Aesthetic Interest and Art

A detailed Summary of Aesthetic Interest and Art

Aesthetic interest is the attention paid to the perceptual aspects of the world, focusing on surface appearances. Aesthetic interest may be directed at a variety of man made and natural objects, perceived by any of the five senses. For example, we may enjoy looking at a mountain range, listening to the sounds of birds singing, smelling fresh flowers, feeling the texture of springy heather when we touch it or the taste of fine wine. It is important to realise that aesthetic interest may be either positive or negative, to varying degrees, ranging from the mildly pleasurable to extreme enthusiasm or from mild distaste to complete disgust.

Aesthetic interest can take various forms and different objects can be aesthetically appealing for contrasting reasons. For example, we may marvel at the formal arrangement of a man made construction such as Stonehenge whilst also appreciate high, jagged mountain ranges for their lack of form and random nature. These are examples of objects that are commonly appreciated aesthetically for the reasons given, however individuals may appreciate an object's beauty for their own reasons.

Immanuel Kant in his "Critique of Aesthetic Judgement" offered a fundamental account of aesthetic interest. He fi

Those with a less extreme view however can appreciate the ideas of concept and interpretation but feel that artists should use traditional and aesthetically pleasing techniques to demonstrate their ideas. They may respect artists such as Salvatore Dali, whose conceptual ideas of his dreams are expressed through the medium of fine drawings, paintings and prints.

Kant also introduced a distinction between what he called free and dependent beauty. He said that dependent beauty occurs by the contrasting of aesthetic qualities between examples of its kind. Kant thought that when we judge the aesthetic quality of an object's form individually, without judging it in relation to other specimens, we are making the object an example of free beauty. For example, when we admire the beauty of a Labrador considered by itself, we make it an example of free beauty. However if we then award it first prize in a dog show, we are treating it as an example of dependent beauty.

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Approximate Word count = 1228
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts

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