work as a valid means of analyzing a text. This fallacy would later be repudiated by theorists from the [[reader-response]] school of literary theory. Ironically, one of the leading theorists from this school, [[Stanley Fish]], was himself trained by New Critics. Fish criticizes Wimsatt and Beardsley in his essay "Literature in the Reader" (1970).<ref>Leitch, Vincent B. , et al., eds. ''The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.</ref> As summarized by Gaut and Livingston in their essay "The Creation of Art": "Structuralist and post-structuralists theorists and critics were sharply critical of many aspects of New Criticism, beginning with the emphasis on aesthetic appreciation and the so-called autonomy of art, but they reiterated the attack on biographical criticisms' assumption that the artist's activities and experience were a privileged critical topic."<ref>Gaut and Livingston, "The Creation of Art", p.3.</ref> These authors contend that: "Anti-intentionalists, such as formalists, hold that the intentions involved in the making of art are irrelevant or peripheral to correctly interpreting art. So details of the act of creating a work, though possibly of interest in themselves, have no bearing on the correct interpretation of the work."<ref name="Gaut and Livingston, p.6">Gaut and Livingston, p.6.</ref> Gaut and Livingston define the intentionalists as distinct from [[Formalism (art)|formalists]] stating that: "Intentionalists, unlike formalists, hold that reference to intentions is essential in fixing the correct interpretation of works." They quote [[Richard Wollheim]] as stating that, "The task of criticism is the reconstruction of the creative process, where the creative process must in turn be thought of as something not stopping short of, but terminating on, the work of art itself."<ref name="Gaut and Livingston, p.6"/> Early-twentieth-century artists, poets and composers challenged existing notions of beauty, broadening the scope of art and aesthetics. In 1941, [[Eli Siegel]], American philosopher and poet, founded [[Aesthetic Realism]], the philosophy that reality itself is aesthetic, and that "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."<ref>{{cite web |last=Green |first=Edward |title=Donald Francis Tovey, Aesthetic Realism and the Need for a Philosophic Musicology |publisher=International Revue of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music |year= 2005 |page= 227 |url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/30032170?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3D%2522The%2Bworld%252C%2Bart%252C%2Band%2Bself%2Bexplain%2Beach%2Bother%2522%2BEli%2BSiegel%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3DThe%2Bworld%252C%2Bart%252C%2BAND%2Bself%2Bexplain%2Beach%2Bother%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&Search=yes}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Siegel |first= Eli |title=Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? |publisher=''Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism |year= 1955 |url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/425879?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3D%2522the%2Bmaking%2Bone%2Bof%2Bopposites%2522%2BEli%2BSiegel%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3D%2522All%2Bbeauty%2Bis%2Ba%2Bmaking%2Bone%2Bof%2Bopposites%2522%2BEli%2BSiegel%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&Search=yes}}</ref> [[Benedetto Croce|Croce]] suggested that "expression" is central in the way that beauty was once thought to be central. [[George Dickie (philosopher)|George Dickie]] suggested that the sociological institutions of the art world were the glue binding art and sensibility into unities.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Aesthetic Attitude|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/aesth-at/}}</ref> [[Marshall McLuhan]] suggested that art always functions as a "counter-environment" designed to make visible what is usually invisible about a society.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Grosswiler|first1=Paul|title=Transforming McLuhan: Cultural, Critical, and Postmodern Perspectives|date=2010|publisher=Peter Lang Publishing|isbn=978-1-4331-1067-2|page=13|url=https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=I19crS0qJ78C&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=mcluhan+on+art+as+counter-environment&source=bl&ots=q8YRWwHXKs&sig=0dg_xUJkl3mII6EU_wE2ovc01JI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kpX-VL7LE4Tp8AXnq4LgBA&ved=0CE4Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=mcluhan%20on%20art%20as%20counter-environment&f=false|accessdate=10 March 2015}}</ref> [[Theodor Adorno]] felt that aesthetics could not proceed without confronting the role of the culture industry in the commodification of art and aesthetic experience. [[Hal Foster (art critic)|Hal Foster]] attempted to portray the reaction against beauty and Modernist art in ''The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture''. [[Arthur Danto]] has described this reaction as "kalliphobia" (after the Greek word for beauty, κάλλος ''kallos'').