   #copyright

Aesthetics

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Health and medicine

   The Parthenon's facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles
   in its proportions.
   Enlarge
   The Parthenon's facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles
   in its proportions.

   Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics or æsthetics) is a branch of value
   theory which studies sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes
   called judgments of sentiment or taste. Aesthetics is closely
   associated with the philosophy of art.

Etymology

   The term aesthetics comes from the Greek αἰσθητική "aisthetike" and was
   coined by the philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in 1735 to mean
   "the science of how things are known via the senses." The term
   aesthetics was used in German, shortly after Baumgarten introduced its
   Latin form (Aesthetica), but was not widely used in English until the
   beginning of the 19th century. However, much the same study was called
   studying the "standards of taste" or "judgments of taste" in English,
   following the vocabulary set by David Hume prior to the introduction of
   the term "aesthetics."

What is an aesthetic judgment?

   Many see natural beauty folded within petals of a rose.
   Enlarge
   Many see natural beauty folded within petals of a rose.

   Judgments of aesthetic value clearly rely on our ability to
   discriminate at a sensory level. Aesthetics examines what makes
   something beautiful, sublime, disgusting, fun, cute, silly,
   entertaining, pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring, humorous, or
   tragic. A wine-drinker with an unrefined palate may miss much of the
   subtlety of a fine vintage.

   Aesthetic judgments usually go beyond sensory discrimination. For David
   Hume, delicacy of taste is not merely "the ability to detect all the
   ingredients in a composition" but also our sensibility "to pains as
   well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind." Thus, the sensory
   discrimination is linked to capacity to pleasure. For Immanuel Kant
   "enjoyment" is the result when pleasure arises from sensation, but
   judging something to be "beautiful" has a third requirement: sensation
   must give rise to pleasure by engaging our capacities of reflective
   contemplation. Judgments of beauty are sensory, emotional, and
   intellectual all at once.

What factors go into an aesthetic judgment?

   Maggots commonly elicit disgust
   Enlarge
   Maggots commonly elicit disgust

   Judgments of aesthetic value seem to often involve many other kinds of
   issues as well. Responses such as disgust show that sensory detection
   is linked in instinctual ways to facial expressions, and even behaviors
   like the gag reflex. Yet disgust can often be a learned or cultural
   issue too; as Darwin pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's
   beard is disgusting even though soup is not itself disgusting.
   Aesthetic judgments may be linked to emotions or, like emotions,
   partially embodied in our physical reactions. Seeing a sublime view of
   a landscape may give us a reaction of awe, which might manifest
   physically as an increased heart rate or widened eyes. These
   subconscious reactions may even be partly constitutive of what makes
   our judgment a judgment that the landscape is sublime.

   Likewise, aesthetic judgments may be culturally conditioned to some
   extent. Victorians in Britain often saw African sculpture as ugly, but
   just a few decades later, Edwardian audiences saw the same sculptures
   as being beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to
   desirability, perhaps even to sexual desirability. Thus, judgments of
   aesthetic value can become linked to judgments of economic, political,
   or moral value. We might judge a Lamborghini to be beautiful partly
   because it is desirable as a status symbol, or we might judge it to be
   repulsive partly because it signifies for us over-consumption of
   gasoline and offends our political or moral values.
   Kittens are often considered quite cute. Enlarge
   Kittens are often considered quite cute.

   Aesthetic judgments can often be very fine-grained and internally
   contradictory. Likewise aesthetic judgments seem to often be at least
   partly intellectual and interpretative. It is what a thing means or
   symbolizes for us that is often what we are judging. Modern
   aestheticians have asserted that will and desire were almost dormant in
   aesthetic experience yet preference and choice have seemed important
   aesthetics to some 20th century thinkers. Thus aesthetic judgments
   might be seen to be based on the senses, emotions, intellectual
   opinions, will, desires, culture, preferences, values, subconscious
   behaviour, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological
   institutions, or some complex combination of these, depending on
   exactly which theory one employs.

Are different art forms beautiful, disgusting, or boring in the same way?

