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I disagree with Ludwig Wittgenstein when he states that aesthetics “draws one’s attention to certain features, to place things side by side so as to exhibit these features” because of the logic that gives birth to the thoughts that led to this statement. This logic questions the ability of a person to ascertain what “beauty” is, what contains the quality known as “beauty”, and the levels of beauty and how they can be measured and compared. Wittgenstein uses the metaphor of games to illustrate his points regarding aesthetics and beauty. He reasons that the idea of a common feature or “ingredient” being common to all games is to simple and primitive an idea to accept. He states “It is comparable to the idea that properties are ingredients of the things which have the properties: e.g. that beauty is an ingredient of all beautiful things as alcohol is of beer and wine, and that we could therefore have pure beauty, unadulterated by anything that is beautiful.” (BB 17) Marjorie Perloff further explains Wittgenstein’s idea by stating what he meant was that “… one cannot say X is beautiful unless one has a notion of what “beauty” is in the abstract.” She shows that Wittgenstein believes that you must be able to define a quality on its own, in regards to itself only, before you can apply that quality to any other thing. Wittgenstein goes on to explain by using the Greek ideal as a model. He says that what made this ideal was the role it played in the lives of the Greek People. This suggests that since this ideal, this standard if you will, was taught so fervently that it became the norm, and thus the ideal. Since the great scholar of the time (Aristotle) wrote with this form, and the great sculptors and artists were locked into this ideal, it was accepted as the prime example of form, and was thus accepted. To Wittgenstein, it was not the idea of “quality”, or “ideal form” that motivated the trends of people, but the models upon which these qualities were imposed. Quality itself might as well not exist, if aesthetics were not there to “draw one’s attention” to certain things. There are certain points which could make one wonder about the validity of Wittgenstein’s ideas, however. Wittgenstein seems to think that quality does not exist by itself, that man imposes the idea of quality upon things that are deemed acceptable by the masses.
The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty, is unable to follow — of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only?
...reas the various false views of language can be stated or lend themselves to assertion, the true view is something that has to be seen - it remains a view."(33) And so analogously, in aesthetics the true view is something that has to be seen, and so any analysis of the British Avant-Garde or any other movement ultimately must be seen. And so we might argue that this is one reason why the empirical or practice in aesthetics is so important because in order to see the true view in aesthetics or the true view with regard to particular works, we must actually see or hear aesthetic objects. We might emphasize Wittgenstein¡¦s advise that we must not theorize as to how a word functions or analogously as to how an art work functions, but to look at its use and learn from that, that we need to look at particular art objects in order to productively theorize about art.(34)
beauty before we can truly cherish other forms of beauty around us. “Two or three things
Winckelmann like Vasari dealt greatly with the artistic problems concerning representation and imitation of nature including the need for the human beauty in a figure. However he also was interested in art criticism based in historical timelines and causes for the change and evolution of modern art. This greatly seen in this article not only in his thesis that great contemporary art is based in antiquity but also in his explanation for why the Greek art was so well done and why it has risen back into the hands of modern art. First, Greek work came back to contemporary society greatly by the monarch led by Titus who brought authentic work from Greek masters for his artists to learn from and imitate. He also discusses the correlation between the bodies, like that of the Theseus model, with the Greek lifestyle they lived based heavily on training for the Olympic games and the resemblance of youth’s bodies to godlike figures. Great masters of contemporary work use these same bodily model and ideal of beauty in their work. Winckelmann states that their present good taste is due to the fact that they, “partook of good taste at its source.” Overall the Greeks set up rules of art that could be imitated to capture nature and its ideal form of beauty, an idea that many sought to accomplish.
Here, the term ‘beauty’ involves both form, shape and the relationship among people, environment, and the circumstances. Not that there is anything wrong with beauty in Super Normal: on the contrary, it provides daily life with pleasant and inspirations. Donald Norman, an American Product designer, in his book Emotional Design mentions, the beauty of a product can elicit positive emotions such as pleasure and these can alter how we think and behave. Interacting with a pleasing, attractive product “the behavior seems to go along more smoothly, more easily, and better (Norman, 2002). attractive things make people feel good resulting in a positive emotional state. Appreciated aesthetics in turn opens up the cognitive system making people think more creatively and solutions to problems become easier to find. Thus, based on the work of Norman, happy people are more effective in finding alternative solutions and tolerant of minor difficulties. These effects are central to measures of usability and their positive nature indicates a positive role for aesthetics in
Before analysing selected art works in more detail it will be worth introducing a few different definitions and hypothesis of aesthetics in art based on theories of well-known critical thinkers.
In brief, beauty is something that is aside from you. It is something you do not have to worry about. Nevertheless, we must be afraid of the sublime because we cannot understand it and therefore, is dangerous to us. We must at least decide is it poses as a danger to us. Just as Maureen Rousseau restated from Kant’s “Critique of Judgement” about the notion one can fear God without being afraid of him because we cannot resist God. It makes sense what Maureen Rousseau says when she explains that we can be fearful of the sublime but we can also determine if it something be afraid of. Maybe that is why we have the quest for beauty because we have nothing to fear from beauty. Beauty is ultimately something we admire and want.
