Aesthetic theory

Derived from the Greek verb aesthanesthai (to perceive), the term 'aesthetic' was until fairly
recently used in connection with the philosophy of sensation and perception. The present use of
the label 'aesthetics' to refer to the study of criticism and taste in the arts is due to the German
philosopher A. G. Baumgarten, whose Aesthetica (1750) dealt with art and the nature of beauty.

The earliest and still probably the most influential discussions of aesthetics, embracing the
beautiful and the good, are in Plato's Socratic dialogues. In the Hippias major a distinction is
drawn between what appears beautiful and what is beautiful. It is almost accepted that the
beautiful is whatever is useful or powerful; but Socrates objects that power may be used for evil,
which is not beautiful, so power and beauty cannot be the same. One may reply by making a
qualification (e.g. power when used for good is beautiful), but this implies that the good and the
beautiful are cause and effect and therefore different things. Yet this is absurd, given the ancient
and long accepted identification of the beautiful and the good. It is then suggested that the
beautiful is a particular species of the agreeable or pleasurable — comprising all things that give
pleasure through the senses of sight and hearing. Socrates questions, though, why these pleasures
should be so special compared with other pleasures, and, finding no answer, he rejects this
account.

In the Republic Plato reveals his more metaphysical thinking, as he describes the beautiful as
seen as approximating to the ideal forms of the timeless perfect reality of the universe hidden
from mortal view. For Plato, the world as perceived is a rough and imperfect model of the hidden
ideal world of the gods, as fully described in the early part of the Timaeus. In the Republic, Plato
describes how works of art, and especially paintings, are at a still further remove from the ideal
reality than are the objects of sense — which are but semblances of his perfect universe from
which somehow spring truth and beauty. Thus:

 ... you may look at a bed or any other object from straight in front or slantwise or at any
angle. Is there then any difference in the bed itself, or does it merely look different? It
only looks different. Well, that is the point. Does painting aim at reproducing any actual
object as it is, or the appearance of it as it looks? In other words, is it a representation of
the truth or of a semblance? Of a semblance [i.e. of the sensed object world]. The art of
representation, then, is a long way from reality; and apparently the reason why there is
nothing it cannot reproduce is that it grasps only a small part of any object, and that only
an image. (Republic, Book X, 598)

Plato goes on to deny that artists or poets convey reliable truth, as they have neither knowledge
nor correct belief, and he argues that the errors of the artist, at this third remove from reality, are
somewhat similar to perceptual errors caused by optical illusions that distance the perceiver from
reality.

Only the intellect of philosophers can, for Plato, correct the errors of art and poetry, and the
errors of perception. Here geometry is especially important, for the diagrams of geometry most
nearly represent the mathematically elegant and unchanging underlying forms, which are true,
good, and beautiful. This is still echoed by physicists and mathematicians who seek and find
mathematical elegance in nature — for example, the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy in A
Mathematician's Apology (1941): 'Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the
world for ugly mathematics.'

Plato's account of aesthetics has had the most profound effects on art and architecture, and
perhaps on music. The close association between the beautiful and the morally good, together
with his rejection of action and change in the ideal world, promoted distrust and even distaste for
the living body and its normal activities, which is a basis of puritanism.

A worldly kind of Platonism was developed by the English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–
92), who held that beauty is given by the central idea, or by representative examples of classes of
things, including faces and the human figure, while the deformed is what is uncommon. Thus
beauty is above singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind. It was
objected to this idea that in fact there are many different particular forms and examples of beauty
in each species, including man. Reynolds replied that individuals can represent subclasses, which
can have distinct forms of beauty, and that 'perfect beauty in any species must combine all the
characters which are beautiful in that species'. He thus tried to bring Plato's ideal forms down to
earth.

A theory entirely different from Plato's — based firmly on our bodily characteristics and
sensations rather than on hidden ideal forms of the structure of the universe or the averages of
classes — is the empathy theory. An early exponent was the artist William Hogarth (1697–
1764), who in his Analysis of Beauty (1753) suggests that twisted columns are elegant (he
prefers waving lines because they are more varied) but they displease when they are required to
bear a great weight. The notion is that we identify ourselves with the columns: when thin they
look inadequate, as we, if thin, would be too weak to support a great weight; and when too thick
they look clumsy, as we feel clumsy when too large for delicate work. This notion is no doubt
related directly to the muscle sense of required effort. A golfer driving a ball high and long
identifies himself with its flight by an empathy perhaps not so different from the power of art to
take us out of this world.

