The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to aesthetics:

Aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

– branch of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

and

axiology Axiology (from Greek , ''axia'': "value, worth"; and , '' -logia'': "study of") is the philosophical study of value. It includes questions about the nature and classification of values and about what kinds of things have value. It is intimately ...

concerned with the nature of

beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...

What ''type'' of thing is an aesthetic?

Aesthetics can be described as all of the following: * Branch of philosophy – ** Branch of

–

Related academic areas

Aesthetics of music Aesthetics of music () is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics expl ...

* Applied aesthetics *

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

* Art * Arts criticism *

Gastronomy Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating. One who is well versed in gastr ...

History of aesthetics (pre-20th-century) This is a history of aesthetics. Ancient Greek aesthetics The first important contributions to aesthetic theory are usually considered to stem from philosophers in Ancient Greece, among which the most noticeable are Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus ...

History of painting The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts and artwork created by pre-historic artists, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted, tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, continents, and ...

Painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

* Philosophy of film *

Philosophy of music Philosophy of music is the study of "fundamental questions about the nature of music and our experience of it".Andrew Kania,The Philosophy of Music, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Spring 2014 edition, edited by Edward N. Zalta. The p ...

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

Theory of painting The idea of founding a theory of painting after the model of music theory was suggested by Goethe in 1807 and gained much regard among the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, the Weimar culture period, like Paul Klee. From Goethe to Klee Goethe famo ...

History of aesthetics

* History of aesthetics ** History of aesthetics before the 20th century

Concepts in aesthetics

Aesthetic emotions Aesthetic emotions are emotions that are felt during aesthetic activity or appreciation. These emotions may be of the everyday variety (such as fear, wonder or sympathy) or may be specific to aesthetic contexts. Examples of the latter include the ...

Art manifesto An art manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement. Manifestos are a standard feature of the various movements in the modernist avant-garde and are still written today. Art manifestos ...

Art object A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

Avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...

Beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...

* Boring *

Comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

Camp Camp may refer to: Outdoor accommodation and recreation * Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site * a temporary settlement for nomads * Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...

Creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed lit ...

* Cute *

Disgust Disgust (Middle French: ''desgouster'', from Latin ''gustus'', "taste") is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful, or unpleasant. In ''The Expression o ...

ing * Ecstasy *

Elegance Elegance is beauty that shows unusual effectiveness and simplicity. Elegance is frequently used as a standard of tastefulness, particularly in visual design, decorative arts, literature, science, and the aesthetics of mathematics. Elegant ...

Entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

Ephemerality Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, f ...

Eroticism Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, ...

Fun Fun is defined by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as "Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement; boisterous joviality or merrymaking; entertainment". Etymology and usage The word ''fun'' is associated with sports, entertaining medi ...

Gaze In critical theory, sociology, and psychoanalysis, the gaze (French ''le regard''), in the philosophical and figurative sense, is an individual's (or a group's) awareness and perception of other individuals, other groups, or oneself. The concept ...

Harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...

Humour Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor ( American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...

Interpretation Interpretation may refer to: Culture * Aesthetic interpretation, an explanation of the meaning of a work of art * Allegorical interpretation, an approach that assumes a text should not be interpreted literally * Dramatic Interpretation, an event ...

Judgement Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...

Kitsch Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste. The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...

Literary merit Artistic merit is the artistic quality or value of any given work of art, music, film, literature, sculpture or painting. Obscenity and literary merit The 1921 US trial of James Joyce's novel '' Ulysses'' concerned the publication of the ''Naus ...

Mathematics and art Mathematics and art are related in a variety of ways. Mathematics has itself been described as an art mathematical beauty, motivated by beauty. Mathematics can be discerned in arts such as Music and mathematics, music, dance, painting, Mathema ...

Mathematical beauty Mathematical beauty is the aesthetic pleasure derived from the abstractness, purity, simplicity, depth or orderliness of mathematics. Mathematicians may express this pleasure by describing mathematics (or, at least, some aspect of mathematics) as ...

Perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

Picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

* Pretentious * Rasa *

Style Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to: * Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable * Design, the process of creating something * Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...

