DEFINITION AND PURPOSE OF AESTHETICS / BEAUTY
• The word aesthetics comes from the Greek word aesthanesthai, meaning “to fill”. It implies a theory of sensibility or perception in general. In 1735, Alexander Baumgarten used the term in the present meaning. He described Aesthetics as the science of the sensuous knowledge of the beautiful in art and nature contrasted with Logic, whose aim is study of the truth, and Morality, whose purpose is the moral good.
Aesthetics is the theory of the perceptibility, appreciation, responsiveness and enjoyment of the beautiful in art and mixture.!!
. BEAUTY OF THINGS HAVE BEEN UNIVERSALLY ADMIRED AND LOVED
Primitive people spend their lives dancing, chanting rituals, or decorating their bodies with tattoos, beads, necklaces, bracelets, etc. They wear clothes as part of their decorative attire for exhibiting colours and symmetrical designs. With an incredible sense of vanity and ornamentation, they make in their bodies terrible scarification, pierce their lips, ears, and nostrils, carry rings and brass collars weighing several pounds, file and blacken their teeth, flatten their forehead or elongate the heads of their children to almost cone-like forms. They employ wood, stone, bone, and shells in making beads, bracelets, collars, together with coloured seeds, pieces of fur, feathers and the teeth of animals.
Prehistoric men were also interested in the arts and modelled nature according to their cultural surroundings. Cavemen decorated the flat surfaces of their rocky homes of polychrome designs of animals of unsurpassed beauty and expression; so do the Bushmen of Africa and the aborigines of Australia.
The ancient civilizations of Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Mexico, Polynesia, India are associated with great artistic creations. The Greek vases, jars and shields and the Renaissance churches, castles, and palaces bear signs of profuse decorations.
.THE IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY IN HUMAN LIFE
Man strives for perfection. He has a natural tendency to contemplate and enjoy perfect and beautiful things. Our minds are attuned to beautiful objects and dislike disorder and ugliness. Beautiful things are things in order, things combined in a harmonious way, things with precision, purpose and proportion. There are no mistakes in beautiful things everything is appropriate, interesting, relevant, perfect. Anything that is beautiful is also meaningful, that is, easy to understand. It impresses our imagination and affects our lives. In art, things which do not make sense are eliminated.
The aesthetic enjoyments derived from the contemplation of beautiful things produce in man, astonishing effects, such as sublimation of our lower drives, relaxation from our boredom, spiritual inspiration, etc. Men need the experience of the beautiful to free themselves from their anxieties, worries, tensions, fatigue, passions and sorrows. Human existence takes on a significant dimension when it is cleansed of sordid experiences by the influence of the arts.
Beauty also increases the love for natural and artificial objects and the knowledge of our cultural heritage. Countries are filled with museums, galleries and libraries. From them we learn the evolution of human culture. Through beauty, finally, we get a better understanding of God, the world, and man. God is One, in Him all things are put together. He is Infinite Beauty.
.THE AESTHETIC PLEASURE OR ENJOYMENTS
Etymologically speaking, the word “Aesthetics” means “an experience”. If one is to know beauty in art and in nature, he must know it not as a mere information but as a joyful experience. The world of art and beauty is for our contemplation, enjoyment, and aesthetic refinement.
Pleasures in general are the result of a normal and harmonious reaction of the faculties when enjoying the good that perfects them. The intellect “enjoys itself” when being perfected by truth, and other senses and faculties are pleased when enjoying their objects on one good that perfects them. Aesthetic pleasures, in particular, are the result of the harmonious massing of pleasing stimuli derived from the vision of color, or from sounds and tones, or from the perception of forms and lines. Through sight and hearing, we perceive objects at a distance and increase the aesthetic stimuli. A simple turning of our eyes or listening for a moment to an orchestra enables us to undergo a great stimulation. Our lower senses – touch, taste and smell – cannot have more than one sensation at the same time.
Aristotle used the word “Katharsis” to describe the effects of aesthetic pleasures. What this word meant to Aristotle, we can only guess. He might have applied it to the temporary elimination of the emotions of pity and fear in the course of dramatic performance. In the language of contemporary psychoanalysis, it could mean the “purgation” of passions, soul therapy, a “tranquilizer” of emotions. The emotional commotion afforded by the medium of art is intended not to disturb the soul but to purge, heal and delight. As Ed Willock put it, The artist with his medium seems to say to us, “See how easy it is to do the right thing. See how very possible beauty can be.”
St. Thomas Aquinas found no better definition of beauty that the one derived from our fondness and liking of it: Beautiful things are those the perception of which is pleasing. “The beautiful is that which is a source of pleasure by its very apprehension.
. ON THE BEAUTIFUL
THE THEORY OF THE BEAUTIFUL
Beauty is hard to define and explain because of its perfection and because of the subjective tastes, opinion, and criteria involved in its appreciation. Discussions of the beautiful properly belong to Metaphysics, a branch of philosophy dealing with as being as being; that is, with pure and absolute realities such as goodness, truth, unity, and beauty. These abstract elements are found in all created and uncreated realities. They are called transcendentals. Consequently, in order to have a metaphysical understanding of the beautiful, it is necessary to associate it with the good and the true.
