Aesthetics

“Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.” – Wikipedia

I have become interested in aesthetics because it helps to explain what an audience finds visually pleasing, and why. Immanuel Kant believes that humans perceive images, such as a sunset, as aesthetically pleasing due to “Universal and Necessary judgements”. For something to be aesthetic, according to Kant, universally most humans will see it as aesthetic, and just by this large number of people saying something is aesthetic makes it so. For something to be “Necessarily” aesthetic is similar to the “What is beauty?” question, as nature or a perfect habitat is shown as aesthetic, because it represents safety or living.

Roman Ingarden questions “Whether a work of art is a physical object having a specific form or whether it is rather something which is constructed on the basis of a physical object as an entirely new creation brought into activity of the artist”- The British Journal of Aesthetics, 4 page 198-213. What I have inferred from this is that Ingarden is questioning if a physical object is already a piece of art, or if the artist expressing this object makes it into a new, different item that is now regarded as art. When related to photography, the latter is definitely true. Just by taking a photo of an object or a person, turns that item into a piece of art.

Ingarden then continues to state “Even if he(the artist) tries to remain true to the work itself, the aesthetic object actually produced by the observer often differs in many details of articulation from what is permitted or demanded by the work itself”. As shown in my other blog entries this is true. Although my images have been digitally edited, they still would not look the same as if someone were to try take the same picture. 

My work is going to take inspiration from Ingarden’s journal entries, and has given me some clarity on what to aim for when creating an aesthetic image.

In a book about aesthetics and the sociology of art, it states that aesthetics are influenced by “society or by certain of its key members”. This is true regarding the Christmas aesthetic, in which the colour red was introduced by coca-cola as a marketing scheme to link Santa to Coke.

Finally, Goodman states that “Aesthetic merit is such excellence in any symbolic function that, by its particular constellation of attributes, qualifies as aesthetic”. My understanding of this is that if an image or item is of excellence, this image can fit the certain aesthetic that it is trying to achieve.