ABSTRACT: In moving away from the objective, property-based theories of earlier periods to a subject-based aesthetic, Kant did not intend to give up the idea that judgments of beauty are universalizable. Accordingly, the "Deduction of Judgments of Taste" (KU, § 38) aims to show how reflective aesthetic judgments can be "imputed" a priori to all human subjects. The Deduction is not successful: Kant manages only to justify the imputation of the same form of aesthetic experience to everyone; he does not show that this experience will universally occur in response to the same objects. This is what I call Kant’s Problem of Particularity. After critiquing Anthony Savile’s attempt to overcome this Problem by linking Kant’s aesthetics to the theory of rational ideas, I elucidate the concept of (the oft-unnoticed) aesthetic attributes (§ 49) in a way that allows us to solve the Problem of Particularity.
Questioning Marxist aesthetics is essential to an understanding of the enlightenment movements. Art, in its nearly infinite forms, is the vehicle for knowledge of a subjective kind. Through visual, linguistic, audio, or dance any number of messages and ideas may be conveyed, and these ideas may then be interoperated. The aesthetic form is what constitutes good or great art. It puts forth a structure by which one can judge a piece beyond the mere technical skill that is presented in it, though that is an important issue. The aesthetic form puts forth the notion that art sublimates reality, creating another reality that brings into question this one. Creating this fictional reality is the responsibility of art. According to Marcuse “renunciation of the aesthetic form is abdication
Berger makes his attempt to inform an audience with an academic background that there is a subjective way that we see things all around us every day and based on our previous experiences, knowledge, and other things that occur in our lives, no two people may see or interpret something in the same way. In the essay Mr. Berger uses art as his platform to discuss that we should be careful about how people look at things. Mr. Berger uses rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and logos. These rhetorical strategies can really help an author of any novel, essay, or any literature to truly get the information they desire across to the audience in a clear and concise
In Introduction to Aesthetics, G.W.F. Hegel’s opening paragraphs describe the spacious realm of the beautiful, the relationship of beauty in both nature and art, and the limitation and defense of aesthetics. Hegel addresses that the proper way to express the meaning of aesthetics is to refer to it as Philosophy of Fine Art, however, once adopting this expression humans, “exclude the beauty of nature” (Hegel). As humans, it has become a way of life to use our senses to help describe the beauty of nature, animals and other people in our world. According to Hegel, “beauty of art is higher than nature” (Hegel) and it is the art that is created by the spirit that stands above that of nature. Nature is an incomplete substance and the, “realms of nature have not been classified and examined from the point of view of beauty” (Hegel). Therefore, there is a difference between the beauty of nature and
For example, Petrarch focuses on describing not only the appearance of the doe, but her surroundings as well. Furthermore, he is so delighted by the beauty he sees in his beloved that he must drop everything and follow her at all costs; this fact exemplifies the Italian Renaissance’s cultural concept of beauty because the focus is on the poet’s infatuation with the outward beauty of his
David Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” addresses the problem of how objects are judged. Hume addresses three assumptions about how aesthetic value is determined. These assumptions are: all tastes are equal, some art is better than others, and aesthetic value of art is defined by a person’s taste(from lecture). However, Hume finds the three beliefs to be an “inconsistent triad”(from lecture) of assumptions. If all taste is equal but taste defines the aesthetic value, how can it be that some art is good and others bad? Wouldn’t all art be equal if all taste is equal? Hume does not believe all objects are equal in their beauty or greatness. He states that some art is meant to endure, “the beauties, which are naturally fitted to excite agreeable sentiment, immediately display their energy”.(text pg 259) So how will society discern what is agreeable and what is not? Hume proposes a set of true judges whose palates are so refined they can precisely define the aesthetic value of something.
Beauty isn’t subjective. It’s one of the only things in the world that cannot be denied. Things are either beautiful or they are not. Art is beautiful. Art is not always meant to be interpreted, sometimes you just need to admire it for its beauty, not for what it means. Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer best known for his book The Picture of Dorian Gray and for writing plays like The Importance of Being Earnest, wrote this and almost based the book earlier mentioned on the whole ideal that beauty doesn’t have to mean more than just beauty. I feel like Oscar Wilde’s greatest strength is his play on words and often use of caricature that really livens up what he writes. He lived during the Victorian era, when art was meant to be used to teach and to influence the minds of society, so as he wrote the book The Picture of Dorian Gray, he strived to prove a great point and contradiction to the era he was living in, as well as the way he uses Dorian’s two best friends to show the hideousness of the bigotry he was living in, as he was arrested and imprisoned for being gay. Oscar Wilde’s use of irony, foil, and symbolism really portray his total disgust towards the age he was living in by rebelling and contradicting the use of art as a tool and the intolerance he was surrounded with during this Victorian age.
Having described the ‘particular picture’ of human language (which is essentially that of the Tractatus) he immediately gives an example of someone asking for ‘five red apples’ in a shop, and points out that each of these words has to be acted upon in a different way. To comply with the word ‘apples’, the shopkeeper opens a drawer marked ‘apples’; for the word ‘red’, he looks at a colour-chart; and in the case of ‘five’, he says the numbers from one to five, taking out an apple for each number (PI 1). This diversity of use is to be contrasted with the uniformity of the ‘particular picture of human language’. Wittgenstein then proceeds to pose what may be called the ‘meaning question’, choosing for this purpose the word ‘five’. But what is the meaning of the word ‘five’? (PI 1). One may be inclined to think that there must be an object of some kind, corresponding to the word ‘five’, in virtue of which it has