The philosophers of mind of the 18th and 19th centuries, holding associationist theories, tended
to believe that the beautiful is not intrinsic in the nature of things, or related to empathy, or to the
muscle sense, but that it is given by associations with objects or concepts, such as whiteness
associated with purity, or the grandeur of mountains with their creation by the superhuman
power of gods or the magnificent forces of nature. On this account, what is associated determines
what is seen as beautiful. So, there is a related fear that if belief, for example in gods, is
abandoned the world will lose its beauty, and be drab and meaningless. No doubt scientific
understanding imparts new beauties to the world, but this is surely no reason for it to destroy our
appreciation of art, though it changes associations and the meaning of things so that we develop
new appreciations.

Certain proportions have been regarded as intrinsically beautiful — that is, apart from
associations with objects or concepts. This is especially so of the Golden Mean or Golden
Section, the name given to a division of a line or figure in which the ratio of the smaller section
to the larger section is the same as the ratio of the larger section to the whole. The notion can be
traced back to Plato's obsession with the regular solids — cube, tetrahedron, octahedron,
icosahedron — and their supposed association with the four elements. It is the root of much
misty mysticism. There is no clear experimental evidence that the Golden Section is an
aesthetically unique or specially preferred proportion; and it is suggestive that it is rarely found
in the proportions of artists' pictures, or frames. Aesthetic proportions are often supposed to be
based on the human form, as in the Divina proportione of Luca Pacioli (c.1445–c.1514), who
was a Franciscan, a celebrated mathematician, and a friend of Leonardo and of Leon Battista
Alberti (1404–72). Pacioli tries to relate Euclidean geometry to Christianity, and describes the
sacred ratio as 'occult and secret' — the three-in-one proportion of the Holy Trinity.

There are several biologically based theories of aesthetics, with various emphases on innate
properties of mind (perhaps derived from ancient experience) and associations with things and
situations that give individual pleasure in life or are important for survival. A subtle notion is that
repetitions and symmetries, which are characteristics of all decoration, are appealing because we
have had to search out repetitions and symmetries in nature in order to predict, control, and
survive by intelligence. The Austrian physicist Ernst Mach points out the biological importance
of discovering order, in a lecture 'On symmetry' (reprinted in his Popular Scientific Lectures
1894). This general view is developed in detail by Sir Ernst Gombrich (1979).

In Art and Illusion (1960), Gombrich relates processes of perception and representative art. He
is, however, concerned here not so much with theories of beauty as with issues of the cultural
basis of the visual arts. He takes 'illusion' to mean the techniques and aims of the artist in
representing reality rather than the sense of misleading error that the word usually suggests. (See
illusions.)

Is beauty objective, or is it in the eye of the beholder? The notion that the universe is beautiful
apart from man, and so objectively beautiful as well as good, was an essential of Platonism. But
how can beauty be objective? Agreement of aesthetic practice and judgement between different
societies and over long intervals of time may be taken as evidence of some kind of objectivity,
but it must be remembered that all human environments, and the human form itself, have much
in common in all societies throughout history, so commonality of experience might be
responsible for similarities of art forms. Also, there was a surprising amount of trade (by the
Beaker people, for instance) with dissemination of artefacts over Europe and Asia even in
neolithic times. This, indeed, works against C. G. Jung's argument (Psychology and Alchemy,
1944; Man and his Symbols, 1964) that the spontaneous emergence of 'archetypal' forms is
evidence for the existence of innate symbols universally accepted as beautiful, and especially
significant, although not representational.

When Jung was writing, the extent of prehistoric and ancient trade routes was not appreciated. In
addition, there is, perhaps, only a limited number of simple symmetrical shapes to choose from.
What seems at least as remarkable as the frequent occurrence of certain formal designs is the
local individuality and gradual changes of aesthetically accepted forms in particular
communities, making it possible to date pottery and other artefacts with astonishing accuracy.
Why should the craftsmen of a community or region accept current aesthetic standards or
conventions? Why is art and design not a free-for-all — the individual expressing himself as he
wishes? It has been suggested (Gregory 1981) that there is a technological need for agreement
over non-functional features of artefacts if they are to be made cooperatively, without endless
arguments and disagreements, that cannot be resolved or decided on functional grounds. Thus
the slope of a roof is, within limits, determined by the available building materials and by the
climate (for example roofs for heavy snow are steep so that it slides off), but the proportion (if
not the size) of windows is largely arbitrary. There are many features of boats, tools, pots, and
other useful artefacts that may be varied over wide limits with no loss of function, but these have
fixed conventional forms at certain times in society. Could it be that social leaders and artists set
accepted forms where discussion leads merely to argumentative waste of time and effort? Could
this be so important that the aesthetic sense has developed as man has learned to make and use
tools and undertake cooperative projects? Could aesthetics be a by-product of tool using? This
seems a far cry from the beauty of pictures and music, but possibly the roots of style and fashion
lie in ancient technology, rather than in pictorial and decorative art. From this humble start it
may have grown to evoke the range of human experience; to lift us beyond Nature, while
revealing our own natures, such is the power of art.

Just for share only--copycat