   A third major topic in the study of aesthetic judgment is how they are
   unified across art forms. We can call a person, a house, a symphony, a
   fragrance, and a mathematical proof beautiful. What characteristics do
   they share which give them that status? What possible feature could a
   proof and a fragrance both share in virtue of which they both count as
   beautiful? What makes a painting beautiful may be quite different from
   what makes music beautiful, which suggests that each art form has its
   own system for the judgement of aesthetics.

   Or, perhaps the identification of beauty is a conditioned response,
   built into a culture or context. Is there some underlying unity to
   aesthetic judgment and is there some way to articulate the similarities
   of a beautiful house, beautiful proof, and beautiful sunset? Likewise
   there has been long debate on how perception of beauty in the natural
   world, especially including perceiving the human form as beautiful, is
   supposed to relate to perceiving beauty in art or artifacts.

Aesthetics and the philosophy of art

   Contemporary pottery from Okinawa, Japan.
   Enlarge
   Contemporary pottery from Okinawa, Japan.

   It is not uncommon to find aesthetics used as a synonym for the
   philosophy of art, although it is also not uncommon to find thinkers
   insisting that we distinguish these two closely related fields.

What counts as "art?"

   How best to define the term “art” is a subject of much contention; many
   books and journal articles have been published arguing over even the
   basics of what we mean by the term “art”. Theodor Adorno claimed in
   1969 “It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident
   any more.” Indeed, it is not even clear anymore who has the right to
   define art. Artists, philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists and
   even programmers all use the notion of art in their respective fields,
   and give it operational definitions that are not very similar to each
   others. Further it is clear that even the basic meaning of the term
   "art" has changed several times over the centuries, and has changed
   within the 20th century as well.

   The main recent sense of the word “art” is roughly as an abbreviation
   for creative art or “fine art.” Here we mean that skill is being used
   to express the artist’s creativity, or to engage the audience’s
   aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration
   of the “finer” things. Often, if the skill is being used in a lowbrow
   or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art, yet
   many thinkers have defended practical and lowbrow forms as being just
   as much art as the more lofty forms. Likewise, if the skill is being
   used in a commercial or industrial way it may be considered design
   instead of art, or contrariwise these may be defended as art forms,
   perhaps called applied art. Some thinkers, for instance, have argued
   that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do
   with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional
   difference.

   Even as late as 1912 it was normal in the West to assume that all art
   aims at beauty, and thus that anything that wasn't trying to be
   beautiful couldn't count as art. The cubists, dadaists, Stravinsky, and
   many later art movements struggled against this conception that beauty
   was central to the definition of art, with such success that, according
   to Danto, “Beauty had disappeared not only from the advanced art of the
   1960’s but from the advanced philosophy of art of that decade as well.”
   Perhaps some notion like “expression” (in Croce’s theories) or
   “counter-environment” (in McLuhan’s theory) can replace the previous
   role of beauty.

   Perhaps (as in Kennick's theory) no definition of art is possible
   anymore. Perhaps art should be thought of as a cluster of related
   concepts in a Wittgensteinian fashion (as in Weitz or Beuys). 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 regardless of formal definitions. This "institutional
   definition of art" has been championed by George Dickie. Most people
   did not consider the depiction of a Brillo Box or a store-bought urinal
   to be art until Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp (respectively) placed
   them in the context of art (i.e., the art gallery), which then provided
   the association of these objects with the values that define art.

   Proceduralists often suggest that it is the process by which a work of
   art is created or viewed that makes it art, not any inherent feature of
   an object, or how well received it is by the institutions of the art
   world after its introduction to society at large. For John Dewey, for
   instance, if the writer intended a piece to be a poem, it is one
   whether other poets acknowledge it or not. Whereas if exactly the same
   set of words was written by a journalist, intending them as shorthand
   notes to help him write a longer article later, these would not be a
   poem. Leo Tolstoy, on the other hand, claims that what makes something
   art or not is how it is experienced by its audience, not by the
   intention of its creator. Functionalists like Monroe Beardsley argue
   that whether or not a piece counts as art depends on what function it
   plays in a particular context; the same Greek vase may play a
   non-artistic function in one context (carrying wine), and an artistic
   function in another context (helping us to appreciate the beauty of the
   human figure). '

What should we judge when we judge art?