<ref>'Kalliphobia in Contemporary Art' in ''Art Journal'' v. 63 no. 2 (Summer 2004) p.&nbsp;24–35</ref> [[André Malraux]] explains that the notion of beauty was connected to a particular conception of art that arose with the Renaissance and was still dominant in the eighteenth century (but was supplanted later). The discipline of aesthetics, which originated in the eighteenth century, mistook this transient state of affairs for a revelation of the permanent nature of art.<ref>Derek Allan, ''Art and the Human Adventure, André Malraux's Theory of Art'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009)</ref> [[Brian Massumi]] suggests to reconsider beauty following the aesthetical thought in the philosophy of [[Deleuze]] and [[Guattari]].<ref>Massumi, Brian, (ed.), A Shock to Thought. Expression after Deleuze and Guattari. London & NY: Routeledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-23804-8</ref> [[Jean-François Lyotard]] re-invokes the Kantian distinction between [[taste (sociology)|taste]] and the [[sublime (philosophy)|sublime]]. Sublime painting, unlike [[kitsch]] [[realism (visual arts)|realism]], "...&nbsp;will enable us to see only by making it impossible to see; it will please only by causing pain."<ref>Lyotard, Jean-Françoise, ''What is Postmodernism?'', in ''The Postmodern Condition'', Minnesota and Manchester, 1984.</ref><ref>Lyotard, Jean-Françoise, ''Scriptures: Diffracted Traces'', in Theory, Culture and Society, Volume 21, Number 1, 2004.</ref> [[Sigmund Freud]] inaugurated aesthetical thinking in [[Psychoanalysis]] mainly via the "Uncanny" as aesthetical affect.<ref>Freud, Sigmund, "The Uncanny" (1919). Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Work of Sigmund Freud, 17:234-36. London: The Hogarth Press</ref> Following Freud and [[Merleau-Ponty]],<ref>Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964), "The Visible and the Invisible". Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-0457-1</ref> [[Jacques Lacan]] theorized aesthetics in terms of sublimation and the Thing.<ref>Lacan, Jacques, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book VII), NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992.</ref> [[Guy Sircello]] has pioneered efforts in analytic philosophy to develop a rigorous theory of aesthetics, focusing on the concepts of beauty,<ref>[[Guy Sircello]], ''A New Theory of Beauty''. Princeton Essays on the Arts, 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.</ref> love<ref>[[Guy Sircello]], ''Love and Beauty''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.</ref> and sublimity.<ref>[[Guy Sircello]], "How Is a Theory of the Sublime Possible?" ''The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'' Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 541–550</ref> Gary Tedman has put forward a theory of a subjectless aesthetics derived from [[Karl Marx]]'s concept of alienation, and [[Louis Althusser]]'s antihumanism, using elements of Freud's group psychology, defining a concept of the 'aesthetic level of practice'.<ref>Tedman, G. (2012) ''Aesthetics & Alienation'', Zero Books</ref> [[Gregory Loewen]] has suggested that the subject is key in the interaction with the aesthetic object. The work of art serves as a vehicle for the projection of the individual's identity into the world of objects, as well as being the irruptive source of much of what is uncanny in modern life. As well, art is used to memorialize individuated biographies in a manner that allows persons to imagine that they are part of something greater than themselves.