Teens/adults - Lesson 1: What is beauty?

You look at an art work or object and you say, “That’s beautiful.” A simple enough statement. But it’s not.

Where does that reaction come from?

Enter: Aesthetics, which can be defined as the philosophy of art and beauty. It is part of the broad philosophical category of Value Theory, which includes Ethics and examines why and how we value things. To some people, all reactions to art are subjective—“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” wrote Margaret Wolfe Hunderford (1855-1897), although the sentiment is ancient—but that dodge does not satisfy the definitions of art, its purpose, and our reactions to it.

That said, numerous academics are uneasy about the validity of the field itself because of its inherent and historical prejudices. As a scholarly discipline, Aesthetics has many problems including this one: How can any single rubric of judgment be applied to a world of varied things and people? Nevertheless, important questions remain about art, and perhaps the most valuable legacy of Aesthetics comes from questioning the experience of looking. An exploration of those issues provides tools that you can use to experience art and objects more fully. Aesthetics investigates the following:

• What is art? 

• What is beauty, the sublime?

• What is the process of judging something that is either beautiful or ugly?

• What is the purpose of art? 

• Does the functionality of an object negate its artfulness?

• What is aesthetic experience?

• What merits a distinction of “fine art” relative to something else?

• What is the nature of judgment?

• What are the differences between the questions “Do I like it?” and “Is it good?”

• What makes something valuable?

• Who determines the meaning of an art work or object?

• What is taste and where does it come from?

• Is Aesthetics elitist?

• Does art have an objective meaning, or does it take on meaning as time passes?

• What is the relationship of truth and artistic judgment?

• Do different arts require different metrics of judgment?

• How do race, class, and gender affect Aesthetics?

You could spend a lifetime examining those questions, and in many ways, that’s exactly what we do. We live and experience things, process them, allow them to affect us, and all the while we are changed by the journey of seeking.

In this series of lessons, we will explore some of the fundamental questions of Aesthetics. We will divide and conquer (hopefully), by breaking apart the study using historical avenues of thought. As we go along, we will challenge you with some exercises that are designed to help you analyze your reactions to art. 

“That’s Beautiful”

 A man in his new car drives through town. He stops at the intersection and notices the art gallery on the street corner. Through the window, he glimpses an exhibition of paintings and sculpture. He shrugs and thinks, “I don’t like art.” He is driving home after work. He turns on the radio. After a few tries, he lands on a station playing a song he likes. Tonight, he is in charge of making dinner for his family, and he is thinking Spaghetti Carbonara. There is a new movie that he plans to watch with his wife before they go to sleep. If it’s not very good, he has a book on the nightstand. As he nears his home, he rides along a mountain ridge and sees the sunset in the distance. “Now that’s beautiful,” he says aloud. He pulls over and takes a photo on his phone to share with friends online.

Ok, that’s a pretty common experience, right? Aesthetics might look at this story from multiple angles, and some might say the man’s ride home had no artistic experience at all. Others might argue that many elements of the story contain aesthetic judgments. Take a look at the Aesthetics questions above again and relate them to the story. As you review the questions, try to imagine different points of view as you think of this man’s experience. 

In his life, the man is surrounded by beautiful objects like food, music, film, books, and design—all of which he values—so is he justified in saying that he doesn’t like art? 

The man has experienced a sublime moment viewing a sunset. How or how not is the sunset art? 

He has created a photo. Is he an artist?