   Art can be tricky at the metaphysical and ontological levels as well as
   at the value theory level. When we see a performance of Hamlet, how
   many works of art are we experiencing, and which should we judge?
   Perhaps there is only one relevant work of art, the whole performance,
   which many different people have contributed to, and which will exist
   briefly and then disappear. Perhaps the manuscript by Shakespeare is a
   distinct work of art from the play by the troupe, which is also
   distinct from the performance of the play by this troupe on this night,
   and all three can be judged, but are to be judged by different
   standards.

   Perhaps every person involved should be judged separately on his or her
   own merits, and each costume or line is its own work of art (with
   perhaps the director having the job of unifying them all). Similar
   problems arise for music, film and even painting. Am I to judge the
   painting itself, the work of the painter, or perhaps the painting in
   its context of presentation by the museum workers?

   These problems have been made even thornier by the rise of conceptual
   art since the 1960s. Warhol’s famous Brillo Boxes are nearly
   indistinguishable from actual Brillo boxes at the time. It would be a
   mistake to praise Warhol for the design of his boxes (which were
   designed by James Harvey), yet the conceptual move of exhibiting these
   boxes as art in a museum together with other kinds of paintings is
   Warhol's. Are we judging Warhol’s concept? His execution of the concept
   in the medium? The curator’s insight in letting Warhol display the
   boxes? The overall result? Our experience or interpretation of the
   result? Ontologically, how are we to think of the work of art? Is it a
   physical object? Several objects? A class of objects? A mental object?
   A fictional object? An abstract object? An event?

What should art be like?

   Jackson Pollock's Galaxy, a part of the Joslyn Art Museum's permanent
   collection.
   Enlarge
   Jackson Pollock's Galaxy, a part of the Joslyn Art Museum's permanent
   collection.

   Many goals have been argued for art, and aestheticians often argue that
   some goal or another is superior in some way. Clement Greenberg, for
   instance, argued in 1960 that each artistic medium should seek that
   which makes it unique among the possible mediums and then purify itself
   of anything other than expression of its own uniqueness as a form. The
   Dadaist Tristan Tzara on the other hand saw the function of art in 1918
   as the destruction of a mad social order. “We must sweep and clean.
   Affirm the cleanliness of the individual after the state of madness,
   aggressive complete madness of a world abandoned to the hands of
   bandits.” Formal goals, creative goals, self-expression, political
   goals, spiritual goals, philosophical goals, and even more perceptual
   or aesthetic goals have all been popular pictures of what art should be
   like.

What is the value of art?

   Closely related to the question of what art should be like is the
   question of what its value is. Is art a means of gaining knowledge of
   some special kind? Does it give insight into the human condition? How
   does art relate to science or religion? Is art perhaps a tool of
   education, or indoctrination, or enculturation? Does art make us more
   moral? Can it uplift us spiritually? Is art perhaps politics by other
   means? Is there some value to sharing or expressing emotions? Might the
   value of art for the artist be quite different than it is for the
   audience?

   Might the value of art to society be quite different than its value to
   individuals? Do the values of arts differ significantly from form to
   form? Working on the intended value of art tends to help define the
   relations between art and other endeavors. Art clearly does have
   spiritual goals in many settings, but then what exactly is the
   difference between religious art and religion per se? Is every
   religious ritual a piece of performance art, so that religious ritual
   is simply a subset of art?

History of Aesthetics

   Bronze sculpture, thought to be either Poseidon or Zeus, National
   Archaeological Museum of Athens
   Enlarge
   Bronze sculpture, thought to be either Poseidon or Zeus, National
   Archaeological Museum of Athens

Ancient aesthetics

   We have examples of pre-historic art, but they are rare, and the
   context of their production and use is not very clear, so we can little
   more than guess at the aesthetic doctrines that guided their production
   and interpretation.

