Aesthetics

Intro Activity

What is Beauty?
Can you draw Beauty?
Can you describe something beautiful by
hearing it?
 Intro Activity
Look at the following Type of style
works of Art and note Its use
the following Its importance
Your interpretation
Emperor Augustus
Ceiling of Sistine Chapel
Tiffany Lamp
The Potato Eaters by Van Gogh
Water Lilly Pond by Monet
Don Quixote by Picasso
Eyes in Heat by Pollock
Campbell's Soup Can by Warhol
 Questions
What is art? Are these pieces of Art?

How do you determine what is good or bad

art? Any requirements?
 Vocabulary Check
Intuition

1. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use

of rational processes: immediate cognition. b. Knowledge
gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.

2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an

impression.
Perception

The word, perception, comes from the Latin word:

Capere - to take Per (the prefix) - completely

1.The process, act, or faculty of perceiving: OBSERVATION

2.The effect or product of perceiving: CONCEPT
3. Psychol. a. Recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli
based chiefly on memory.

In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the

process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing
sensory information.
 3 Definitions for Aesthetics:
1. a particular taste for, or approach to, what
is pleasing to the senses--especially sight;
2. a branch of philosophy dealing with the
nature of art and beauty;
3. a particular theory or conception of beauty
or art.
Definition one: Aesthetics
Function: noun

1. a particular taste for or

approach to what is
pleasing to the senses--
especially sight.
Aesthetics in this definition is something that appeals to the
senses. Someones aesthetic has to do with his or her
perceptual or artistic judgment.

It comes from the root word:

Aesthesia: the ability to feel or
perceive; being awake and
able to feel senses.

The opposite is:

Anesthesia: the inability to feel
or perceive; to be asleep or
non-feeling.
We make informal
aesthetic choices every
day.
From what we wear . . .
to the things we
buy: books,
music, and
objects for our
homes.
 Public figures make aesthetic
choices to convey something
about who they are.

Andy Warhol wore various

silver wigs throughout the
60s, 70s, and 80s to change
his personal appearance--to
create a signature look.

Who does this in todays

popular culture?
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait (Fright Wig), 1986,
Polaroid Polacolor ER, 4 1/4 x 3 3/8 in. (10.8 x 8.6
cm.). AWF
The aesthetic choices we make influence many
parts of our lives.

We all have a personal aesthetic

(preferences and tastes based on what we see).
How would you
describe the aesthetic
quality of your
classroom at school?
How would you
describe the aesthetic
quality of your
bedroom?
 Review
how do people make
aesthetic choices
everyday based upon
personal preferences
and ideas about
Andy Warhol, Brillo Box Dress and Fragile dress, 1964 AWF.
goodness, harmony
and beauty?

The Andy Warhol Museum Self-Portrait Gallery,

photo by Paul Rocheleau - All Art AWF
 Review!
What is the first a particular taste for
definition of aesthetics or approach to what is
that we learned in pleasing to the
class? senses--especially
sight
 Things that are not art
Think of something
that is not art.
list 4-6 reasons why
the object is not a
work of art
Definition Two: Aesthetics

Function: noun
2. A branch of philosophy dealing with the
nature of art and beauty.
The philosophy of aesthetics
asks and tries to answer the
Big Questions:
What is art?
What makes a piece of art beautiful?
How important are personal tastes when judging
the quality of art?
What are the standards for judging art?
Why is originality so important in art? How do we
define what is original or what is creative?
 What makes a work of art original or
creative?

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1970, Published Edition, screen print on paper, 36 x

36 in. AWF

Original source material, Flowers series by Andy Warhol,

1964, Two-sided collage; adapted from Modern
Photography magazine, June 1964, photographic spread
of color transparencies by Patricia Caulfield. AWF

If Warhol worked from other peoples photographs,

is his work really original? Why does he get to copy, but I cant?
 Who decides what is art?

Who decides what makes an

artwork special, valuable, or
good?
Andy Warhol, Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964,
silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood,
17 x 17 x 14 in. AWF
 The Nature of Beauty

Andy Warhol, Electric Chair, 1971, Published Edition, 137/250 screen print on paper, 35 1/2 x 48 in. AWF

Do artworks have to be beautiful or pretty?