<ref>[[Gregory Loewen]], Aesthetic Subjectivity, 2011 pages&nbsp;36–7, 157, 238)</ref> ==Aesthetics and science== [[File:Mandel zoom 00 mandelbrot set.jpg|thumb|Initial image of a [[Mandelbrot set]] zoom sequence with continuously colored environment]] The field of [[experimental aesthetics]] was founded by [[Gustav Theodor Fechner]] in the 19th century. Experimental aesthetics in these times had been characterized by a [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]]-based, [[inductive reasoning|inductive]] approach. The analysis of individual experience and behavior based on [[experiment|experimental methods]] is a central part of experimental aesthetics. In particular, the perception of works of art,<ref>Kobbert, M. (1986), ''Kunstpsychologie'' ("Psychology of art"), Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt</ref> music, or modern items such as websites<ref>Thielsch, M. T. (2008), ''Ästhetik von Websites. Wahrnehmung von Ästhetik und deren Beziehung zu Inhalt, Usability und Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen.'' ("The aesthetics of websites. Perception of aesthetics and its relation to content, usability, and personality traits."), MV Wissenschaft, Münster</ref> or other IT products<ref>Hassenzahl, M. (2008), ''Aesthetics in interactive products: Correlates and consequences of beauty''. In H. N. J. Schifferstein & P. Hekkert (Eds.): ''Product Experience.'' (pp.&nbsp;287–302). Elsevier, Amsterdam</ref> is studied. Experimental aesthetics is strongly oriented towards the [[natural science]]s. Modern approaches mostly come from the fields of [[cognitive psychology]] or [[neuroscience]] ([[neuroaesthetics]]<ref>Martindale, C. (2007), ''Recent trends in the psychological study of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts''. In ''Empirical Studies of the Arts'', 25(2), p.&nbsp;121–141.</ref>). In the 1970s, [[Abraham Moles]] and [[Frieder Nake]] were among the first to analyze links between aesthetics, [[information processing]], and [[information theory]].<ref>A. Moles: ''Théorie de l'information et perception esthétique'', Paris, Denoël, 1973 ([[Information Theory]] and aesthetical perception)</ref><ref>F Nake (1974). Ästhetik als Informationsverarbeitung. (Aesthetics as [[information processing]]). Grundlagen und Anwendungen der Informatik im Bereich ästhetischer Produktion und Kritik. Springer, 1974, ISBN 3-211-81216-4, ISBN 978-3-211-81216-7</ref> In the 1990s, [[Jürgen Schmidhuber]] described an [[algorithmic]] theory of beauty which takes the [[subjectivity]] of the observer into account and postulates: among several observations classified as comparable by a given subjective observer, the aesthetically most pleasing one is the one with the shortest description, given the observer's previous knowledge and his particular method for encoding the data.<ref>http://www.jstor.org/pss/1576418</ref><ref>http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html</ref> This is closely related to the principles of [[algorithmic information theory]] and [[minimum description length]]. One of his examples: [[mathematician]]s enjoy simple proofs with a short description in their [[formal language]]. Another very concrete example describes an aesthetically pleasing human face whose proportions can be described by very few [[bit]]s of information,<ref>[[Jürgen Schmidhuber|J. Schmidhuber]]. Facial beauty and fractal geometry. Cogprint Archive: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk, 1998</ref><ref>[[Jürgen Schmidhuber|J. Schmidhuber]]. Simple Algorithmic Principles of Discovery, Subjective Beauty, Selective Attention, Curiosity & Creativity. Proc. 10th Intl. Conf. on Discovery Science (DS 2007) p.&nbsp;26–38, LNAI 4755, Springer, 2007. Also in Proc. 18th Intl. Conf. on Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT 2007) p. 32, LNAI 4754, Springer, 2007. Joint invited lecture for DS 2007 and ALT 2007, Sendai, Japan, 2007. {{arxiv|0709.0674}}</ref> drawing inspiration from less detailed 15th century proportion studies by [[Leonardo da Vinci]] and [[Albrecht Dürer]]. Schmidhuber's theory explicitly distinguishes between what's [[Beauty|beautiful]] and what's [[interesting]], stating that interestingness corresponds to the [[first derivative]] of subjectively perceived beauty. Here the premise is that any observer continually tries to improve the [[predictability]] and [[compressibility]] of the observations by discovering regularities such as repetitions and [[symmetries]] and [[fractal]] [[self-similarity]]. Whenever the observer's learning process (which may be a predictive [[neural network]]; see also [[Neuroesthetics]]) leads to improved data compression such that the observation sequence can be described by fewer [[bit]]s than before, the temporary [[interestingness]] of the data corresponds to the number of saved bits. This compression progress is proportional to the observer's internal reward, also called curiosity reward. A [[reinforcement learning]] algorithm is used to maximize future expected reward by learning to execute action sequences that cause additional [[interesting]] input data with yet unknown but learnable predictability or regularity. The principles can be implemented on artificial agents which then exhibit a form of [[Artificial intelligence|artificial]] [[curiosity]].