Handouts, Links and Bibliography
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that explores the nature of aesthetic objects and of aesthetic judgments. That definition does not help much of course, unless we have some idea what these latter two terms mean. Historically, the main component of the concept of aesthetic objects has been beauty, and the central theme of aesthetic judgments has been judgment about beauty. However, other qualities that are occasionally discussed as subjects of aesthetic judgment are the sublime, the ugly, and the comic. Therefore, aesthetics is wider than the philosophy of art because many of its objects are associated both art and nature. Nevertheless, in terms of both the history of philosophy and the contemporary scene, most discussions within aesthetics relate to art. In the mid-eighteenth century, the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten coined the term "aesthetics" from a Greek word having to do with sensation. Yet what we call aesthetics goes back at least as far as Plato in the fourth century B.C.E., and some historians claimed that he originated it. Contemporary aestheticians ask, just as Plato did, about the nature of artistic or aesthetic value. They want to know the source of and justification for aesthetic judgment and whether certain necessary features of art or perception exist that make some art work or perceptions objectively more valuable than others. Aestheticians also want to see how artistic activity fits in conceptually with the rest of human activities.
There is Light, and there is the shaping of the light by consciousness.
This is creation.
Gary Zukav
History of Aesthetics in Western Philosophy Outline:
Aesthetics: History of Western Philosophy
The Sublime:
(from Latin, sublimus high, lifted up, exalted)
the feeling or experience of, or an object that produces a feeling of, (a) grandeur, nobility, majesty, elevated beauty, amazement, awfulness, horror, terror, impending doom, the terrible, that is (b) mingled with pleasure and awe, and that (c) captivates and completely involves the mind. The sublime can include feelings (emotions) of pain, danger, power, emptiness, obscurity, privation, loneliness, vastness, the infinite, God, the universe. When these emotions stand out by themselves as only ugly, threatening, and undesirable, they cannot be labeled "sublime". The sublime is associated with the beautiful, with the fascinating, with the appealing, with that which is exhilarating and which attracts.
Links
This is the official web site of the American Society of Aesthetics
Resources on the web
Bibliography
Republic (Book X)
by Plato
On Poetry and Style
by Aristotle
The Library of Liberal Arts, 1958
Critique of Judgment
by Immanuel Kant
Translated with an introduction
by J. H. Bernard, 1951
Phenomenology and Art
by Jose' Ortega y Gasset
Translated by Philip W. Silver, 1975
Beauty and Other Forms of Value
by S. Alexander, 1933/68
The Principles of Art
by R. G. Collingwood, 1938/72
The Sense of Beauty:
Being the Outline of Aesthetic Theory
by George Santayana, 1955
Art As Experience
by John Dewey, 1958
Nine Basic Arts
by Paul Weiss, 1961/70
Part II: Nine Arts
Architecture, Sculpture, Painting
Musicry, Story, Poetry
Music, The Theatre, The Dance
Some Compound Arts
Has a Great Introduction
Essays in the Philosophy of Art
by R. G. Collingwood
Edited by Alan Donagan, 1964
Philosophical Sketches:
A study of the mind in relation to feeling,
explored through art, language, and symbol
by Susanne K. Langer, 1964
Raids On The Unspeakable
by Thomas Merton, 1966
Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present
by Monroe C. Beardsley, 1966
Reflections on Art:
A source book of writings by artist, critics and philosophers
Edited by Susanne K. Langer
with an Introduction by Ralph Ross, 1968
Art After Philosophy
by Joseph Kosuth, 1969
Greek Art:
Its Development, Character and Influence
by R. M. Cook, 1972/92
The Psychology of Imagination
by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1972
Mind and Art:
An Essay on the Varieties of Expression
by Guy Sircello, 1972
THE NEW HUMANISM
Art in a Time of Change
by Barry Schwartz, 1974
Imagination
by Mary Warnock, 1978
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music
by Michael Kennedy, 1980
Experience as Art:
Aesthetics in Everyday Life
by Joseph H. Kupfer, 1983
The Forger's Art:
Forgery and the Philosophy of Art
Edited by Denis Dutton, 1983
The Arts
by Dennis J. Sporre, 1984
Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages
by Umberto Eco, 1984
Art and Experience in Classical Greece
by J. J. Pollitt, 1989
Philosophy Looks At The Arts:
Contemporary Readings in Aesthetics
Third Edition Edited by Joseph Margolis, 1987
Basic Issues in Aesthetics
by Marcia Muelder Eaton, 1988
The Mind and Its Depths
by Richard Wollheim, 1993
Art History's History
by Vernon Hyde Minor, 1994
Aesthetics
Edited by Susan Feagin and Patrick Maynard, 1997
Aesthetics:
Classical Reading from the Western Tradition
by Dabney Townsend, 2001
The Uncanny
by Sigmund Freud, 2003
The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics
Edited by Jerrold Levinson, 2005
The Sullen Art:
Interviews with Modern American Poets
by David Ossman, 1963
Theories of Modern Art:
A Source Book by Artists and Critics
by Herschel B. Chipp, 1968
Artists on Art:
From the XIV to the XX Century
edited by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves, 1972
American Artists on Art from 1940 to 1980
edited by Ellen H. Johnson, 1982
Native American Architecture
by Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton, 1989
Gardener's Art Through the Ages
9th Edition, 1991
History of Art
Revised 5th Edition
by H. W. Janson and Anthony F. Janson, 1997
Pictorial History of Philosophy
by Dagobert D. Runes, 1959
The Oxford Illustrated History Of Western Philosophy
Edited by Anthony Kenny, 1997
Paris:
An Architectural History
by Anthony Sutcliffe, 1993
The Invisible Dragon:
Four essays on Beauty
by Dave Hickey, 1993
Air Guitar:
Essays on Art and Democracy
by Dave Hickey, 1997
Unto This Last: and other writings
by John Ruskin, 1997
The Alphabet Versus The Goddess:
The Conflict Between Word and Image
by Leonard Shlain, 1998
Arts and Culture:
An Introduction to the Humanities
by Janetta Rebold Benton and Robert DiYanni, 1999
On Beauty and Being Just
by Elaine Scarry, 1999
Our Aesthetic Categories:
Zany, Cute, Interesting
by Sianne Ngai, 2012
The Penguin Dictionary Of Architecture
by John Fleming, Hugh Honour, Nikolas Pevsner, Fourth Edition, 1991
Lillian Rice
UC Berkeley 1910
B. A. Architecture
A San Diego area native, born in 1889.
She was one of the first California female (licensed) architects.
She was the first women in the country admitted to the
American Institute of Architects.
A new online directory of pre-1940s architects
by Columbia University due in 2017.
The Oxford Dictionary
of Art
by Ian Chilvers, Harold Osborne, Dennis Farr, 1994
A Dictionary of
Twentieth Century Art
by Ian Chilvers
Oxford Paperback Reference, 1999
Signs of Resistance:
A Visual History of Protest in America
by Bonnie Slegler, 2018
| Last Updated: 10/19/22 |