What beauty there is a summary – The interest in determining and studying what aesthetics is arose more than 2,500 years ago when human beings were concerned with assimilating the idea of what aesthetics is and the value judgments that differentiate what is considered beautiful, sublime, harmonious, ugly or disagreeable both in nature and in objects.
The word aesthetic derives from the Greek aisthetikê, which means ‘sensation,’ ‘perception,’ and which comes from the noun aisthesis, ‘sensitivity.’
Hence, the study of aesthetics is related to the sensations and perceptions that each individual develops and that they use in certain situations, for example, when contemplating nature, an object, work, or a living being.
This makes its definition complex since its objective is to analyze aesthetics from our reasoning, experiences, and personal judgments, conditioned by how we appreciate what surrounds us.
Aesthetic judgments and experiences go beyond developing an idea or concept of beauty about nature or objects. They are reflections that start from sensory perceptions and prior knowledge, which allow us to highlight the characteristics that, according to each individual, stand out as beautiful, elegant, ugly, or grotesque.
what beauty there is summary
That is, subjectivity involved; therefore, what is aesthetic for one person may not be for another.
Even if we refer to a particular moment in history, how specific artistic movements have responded to a series of expressive needs typical of an era can be appreciated. Therefore aesthetics is a variant since it is adaptive and can evolve through the weather.
In this sense, aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that studies the knowledge of the sensible and art, the origin of its manifestation, and its qualities, including its variations. It constitutes a list of aesthetic values that establish the perception of beauty or the unsightly.
Likewise, aesthetics can also be understood more broadly and can be studied as the perception of art through sensory experience.
History of aesthetics in philosophy
Studies on aesthetics have carried out since ancient Greece; at that time, the word aesthetic as such did not yet exist; however, the idea of ’love of beauty’ developed by various thinkers already existed.
For Plato, the idea of beauty is broad and covers the physical, moral, knowledge, and attitudes, among others. For this philosopher, beauty an eternal, intangible, and immutable idea that can only understand from the soul and reflected in human beings’ ability to create objects.
Aristotle, for his part, who followed Plato’s position, assumed that what was considered beautiful should have a symmetrical and orderly, even rational composition.
what beauty there is summary
Beauty can generate pleasure and pleasure, although not everything good is pleasant or pleasant. Likewise, beauty can only understood by its opposition, ugliness.
Later, in the Middle Ages, aesthetics was related to art, especially religious art, whose function was to expose Christian revelations. In this sense, the artists strove to interpret what was considered aesthetic at the time, that, divine and moral beauty.
Several thinkers and religious people focused on the theme of aesthetics during the Middle Ages. For example, the theologian and writer Origen assumed that art came from God and considered supreme beauty; therefore, seeking and following God aesthetic.
Saint Augustine of Hippo, for example, from a position towards aesthetic theology, stated that moral beauty superimposed on sensible beauty. That , beauty composed of the harmony of the elements that make physical beauty something divine.
The theologian and philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas stated that the object exhibited through its form and that the subject can perceive its beauty through sensitivity. Likewise, he stressed that beauty comprises a balanced structural proportion. In the Modern Age, there were several thinkers, philosophers, theorists, writers and artists who dedicated themselves to determining what they considered aesthetics, beauty, perception, natural beauty and sensitivity, among others.
Among these theorists, we can mention Denis Diderot, Friedrich Hegel, Johann Gottfried Herder, Martin Heidegger, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, and Immanuel Kant, among others.
In this sense, aesthetics as a study discipline arose during the 18th century at the hands of the German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762), who created the discipline of Aesthetics and the knowledge of the sensible as a branch of philosophy.
what beauty there is summary
The aesthetic term taken from the Greek word aesthesis, which means ‘sensitivity’, and ‘sensation’, which why it related to the knowledge of the sensible.
Baumgarten used this term for the first time in his work Philosophical Reflections on the Poem (1735), describing that aesthetics is the science of the sensible and the relationships between art and beauty. Subsequently, the philosopher wrote two volumes entitled Aesthetica between 1750 and 1758.
According to Baumgarten, art comes from both intellectual activity and sensitivity, so determining beauty is difficult because its definition is subject to the subjective judgments of individuals beyond the objective properties of things.
Kant next focused on the subjectivity of feelings about what considered beautiful. Therefore, this philosopher focused more on the very etymology of the aesthetic word, that is, on ‘sensitivity’.
Hence, he considered that beauty not measurable because it derives from a feeling; therefore, it charged with subjectivity. Hence he proposed the term “Transcendental Aesthetics”.
For Kant, sensitivity conditioned by previous experiences that help us determine aesthetics and beauty on the very concept of objects.
Finally, in contemporary times, various ways of interpreting the sense of aesthetics, its sensitivity, and representation have emerged, including, according to the theorist Hal Foster, the anti-aesthetic expression in which artists seek to provoke other types of sensations through movements such as expressionism, dadaism or surrealism, among others.
In contemporary aesthetics, the work, its production, and what feelings it generates in individuals are studied.
body aesthetics
The word aesthetic has other meanings beyond the philosophical. By aesthetics, people can refer to personal physical appearance, to the formation of a space or thing. For example, “That decoration breaks with the whole aesthetic of the house.”
Body aesthetics refers to the external appearance of people, which is why there are centers that specialize in various treatments to improve the appearance of certain body parts; some even lead to cosmetic surgeries.
Body aesthetics is of particular importance to people, which is why they care about having a healthy and aesthetic appearance, thus reflecting well-being.