<ref>[[Jürgen Schmidhuber|J. Schmidhuber]]. Curious model-building control systems. International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Singapore, vol 2, 1458–1463. IEEE press, 1991</ref><ref>[[Jürgen Schmidhuber|J. Schmidhuber]]. Papers on artificial curiosity since 1990: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/interest.html</ref><ref>[[Jürgen Schmidhuber|J. Schmidhuber]]. Developmental robotics, optimal artificial curiosity, creativity, music, and the fine arts. Connection Science, 18(2):173–187, 2006</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Schmidhuber's theory of beauty and curiosity in a German TV show |url=http://www.br-online.de/bayerisches-fernsehen/faszination-wissen/schoenheit--aesthetik-wahrnehmung-ID1212005092828.xml |publisher=Br-online.de |language=German}}</ref> ==Truth as beauty, mathematics== Mathematical considerations, such as [[symmetry]] and [[complexity]], are used for analysis in theoretical aesthetics. This is different from the aesthetic considerations of [[applied aesthetics]] used in the study of [[mathematical beauty]]. Aesthetic considerations such as [[symmetry]] and [[Occam's razor|simplicity]] are used in areas of philosophy, such as [[Categorical imperative|ethics]] and [[theoretical physics]] and [[cosmology]] to [[define]] [[truth]], outside of [[empirical]] considerations. Beauty and [[Truth]] have been argued to be nearly synonymous,<ref>Why Beauty Is Truth: The History of Symmetry, [[Ian Stewart (mathematician)|Ian Stewart]], 2008</ref> as reflected in the statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" in the poem [[Ode on a Grecian Urn]] by [[John Keats]], or by the Hindu motto "Satyam Shivam Sundaram" (Satya (Truth) is Shiva (God), and Shiva is Sundaram (Beautiful)). The fact that judgments of beauty and judgments of truth both are influenced by [[processing fluency]], which is the ease with which information can be processed, has been presented as an explanation for why beauty is sometimes equated with truth.<ref>Reber, R, [[Norbert Schwarz|Schwarz, N]], Winkielman, P: "Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience?", ''Personality and Social Psychology Review'', 8(4):364-382</ref> Indeed, recent research found that people use beauty as an indication for truth in mathematical pattern tasks.<ref>Reber, R, Brun, M, Mitterndorfer, K: "The use of heuristics in intuitive mathematical judgment", ''Psychonomic Bulletin & Review'', 15(6):1174–1178</ref> However, scientists including the mathematician [[David Orrell]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Orrell |first=David |title=Truth or Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order |location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-300-18661-1 }}</ref> and physicist [[Marcelo Gleiser]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gleiser|first=Marcelo |title=A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe |publisher=Free Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4391-0832-1}}</ref> have argued that the emphasis on aesthetic criteria such as symmetry is equally capable of leading scientists astray. ==Computational inference of aesthetics== Since about 2005, computer scientists have attempted to develop automated methods to infer aesthetic quality of images.<ref>{{cite conference |first1=R. |last1=Datta |first2=D. |last2=Joshi |first3=J. |last3=Li |first4=J. |last4=Wang |title=Studying aesthetics in photographic images using a computational approach |booktitle=Europ. Conf. on Computer Vision |year=2006 |publisher=Springer |url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/j062q28222k34382/}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |first1=L.-K. |last1=Wong |first2=K.-L. |last2=Low |title=Saliency-enhanced image aesthetic classification |booktitle=Int. Conf. on Image Processing |year=2009 |publisher=IEEE |url=http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5413825}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |first1=Y. |last1=Wu |first2=C.|last2=Bauckhage |first3=C. |last3=Thurau |title=The good, the bad, and the ugly: predicting aesthetic image labels |booktitle=Int. Conf. on Pattern Recognition |year=2010 |publisher=IEEE |url=http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/freesrchabstract.