aes·thet·ics: a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.
Aesthetics was brought up in Professor Housefield's Design 1 class on Thursday October 7th. What is Aesthetics? Aesthetics is, as the Oxford Dictionary states above, a set of principles concerning beauty. Beauty is a topic of interest, everyday, all day. Many people look at famous models and paintings and nature as forms of beauty, yet many forms are not recognized for the beauty that they provide.
In The Principles of Aesthetics, Dewitt H. Parker states that "Sensation is the door through which we enter into the experience of beauty; and again it is the foundation upon which the whole structure rests." Parker goes onto state that after sensations, we experience emotions linked to those sensations and iconic images also linked to the emotions, the sensations, or both, however the sensations are the primary connection of aesthetics, for without these sensations, we "may be sympathetic or intelligent, but [we] cannot be lovers of the beautiful."
This begs the question: what sensations create beauty within us? Is it a specific tone of each color that we find beautiful, and another tone that stimulates a different sensation within us? Is an expressionist painting by El Greco fundamentally more beautiful then an artistic creation by H.R. Giger, in terms of sensations created through the medium?
Different sensations are created in different combinations of medium, of different forms of color, and in mixed media, and, I believe the sensation of beauty within a piece lies partially in the eye of the beholder. An artist may have an intention to create a typically aesthetically pleasing artwork, however, creating something that is genuinely aesthetically pleasing lies in cultivating a balance of design aspects, such as unity (even amidst chaos), variety, tension, concision of expression (expressing only what is needed to be expressed), and active audience participation. All of these aspects, and several more, lend themselves to a fantastic creation that, no matter how the combination of materials, can be termed aesthetically pleasing.
In The Principles of Aesthetics, Dewitt H. Parker states that "Sensation is the door through which we enter into the experience of beauty; and again it is the foundation upon which the whole structure rests." Parker goes onto state that after sensations, we experience emotions linked to those sensations and iconic images also linked to the emotions, the sensations, or both, however the sensations are the primary connection of aesthetics, for without these sensations, we "may be sympathetic or intelligent, but [we] cannot be lovers of the beautiful."
This begs the question: what sensations create beauty within us? Is it a specific tone of each color that we find beautiful, and another tone that stimulates a different sensation within us? Is an expressionist painting by El Greco fundamentally more beautiful then an artistic creation by H.R. Giger, in terms of sensations created through the medium?
Different sensations are created in different combinations of medium, of different forms of color, and in mixed media, and, I believe the sensation of beauty within a piece lies partially in the eye of the beholder. An artist may have an intention to create a typically aesthetically pleasing artwork, however, creating something that is genuinely aesthetically pleasing lies in cultivating a balance of design aspects, such as unity (even amidst chaos), variety, tension, concision of expression (expressing only what is needed to be expressed), and active audience participation. All of these aspects, and several more, lend themselves to a fantastic creation that, no matter how the combination of materials, can be termed aesthetically pleasing.
No comments:
Post a Comment