Questions to determine what is real and what exists
(Metaphysics):

If this were a billboard instead of a work

hung in a gallery would it be art?
Does Warhols use of photographic
silkscreen make this work more realistic?
Is this painting objective or subjective in
relation to its subject, an electric chair?
 Bell Ringer Review!
What three branches of Philosophy can be
used to identify art?
Metaphysics
Ethics
Epistemology
 Definition three
Aesthetics
Function: noun
3. A particular theory or conception of beauty
or art.
 Beauty
the qualities that give pleasure to the
senses.

characteristic of a person, place, object or

idea that provides a perceptual experience
of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction.
 Art
The product of creative human activity in
which materials are shaped or selected to
convey an idea, emotion, or visually
interesting form.
 Art and Beauty
Socrates and Plato- art was Selectivity (important
an imitation of event in artists life)
nature/reality. Clarity (purpose, must be
Supported the Objective intelligent and Clear)
Approach, that Beauty is a
Integration (relationship to
matter of fact.
the degree of beauty
Ex. If a statue is beautiful, present)
then someone who does not
like does not merely have
different taste, they are
actually wrong.
 Subjective Approach
Subjective art on the Tends to identify the
other hand, is an beautiful with that
interpretation of the which pleases the
artist, his mood, his observer.
feeling, his dream, his
passion, his vision; it
is a state of his mind.
 Subjectivism
Supported by 18th However our
Century Philosopher judgments on beauty
David Hume. are personal ones.
We are not born with Art is a matter of
knowledge, we learn taste.
from experience.
Therefore, by using
our senses we then
develop the notion of
what is beautiful.
 Is there a purpose to Art?
Nietzsche believed that Focuses us to have
the purpose of art was courage and strive
metaphysical. toward greater
Focused on myths that accomplishments.
involved death and It is better to be sad
destruction. and deep than to be
Believed that happy and superficial.
unhappiness is actually
good for human
beings.
 For example

Another approach is to say that

art is basically a
sociological category, that whatever
art schools and
museums and artists get away with
is considered art
Kandinsky
regardlessDaof formal definitions.
Vinci

Eduardo Juantegui
 Aesthetic theories provide
different answers to these
questions:

What makes something a work of art?

What do we learn from it?
What value does this work have?
 Basic 1. Representation (imitation, realism,
Aesthetic mimesis)
2. Expressionism (emotionalism)
Theories: 3. Formalism
4. Communication of moral and religious
ideas
5. Symbolic (non-verbal) communication
6. Instrumentalism
7. Institutionalism
 The essence of art is to
Representation picture or portray reality.
(imitation, realism, Good art mirrors the world,
mimesis): imitating nature or some
ideal form.

Martin Johnson Heade,

Thunderstorm at the
Shore, c. 1870-1871, oil
on paper mounted on
canvas attached to panel
15 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.
Carnegie Museum of Art,
Howard N. Eavenson
Memorial Fund
Expressionism (emotionalism):
The essence of art is expression of
the inner emotions, feelings, moods,
and mental states of the artist. Good
art effectively and sincerely brings
these inner states to an external
objectification.

Both Aristotle and Nietzsche both

Willem de Kooning,
agreed that artists should be
Woman VI, 1953
Oil on canvas
concerned with how their works
will affect their audience.
 The essence of art is significant
Formalism: form - lines, shapes, colors, and
other formal properties of the
work; representation, expression,
and other subject matter are
irrelevant. Good art uses formal
elements to trigger an aesthetic
emotion in sensitive observers.

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1974,

Stainless steel and Plexiglas
8 x 194 1/2 x 14 in. Carnegie Museum of Art,
Purchase: gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Denby, by
exchange
Communication of moral and
religious ideas:
The essence of art is the
communication of
important moral and
religious values from the
artist to the observer.
Good art is a form of
sincere communication
by the artist that
infects the observers
with those important
moral ideas.
Simon Bening, St. Gertrude de Nivelles, from the Hours of
Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (1490-1545), Archbishop
and Elector of Mainz c. 1522-1523, opaque water-based paint
mounted on board 7 x 5 in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Bequest
of Howard A. Noble
Symbolic (non-verbal)
communication: The essence of art is the
communication of
important ideas and other
knowledge through
symbolic (non-verbal)
languages. Good art
communicates its meaning
effectively through this
non-verbal language.
Jacob Ochtervelt, Lady with Servant and Dog, c. 1671-1673,
oil on canvas, 27 1/8 x 22 7/8 in. Carnegie Museum of Art,
Henry Lee Mason Memorial Fund
Instrumentalism: The essence of art
is its usefulness in
helping us to
comprehend and
improve our overall
life experiences.
Good art is always
a means to some
important end.
Romare Bearden, Pittsburgh Memories, 1984, collage on
board, 28 5/8 x 23 1/2 in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Gift of
Mr. and Mrs. Ronald R. Davenport and Mr. and Mrs. Milton
A. Washington
Institutionalism: Art is determined by
status conferred upon it
by the institutions of the
art world not by an
Andy Warhol, Brillo
observable property in
Soap Pads Box,
1964, silkscreen ink
and house paint on
the artwork itself.
plywood, 17 x 17 x
14 in. AWF

Barry Le Va, On Corner - On

Edge - On Center Shatter
(Within the Series of Layered
Pattern Acts), 1968-1971,
twenty sheets of glass 59 x 79
in. ( 91 x 150 x 201 cm)
Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery
Fund
 Review

3 definitions for aesthetics:

1. a particular taste for, or approach to, what is pleasing
to the senses--especially sight;

2. a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art

and beauty;

3. a particular theory or conception of beauty or art.

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