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5595805}}</ref><ref name="faria13aesthetics">{{cite book| author=Faria, J., Bagley, S., Rueger, S., Breckon, T.P.| chapter=Challenges of Finding Aesthetically Pleasing Images| title=Proc. International Workshop on Image and Audio Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services| year=2013| publisher=IEEE| url=http://www.durham.ac.uk/toby.breckon/publications/papers/faria13aesthetics.pdf| accessdate=19 June 2013}}</ref> Typically, these approaches follow a [[machine learning]] approach, where large numbers of manually rated photographs are used to "teach" a computer about what visual properties are of relevance to aesthetic quality. The Acquine engine, developed at [[Penn State University]], rates natural photographs uploaded by users.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://acquine.alipr.com |title=Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine - Instant Impersonal Assessment of Photos |publisher=Penn State University |accessdate=21 June 2009| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20090509101935/http://acquine.alipr.com/| archivedate= 9 May 2009 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> There have also been relatively successful attempts with regard to chess and music.<ref>Manaris, B., Roos, P., Penousal, M., Krehbiel, D., Pellicoro, L. and Romero, J.; A Corpus-Based Hybrid Approach to Music Analysis and Composition; Proceedings of 22nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-07); Vancouver, BC; 839-845 2007.</ref> A relation between [[Max Bense]]'s mathematical formulation of aesthetics in terms of "redundancy" and "complexity" and theories of musical anticipation was offered using the notion of Information Rate.<ref>Dubnov, S.; Musical Information Dynamics as Models of Auditory Anticipation; in Machine Audition: Principles, Algorithms and Systems, Ed. W. Weng, IGI Global publication, 2010.</ref> ==Evolutionary aesthetics== {{main|Evolutionary aesthetics}} Evolutionary aesthetics refers to [[evolutionary psychology]] theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of ''[[Homo sapiens]]'' are argued to have [[evolution|evolved]] in order to enhance survival and reproductive success.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Shimura|first1=Arthur P.|last2=Palmer|first2=Stephen E.|title=Aesthetic Science: Connecting Minds, Brains, and Experience|date=January 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=279}}</ref> One example being that humans are argued to find beautiful and prefer [[landscape]]s which were good [[habitat]]s in the ancestral environment. Another example is that body symmetry is an important aspect of [[physical attractiveness]] which may be due to this indicating good health during body growth. Evolutionary explanations for aesthetical preferences are important parts of [[evolutionary musicology]], [[Darwinian literary studies]], and the study of the [[evolution of emotion]]. ==Applied aesthetics== {{Main|Applied aesthetics}} As well as being applied to art, aesthetics can also be applied to cultural objects such as crucifix or tools. Aesthetic coupling between art-objects and medical topics was made by speakers working for the US Information Agency<ref>{{cite journal |author=Giannini AJ |title=Tangential symbols: using visual symbolization to teach pharmacological principles of drug addiction to international audiences |journal=Journal of clinical pharmacology |volume=33 |issue=12 |pages=1139–46 |date=December 1993 |pmid=7510314 |doi=10.1002/j.1552-4604.1993.tb03913.x}}</ref> This coupling was made to reinforce the learning paradigm when English-language speakers used translators to address audiences in their own country. These audiences were generally not fluent in the English language. It can also be used in topics as diverse as [[Mathematical beauty|mathematics]], [[gastronomy]], fashion and website design.<ref>Moshagen, M. & Thielsch, M. T. (2010). Facets of visual aesthetics. In: ''International Journal of Human-Computer Studies'', 68 (10), 689-709.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/visual_aesthetics.html |title=Visual Aesthetics |publisher=Interaction-design.org |date= |accessdate=31 July 2012}}</ref><ref>Lavie, T. & Tractinsky, N. (2004). Assessing dimensions of perceived visual aesthetics of web sites. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 60, 269–298.</ref> ==Aesthetic ethics== Aesthetic ethics refers to the idea that human conduct and behaviour ought to be governed by that which is beautiful and attractive. [[John Dewey]]<ref>Dewey, John. (1932)'Ethics', with James Tufts. In: '' The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953 '' Edited Jo-Ann Boydston: Carbonsdale: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 275.