What is beauty, and what is truth? These are some of the questions which aesthetics tries to answer. In our everyday life, we talk about the 'aesthetics' of an artwork or a piece of design. But aesthetics goes beyond the simple experience of art. It is also a branch of philosophy concerned with the whole nature of experience itself, explored through our perceptions, feelings and emotions.
Guiding readers through major problems, issues and debates in aesthetics, this is a bias-free introduction for students studying the philosophy of art for the first time. Each chapter of the book begins by considering a particular work of art - from contemporary conceptual art, through literature to TV soap operas - to help students understand and explore key philosophical discussions and ideas. Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art covers such topics as: definitions and the ontology of art; interpretation and intention; aesthetic properties and evaluation; emotion and the arts; art and morality; natural, environmental, and everyday aesthetics. Chapter summaries and outlines help to navigate the major topics covered, while annotated guides to further reading and 'unresolved questions' sections help to encourage and animate study and discussion beyond the text. For those seeking to master the subject this is the most complete introduction available.
'Place in garden, lawn, to beautify landscape.' When Don Featherstone's plastic pink flamingos were first advertised in the 1957 Sears catalogue, these were the instructions. The flamingos are placed on the cover of this book for another reason: to start us asking questions. That's where philosophy always begins. Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is written to introduce students to a broad array of questions that have occupied philosophers since antiquity, and which continue to bother us today-questions like: - Is there something special about something's being art? Can a mass-produced plastic bird have that special something? - If someone likes plastic pink flamingos, does that mean they have bad taste? Is bad taste a bad thing? - Do Featherstone's pink flamingos mean anything? If so, does that depend on what Featherstone meant in designing them? Each chapter opens using a real world example - such as Marcel Duchamp's signed urinal, The Exorcist, and the ugliest animal in the world - to introduce and illustrate the issues under discussion. These case studies serve as touchstones throughout the chapter, keeping the concepts grounded and relatable. With its trademark conversational style, clear explanations, and wealth of supporting features, Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is the ideal introduction to the major problems, issues, and debates in the field. Now expanded and revised for its second edition, Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is designed to give readers the background and the tools necessary to begin asking and answering the most intriguing questions about art and beauty, even when those questions are about pink plastic flamingos.
This concise yet comprehensive introduction to the discipline of western aesthetical philosophy is focused directly on the central questions of aesthetics. Fenner arranges his analysis around four general themes—Experiences, Objects and Events, Meaning, and Judgment—that progress from issues of everyday experience to subjects of greater subtlety. Within these broader themes, Fenner explores such issues as The Aesthetic Attitude, Defining Art, and Reviewing Art Criticism. Although a historical organization is employed wherever a particular movement unfolds from earlier movements, the text's main organization is not motivated by an academic or historical treatment of the various topics. Instead, the topics themselves are of primary concern, in such a way that readers will come away with a complete overview of the canon of this highly significant area of western philosophy.
Feminist approaches to art are extremely influential and widely studied across a variety of disciplines, including art theory, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy. Gender and Aesthetics is an introduction to the major theories and thinkers within art and aesthetics from a philosophical perspective, carefully introducing and examining the role that gender plays in forming ideas about art. It is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time. Organized thematically, the book introduces in clear language the most important topics within feminist aesthetics: Why were there so few women painters? Art, pleasure and beauty Music, literature and painting The role of gender in taste and food What is art and who is an artist? Disgust and the sublime. Each chapter discusses important topics and thinkers within art and examines the role gender plays in our understanding of them. These topics include creativity, genius and the appreciation of art, and thinkers from Plato, Kant, and Hume to Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Also included in the book are illustrations from Gaugin and Hogarth to Cindy Sherman and Nancy Spero to clarify and help introduce often difficult concepts. Each chapter concludes with a summary and further reading and there is an extensive annotated bibliography. Carolyn Korsmeyer's style is refreshing and accessible, making the book suitable for students of philosophy, gender studies, visual studies and art theory, as well as anyone interested in the impact of gender on theories of art.
Aesthetics and the philosophy of art are about things in the world – things like the Mona Lisa, but also things like horror movies, things like the ugliest dog in the world, and things like wallpaper. There's a surprising amount of philosophical content to be found in wallpaper. Using a case-driven approach, Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art is grounded in real-world examples that propel thought, debate, and discussion about the nature of art and beauty. Now in its third edition, this tried-and-tested text features fresh cases and new activities. Hands-on Do Aesthetics! activities pepper the text, and Challenge Cases appear at the end of each chapter to test intuitions, to complicate the field of discussion, and to set a path forward. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wall-Paper” serves as a recurring case throughout, and this edition includes the full text of this classic short story. From classical debates that continue to bother philosophers today, to emerging problems of identity, appropriation, and morality, this introduction is designed to engage you in a field that itself engages with so much of the world around you. Here is everything you need to know about the history, themes, thinkers and theories to get you started on aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
In various ways, the essays presented in this volume explore the structures and aesthetic possibilities of music, dance and dramatic representation in ritual and theatrical situations in a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Each essay enters into a discussion of the "logic" of aesthetic processes exploring their social and political and symbolic import. The aim is above all to explore the way artistic and aesthetic practices in performance produce and structure experience.
Annotation Fenner (philosophy, U. of North Florida) presents an introduction to the Western tradition of aesthetics from the fourth century B.C.E. to the present. The volume opens with a discussion of the aesthetic experience. Chapters in the second section center around the aesthetic object and examine various theories of art, such as Romanticism, Expressionism, and Formalism. Other topics include the interpretation and censorship of art, the definition of beauty, and the practice of art criticism. Annotation 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