THE GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Aristotle defines the good as that which is desired by all. In a general sense, we call the objects of our liking, desire and approval, good things; and those which provoke dislike, aversion and disapproval, bad things. No one can like the bad precisely as bad or dislike the good as good.
St. Thomas Aquinas established the relation between the goodness and beauty in these words: “The beautiful adds to the notion of good a peculiar relation to the cognitive faculties, so that while good is that which simply gratifies the appetite, the beautiful is that which gratifies by its apprehension.” In other words, in order for a thing to be called good, it is required to actually satisfy our desire, to be possessed and enjoyed. In order to call a thing beautiful, it is required that subject may find delight and enjoyment in its contemplation. Kant says: “The beautiful pleases immediately apart from all interest.” According to this philosopher, “The beautiful pleases immediately apart from all interest.” According to this philosopher, “disinterestedness” is one of the main characteristics of beauty. Before Kant, Plato remarked: “Love is of the beautiful? True love is essentially disinterested, deprived of desire, non-acquisition, non-possessive.”
For instance, the famous Rice Terraces of Banawe are an object of admiration and aesthetic delight to visiting tourists. To the native Ifugaos, who year after year plant these rice paddies, the terraces are not beautiful but something good and useful since they desire their livelihood from them. A famous painting is an art of gallery may call the attention of visitors who find in it aesthetic enjoyment. The same painting, however, is an object of marketable value for a thief or a dealer of art who intends to sell it for a million dollars.
THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Truth is broadly defined as an adequation of the mind and the thing. Truth is a transcendental property of reality. Truth is generally classified into logic, ontological and moral, in as much as it is the human mind that adequate to the thing (logical truth) or the thing adequates to the idea in the divine mind (ontological truth) or the verbal statement adequates to the human mind (moral truth). We distinguish the object as “known” and the intellect to grasp the truth of things; to know the objects confronting it, whether they are concrete or abstract realities.
The beautiful is transcendental but in a special manner. The beautiful share of the transcendence of goodness and also of the transcendence of truth. The beautiful is related to the appetitive faculty or the will, whose formal object is the good, and to the cognitive faculty or intellect, whose formal object is the truth. The beautiful is a special good attracting the intellect and the will toward its contemplation and enjoyment.
All beautiful things are true in as much as they are adequate to the intellect. They are also good in as much as they are adequate to the will. Not all good or true things, however, are beautiful. The true and the good have greater extensions than the beautiful. Only delightful truths are beautiful truths. Intricate mathematical formulas, although true, are not enjoyed by the majority of people. However, truths describing in a dramatic way the inner troubles of a person or the squalor of the poor are generally beautiful because of the aesthetic enjoyment derived from the contemplation of the drama. As Fr. McNabb, O.P., put it: “Beauty is the radiance of truth, the fragrance of goodness.”
IS EVERYTHING IN NATURE AND ART BEAUTIFUL?
WHY ARE CERTAIN THINGS CALLED “UGLY”?
St. Thomas does not hesitate to write: “There is nothing that does not participate of the beautiful and the good, for everything is beautiful and good according to its form.” The reason for this is that every being stands in a particular category, essence, or species as perfect and beautiful as any other being. Therefore, it appears that everything in nature and art is beautiful, for everything is created perfect according to its nature and form.
Psychologically speaking, however, not everything in nature can produce in us aesthetic enjoyments; consequently, not
everything is beautiful. All things are beautiful and perfect in themselves, but not in relation to us. Our sense of beauty is relative and imperfect for several reasons:
a. Objects which we see everyday lose their significance to us; they belong to the common place and the vulgar.
b. Certain things are dangerous or obnoxious to our lives. They evoke feeling of repugnance, terror or dislike. Salamanders, snakes, toads, wild animals, although anatomically beautiful in their movements, proportions, and colorful designs, are not called beautiful because of their nature or cruel instincts.
c. Certain conditions in human life, such as poverty, disease, squalor, the shanties of the squatters, the dirt of the poor, etc. are referred to as ugly although when human misery and suffering, deformities, and immoralities are painted on canvas or described in a novel, they become meaningful and beautiful.
d. To appreciate beauty, we must free our intellect from other activities so that it can concentrate on the object of
its contemplation. Our feeling should likewise be detached from other practical interests. Fisherman and farmers see every day the beauty of the sea and the fields, but the fail to appreciate the natural beauty of these elements because they are too busy making a livelihood or because they are just used to them.
To the question: “Is everything in nature beautiful?”, objectively speaking we answer “Yes”. Beauty is spread and diversified everywhere. No object is totally devoid of being and of beauty. Absolute ugliness would be nothing. Subjectively speaking, we answer “No” on account of personal experiences, individual reactions, and aesthetic tastes.
To the question: “Why are certain artificial objects called “ugly?” We say: Because they lack the perfection due to them, such as proportion, symmetry, clarity, harmony, etc. The contemplation of such objects divides our attention and, instead of producing pleasant feelings and delight brings pain, discomfort, confusion, and disorder into our soul.
I hope you enjoyed reading..... :) :)
P.S. This article is originally from my professor "Miss A." as I call her this way.
This article is also my report for my Humanities and Art class.
Thanks to Google as well for the pictures.
Cheers!!