</ref> has pointed out that the unity of aesthetics and ethics is in fact reflected in our understanding of behaviour being "fair" — the word having a double meaning of attractive and morally acceptable. More recently, [[James Page (Australian educationist)|James Page]]<ref>[http://www.infoagepub.com/products/content/p478d75b79b1ea.php Peace Education - Exploring Ethical and Philosophical Foundations] infoagepub.com</ref><ref>http://eprints.qut.edu.au/12263/</ref> has suggested that aesthetic ethics might be taken to form a philosophical rationale for [[peace education]]. ==Aesthetic judgment== Viewer interpretations of beauty possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of an education process and awareness of elite cultural values learned through exposure to mass culture. Bourdieu examined how the elite in society define the aesthetic values like taste and how varying levels of exposure to these values can result in variations by class, cultural background, and education.<ref>Bourdieu, Pierre (1984). Distinction. Routledge. ISBN 0-674-21277-0</ref> Aesthetic judgments may be culturally conditioned to some extent. [[Victorian Era|Victorians]] in Britain often saw [[African sculpture]] as ugly, but just a few decades later, [[Edwardian Era|Edwardian]] audiences saw the same sculptures as being beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to [[Human sexuality|sexual]] desirability. Thus, judgments of [[Architectural design values|aesthetic value]] can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or [[morality|moral]] value.<ref>Holm, Ivar (2006). ''Ideas and Beliefs in Architecture and [[Industrial design]]: How attitudes, orientations, and underlying assumptions shape the built environment''. Oslo School of Architecture and Design. ISBN 82-547-0174-1.</ref> In a current context, one might judge a [[Lamborghini]] to be beautiful partly because it is desirable as a status symbol, or we might judge it to be repulsive partly because it signifies for us over-consumption and offends our political or moral values.<ref>Korsmeyer, Carolyn ed. ''Aesthetics: The Big Questions'' 1998</ref> ===Are different art forms beautiful, disgusting, or boring in the same way?=== A third major topic in the study of aesthetic judgments is how they are unified across art forms. We can call a person, a house, a symphony, a fragrance, and a [[mathematical proof]] beautiful. What characteristics do they share which give them that status? What possible feature could a proof and a fragrance both share in virtue of which they both count as beautiful? What makes a painting beautiful is quite different from what makes music beautiful, which suggests that each art form has its own language for the judgement of aesthetics.<ref>Consider Clement Greenberg's arguments in "On Modernist Painting" (1961), reprinted in Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of Arts.</ref> ===What is "art"?=== {{main|Theory of art}} [[File:Siproeta epaphus Galawebdesign.jpg|thumb|Harmony of colours]] How best to define the term "art" is a subject of constant contention; many books and journal articles have been published arguing over even the basics of what we mean by the term "art".<ref name="davies">Davies, 1991, Carroll, 2000, et al.</ref> [[Theodor Adorno]] claimed in 1969 "It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident."<ref name="Danto2003">Danto, 2003</ref><ref name="Goodman">Goodman,</ref> Artists, philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists and programmers all use the notion of art in their respective fields, and give it operational definitions that vary considerably. Furthermore, it is clear that even the basic meaning of the term "art" has changed several times over the centuries, and has continued to evolve during the 20th century as well. Even as late as 1912 it was normal in the West to assume that all art aims at beauty, and thus that anything that wasn't trying to be beautiful couldn't count as art. The [[cubism|cubists]], [[dada]]ists, [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]], and many later [[art movement]]s struggled against this conception that beauty was central to the definition of art, with such success that, according to [[Danto]], "Beauty had disappeared not only from the advanced art of the 1960's but from the advanced philosophy of art of that decade as well."