   Ancient art was largely, but not entirely, based on the six great
   ancient civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, India, and
   China. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique
   and characteristic style in its art. Greece had the most influence on
   the development of aesthetics in the West. This period of Greek art saw
   a veneration of the human physical form and the development of
   corresponding skills to show musculature, poise, beauty and
   anatomically correct proportions.

   Greek philosophers initially felt that aesthetically appealing objects
   were beautiful in and of themselves. Plato felt that beautiful objects
   incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity among their parts.
   Similarly, in the " Metaphysics" Aristotle found that the universal
   elements of beauty were order, symmetry, and definiteness.

Non-Western aesthetics

   In Islamic art early aesthetics rejected portrayal of Allah, human
   beings, or created beings (as these might tempt people into idolatry),
   although these aniconist strictures were gradually loosened and only
   the strictest of Muslims reject human portraiture today. Further, Allah
   was taken to be immune to representation via imagery. So Islamic
   aesthetics emphasized the decorative function of art, or its religious
   functions via non-representational forms. Geometric patterns, floral
   patterns, arabesques, and abstract forms were common, as was
   calligraphy. Order and unity were common themes.

   Indian art evolved with an emphasis on inducing special spiritual or
   philosophical states in the audience, or with representing them
   symbolically. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, "Classical Indian
   architecture, sculpture, painting, literature (kaavya), music, and
   dancing evolved their own rules conditioned by their respective media,
   but they shared with one another not only the underlying spiritual
   beliefs of the Indian religio-philosophic mind, but also the procedures
   by which the relationships of the symbol and the spiritual states were
   worked out in detail."

   Chinese art has a long history of varied styles and emphases. In
   ancient times philosophers were already arguing about aesthetics.
   Confucius emphasized the role of the arts and humanities (especially
   music and poetry) in broadening human nature and aiding “li”
   (etiquette, the rites) in bringing us back to what is essential about
   humanity. His opponent Mozi, however, argued that music and fine arts
   were classist and wasteful, benefiting the rich but not the common
   people.

   By the 4th century CE, artists were debating in writing over the proper
   goals of art as well. Gu Kaizhi has 3 surviving books on this theory of
   painting, for example, and it's not uncommon to find later
   artist/scholars who both create art and write about the creating of
   art. Religious and philosophical influence on art was common (and
   diverse) but never universal; it is easy to find art that largely
   ignores philosophy and religion in almost every Chinese time period.

   Sub-Saharan African art existed in many forms and styles prior to
   colonialization, and with fairly little influence from outside Africa.
   Most of it followed traditional forms and the aesthetic norms were
   handed down orally rather than being committed to writing. Sculpture
   and performance art are prominent, and abstract and partially
   abstracted forms are valued, and were valued long before influence from
   the Western tradition began in earnest.

Western medieval aesthetics

   Lorsch Gospels 778–820. Charlemagne's Court School.
   Enlarge
   Lorsch Gospels 778–820. Charlemagne's Court School.

   Surviving medieval art is highly religious in focus, and typically was
   funded by the Church, powerful ecclesiastical individuals, or wealthy
   secular patrons. Often the pieces have an intended liturgical function,
   such as altar pieces or statuary. Realism was typically not an
   important goal, but being religiously uplifting was.

   Reflection on the nature and function of art and aesthetic experiences
   follows similar lines. St. Bonaventure’s “Retracing the Arts to
   Theology” is typical and discusses the skills of the artisan as gifts
   given by God for the purpose of disclosing God to mankind via four
   “lights”: the light of skill in mechanical arts which discloses the
   world of artifacts, as guided by the light of sense perception which
   discloses the world of natural forms, as guided by the light of
   philosophy which discloses the world of intellectual truth, as guided
   by the light of divine wisdom which discloses the world of saving
   truth.

   As the medieval world shifts into the Renaissance art again returns to
   focus on this world and on secular issues of human life. The philosophy
   of art of the ancient Greeks and Romans is re-appropriated.