* Sublime *

Taste The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

Tragedy Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...

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Theories of aesthetics and art movements

* Symbolism *

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

Historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...

Classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthet ...

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

Postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

Psychoanalytic theory Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guides psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psy ...

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Philosophers of art and aestheticians

* Theodor W. Adorno *

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (; ; 17 July 1714 – 27 MayJan LekschasBaumgarten Family'' 1762) was a German philosopher. He was a brother to theologian Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (1706–1757). Biography Baumgarten was born in Berlin as the ...

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" '' Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment ph ...

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

G. W. F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

Jean-François Lyotard Jean-François Lyotard (; ; ; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and ...

Joseph Margolis Joseph Zalman Margolis (May 16, 1924 – June 8, 2021) was an American philosopher. A radical historicist, he authored many books critical of the central assumptions of Western philosophy, and elaborated a robust form of relativism. His philosop ...

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centu ...

Nelson Goodman Henry Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906 – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism, and aesthetics. Life and career Goodman was born in Somerville, Ma ...

Richard Wollheim Richard Arthur Wollheim (5 May 1923 − 4 November 2003) was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting. Wollheim served as the president of the British S ...

Thierry de Duve Thierry de Duve (born 1944) is a Belgian professor of modern art theory and contemporary art theory, and both teaches and publishes books in the field. He is an art critic and curates exhibitions. He has been a visiting professor at the Universit ...

George Santayana Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana (; December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a Spanish and US-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised ...

Hubert Dreyfus Hubert Lederer Dreyfus (; October 15, 1929 – April 22, 2017) was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests included phenomenology, existentialism and the philosophy of ...

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the fi ...

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aesth ...

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas fo ...

* Bernard Bosanquet *

Clive Bell Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964) was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form. Biography Origins Bell was born in East S ...

* I. A. Richards *

José Ortega y Gasset José Ortega y Gasset (; 9 May 1883 – 18 October 1955) was a Spanish philosopher and essayist. He worked during the first half of the 20th century, while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism, and dictatorship. His philosoph ...

R. G. Collingwood Robin George Collingwood (; 22 February 1889 – 9 January 1943) was an English philosopher, historian and archaeologist. He is best known for his philosophical works, including ''The Principles of Art'' (1938) and the posthumously published ...

* David Prall *

Dewitt H. Parker Dewitt H. Parker (1885–1949) was a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan. Appointed department chair in 1929, Parker published works on metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics. Publications Books * (1917) ''The Self and Nature ...

* Edward Bullough *

Irving Singer Irving Singer (December 24, 1925 – February 1, 2015) was an American professor of philosophy who was on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 55 years and wrote over 20 books. He was the author of books on various ...

* Roger Fry *

Stephen Pepper Stephen C. Pepper (April 29, 1891 – May 1, 1972) was an American pragmatism philosopher, the Mills Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. He may be best known for World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence (1942) but was ...

Susanne Langer Susanne Katherina Langer (; ''née'' Knauth; December 20, 1895 – July 17, 1985) was an American philosopher, writer, and educator known for her theories on the influences of art on the mind. She was one of the earliest American women to achieve ...

Theodor Lipps Theodor Lipps (; 28 July 1851 – 17 October 1914) was a German philosopher, famed for his theory regarding aesthetics, creating the framework for the concept of ''Einfühlung'' ( empathy)'','' defined as, "projecting oneself onto the object of ...

Thomas Munro Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet KCB (27 May 17616 July 1827) was a Scottish soldier and British colonial administrator. He served as an East India Company Army officer and statesman, in addition to also being the governor of Mad ...

Curt John Ducasse Curt John Ducasse (; 7 July 1881 – 3 September 1969) was a French-born American philosopher who taught at the University of Washington and Brown University.Chisholm, R. M. (1970). ''C. J. Ducasse (1881-1969)''. ''Philosophy and Phenomenologica ...

Arthur Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for '' The Nation'' and for his work in philosop ...

* more ...

References

External links

* * *
Medieval Theories of Aesthetics
article in the ''

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original p ...

''
Revue online ''Appareil''

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Complete pdf version of art historian David Cycleback's {{Outline footer

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...