<ref name="Danto2003"/> Perhaps some notion like "expression" (in [[Benedetto Croce|Croce's]] theories) or "counter-environment" (in [[Marshall McLuhan|McLuhan's]] theory) can replace the previous role of beauty. [[Brian Massumi]] brought back "beauty" into consideration together with "expression".<ref>Brian Massumi, ''Deleuze, [[Guattari]] and the Philosophy of Expression'', CRCL, 24:3, 1997.</ref> Another view, as important to the philosophy of art as "beauty," is that of the "sublime," elaborated upon in the twentieth century by the [[postmodern]] philosopher [[Jean-François Lyotard]]. A further approach, elaborated by André Malraux in works such as ''The Voices of Silence'', is that art is fundamentally a response to a metaphysical question ('Art', he writes, 'is an 'anti-destiny'). Malraux argues that, while art has sometimes been oriented towards beauty and the sublime (principally in post-Renaissance European art) these qualities, as the wider history of art demonstrates, are by no means essential to it.<ref>Derek Allan. ''Art and the Human Adventure. André Malraux's Theory of Art''. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009)</ref> Marxist attempts to define art focus on its place in the mode of production, such as in [[Walter Benjamin]]'s essay ''The Author as Producer'',<ref>Benjamin, Walter, ''Understanding Brecht'', trans. Anna Bostock, Verso Books, 2003, ISBN 978-1-85984-418-2</ref> and/or its political role in class struggle.<ref>Hadjinicolaou, Nicos, ''Art History and Class Struggle'', Pluto Press; 1978. ISBN 978-0-904383-27-0</ref> Revising some concepts of the Marxist philosopher [[Louis Althusser]], [[Gary Tedman]] defines art in terms of social reproduction of the relations of production on the aesthetic level.<ref>Tedman, Gary, Aesthetics & Alienation, Zero Books; 2012.</ref> {{See also|Classificatory disputes about art}} ===What should art be like?=== Many goals have been argued for art, and aestheticians often argue that some goal or another is superior in some way. [[Clement Greenberg]], for instance, argued in 1960 that each artistic medium should seek that which makes it unique among the possible mediums and then purify itself of anything other than expression of its own uniqueness as a form.<ref>Clement Greenberg, "On Modernist Painting".</ref> The [[Dada]]ist [[Tristan Tzara]] on the other hand saw the function of art in 1918 as the destruction of a mad social order. "We must sweep and clean. Affirm the cleanliness of the individual after the state of madness, aggressive complete madness of a world abandoned to the hands of bandits."<ref>Tristan Tzara, Sept Manifestes Dada.</ref> Formal goals, creative goals, self-expression, political goals, spiritual goals, philosophical goals, and even more perceptual or aesthetic goals have all been popular pictures of what art should be like. ===The value of art=== Tolstoy defined art as the following: "Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them." However, this definition is merely a starting point for his theory of art's value. To some extent, the value of art, for Tolstoy, is one with the value of empathy. However, sometimes empathy is not of value. In chapter fifteen of ''What Is Art?'', Tolstoy says that some feelings are good, but others are bad, and so art is only valuable when it generates empathy or shared feeling for good feelings. For example, Tolstoy asserts that empathy for decadent members of the ruling class makes society worse, rather than better. In chapter sixteen, he asserts that the best art is "universal art" that expresses simple and accessible positive feeling.<ref>Theodore Gracyk, "Outline of Tolstoy's What Is Art?", [http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/tolstoy.outline.htm course web page].</ref> The capacity of art to endure over time — what precisely it is and how it operates — has been widely neglected in modern aesthetics.<ref>Derek Allan, [http://www.c-s-p.org/flyers/Art-and-Time1-4438-4400-4.htm ''Art and Time''], Cambridge Scholars, 2013</ref> ==Aesthetic universals== The philosopher [[Denis Dutton]] identified six universal signatures in human aesthetics:<ref name="Dutton">[[Denis Dutton]]'s ''Aesthetic Universals'' summarized by [[Steven Pinker]] in ''[[The Blank Slate]]''</ref> # Expertise or virtuosity. Humans cultivate, recognize, and admire technical artistic skills. # Nonutilitarian pleasure. People enjoy art for art's sake, and don't demand that it keep them warm or put food on the table. # [[Style (visual arts)|Style]]. Artistic objects and performances satisfy rules of composition that place them in a recognizable style. # Criticism. People make a point of judging, appreciating, and interpreting works of art. # Imitation. With a few important exceptions like abstract painting, works of art simulate experiences of the world. # Special focus. Art is set aside from ordinary life and made a dramatic focus of experience. However, as André Malraux and others have pointed out, there have been large numbers of cultures in which such ideas (including the idea "art" itself) were non-existent.<ref>Derek Allan, ''Art and the Human Adventure: André Malraux's Theory of Art''. (Amsterdam: Rodopi. 2009)</ref> ==Criticism== Timothy Laurie argues that theories of musical aesthetics "framed entirely in terms of appreciation, contemplation or reflection risk idealising an implausibly unmotivated listener defined solely through musical objects, rather than seeing them as a person for whom complex intentions and motivations produce variable attractions to cultural objects and practices".<ref>{{Cite news | title= Music Genre As Method | first= Timothy | last= Laurie | newspaper= Cultural Studies Review | year= 2014 | url= https://www.academia.edu/9087511}} 20 (2), pp.&nbsp;283–292.</ref> ==Aesthetics in Non-Western cultures== ===Indian aesthetics=== [[Indian art]] evolved with an emphasis on inducing special spiritual or philosophical states in the audience, or with representing them [[symbol]]ically. According to [[Kapila Vatsyayan]], "Classical [[Indian architecture]], [[Indian sculpture|sculpture]], [[Indian painting|painting]], [[Indian literature|literature]] (''kāvya''), [[Music of India|music]], and [[Indian dance|dancing]] evolved their own rules conditioned by their respective media, but they shared with one another not only the underlying spiritual beliefs of the Indian religio-philosophic mind, but also the procedures by which the relationships of the symbol and the spiritual states were worked out in detail." ===Chinese aesthetics=== Modern Chinese aesthetic theory took shape during the modernisation of China from Empire to republic in early 20th century. Thus thinkers like Kant, Hegel, Marx and Heidegger have all been incorporated into contemporary Chinese aesthetic theory, through philosophers like Li Zehou.<ref>[[Li Zehou]]</ref> ===Arab aesthetics=== Islamic art frequently adopts secular elements and elements that are frowned upon, if not forbidden, by some [[Kalam|Islamic theologians]].<ref>Davies, Penelope J.E. Denny, Walter B. Hofrichter, Frima Fox. Jacobs, Joseph. Roberts, Ann M. Simon, David L. Janson's History of Art, Prentice Hall; 2007, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Seventh Edition, ISBN 0-13-193455-4 pg. 277</ref> Human portrayals can be found in early Islamic cultures with varying degrees of acceptance by religious authorities. Human representation for the purpose of worship is uniformly considered [[idolatry]] as forbidden in ''[[Sharia]]'' law.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rpUuqLPPKK4C&dq=wijdan&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=QXySmKzsy6&sig=a9V6tTTfsrTT5Ex01QGnwrL7XYY ''The Arab Contribution to Islamic Art: From the Seventh to the Fifteenth Centuries''], [Wijdan Ali], American Univ in Cairo Press, 10 December 1999, ISBN 977-424-476-1</ref><ref>[http://www2.let.uu.nl/solis/anpt/EJOS/pdf4/07Ali.pdf ''From the Literal to the Spiritual: The Development of the Prophet Muhammad's Portrayal from 13th century Ilkhanid Miniatures to 17th century Ottoman Art''], [Steve Mwai], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/Solis/anpt/ejos/EJOS-1.html EJOS (Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies)], volume IV, issue 7, p.&nbsp;1–24, 2001</ref> ==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== * [http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/M046 Aesthetics] entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy * [http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Module-1.pdf Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges: Introduction to Aesthetics] * [http://cycleback.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/art_perception_cycleback1.pdf Art Perception] Complete pdf version of art historian David Cycleback's book. {{Aesthetics}} {{Philosophy topics}} {{Subject bar |portal1 = Aesthetics |portal2 = Arts |portal3 = Philosophy |commons = yes |commons-search = Category:Aesthetics |wikt = yes |wikt-search = |b = yes |b-search = Category:Aesthetics |q = yes |q-search = Aesthetics |s = yes |s-search = Category:Aesthetics |v = yes |v-search = Topic:Philosophy of art }} {{Authority control}} [[Category:Aesthetics|Aesthetics]]'