Modern aesthetics

   From the late 17th to the early 20th century Western aesthetics
   underwent a slow revolution into what is often called modernism. German
   and British thinkers emphasized beauty as the key component of art and
   of the aesthetic experience, and saw art as necessarily aiming at
   beauty.

   For Baumgarten aesthetics is the science of the sense experiences, a
   younger sister of logic, and beauty is thus the most perfect kind of
   knowledge that sense experience can have. For Kant the aesthetic
   experience of beauty is a judgment of a subjective but universal truth,
   since all people should agree that “this rose is beautiful” if it in
   fact is. However, beauty cannot be reduced to any more basic set of
   features. For Schiller aesthetic appreciation of beauty is the most
   perfect reconciliation of the sensual and rational parts of human
   nature.

   For Hegel all culture is a matter of "absolute spirit" coming to be
   manifest to itself, stage by stage. Art is the first stage in which the
   absolute spirit is manifest immediately to sense-perception, and is
   thus an objective rather than subjective revelation of beauty. For
   Schopenhauer aesthetic contemplation of beauty is the most free that
   the pure intellect can be from the dictates of will; here we
   contemplate perfection of form without any kind of worldly agenda, and
   thus any intrusion of utility or politics would ruin the point of the
   beauty.
   William Hogarth, self-portrait, 1745
   Enlarge
   William Hogarth, self-portrait, 1745

   The British were largely divided into intuitionist and analytic camps.
   The intuitionists believed that aesthetic experience was disclosed by a
   single mental faculty of some kind. For the Earl of Shaftesbury this
   was identical to the moral sense, beauty just is the sensory version of
   moral goodness.

   For Hutcheson beauty is disclosed by an inner mental sense, but is a
   subjective fact rather than an objective one. Analytic theorists like
   Lord Kames, William Hogarth, and Edmund Burke hoped to reduce beauty to
   some list of attributes. Hogarth, for example, thinks that beauty
   consists of (1) fitness of the parts to some design; (2) variety in as
   many ways as possible; (3) uniformity, regularity or symmetry, which is
   only beautiful when it helps to preserve the character of fitness; (4)
   simplicity or distinctness, which gives pleasure not in itself, but
   through its enabling the eye to enjoy variety with ease; (5) intricacy,
   which provides employment for our active energies, leading the eye "a
   wanton kind of chase"; and (6) quantity or magnitude, which draws our
   attention and produces admiration and awe. Later analytic aestheticians
   strove to link beauty to some scientific theory of psychology (such as
   James Mill) or biology (such as Herbert Spencer).

Post-modern aesthetics

   As late as the Bloomsbury Group or Roger Fry’s exhibitions of
   “Post-Impressionist” art in 1910 and 1912 there is a pervasive
   assumption in the West that all art does and should aim at beauty,
   although Matisse and others are beginning to challenge this. Over the
   20th century there is a fairly steady revolt against beauty as the
   cornerstone of aesthetics or art. Often attempts to integrate the
   aesthetic sensibilities of Western and non-Western cultures are an
   important component of post-modern aesthetics. Various attempts have
   been made to replace the central role of beauty with some other notion
   that can hold art and aesthetics together.

   Croce suggested that “expression” is central in the way that beauty was
   once thought to be central. George Dickie suggested that the
   sociological institutions of the art world were the glue binding art
   and sensibility into unities. Marshall McLuhan suggested that art
   always functions as a "counter-environment" designed to make visible
   what is usually invisible about a society. Theodor Adorno felt that
   aesthetics could not proceed without confronting the role of the
   culture industry in the commodification of art and aesthetic
   experience.

Aesthetics in particular fields and art forms

Visual arts

   Aesthetic considerations within the visual arts are usually associated
   with the sense of vision. A painting or sculpture, however, is also
   perceived spatially by recognized associations and context, and even to
   some extent by the senses of smell, hearing, and touch. The form of the
   work can be subject to an aesthetic as much as the content.

   In painting, the aesthetic convention that we see a three-dimensional
   representation rather than a two-dimensional canvas is so well
   understood that most people do not realize that they are making an
   aesthetic interpretation. This notion is the basis of abstract
   impressionism. In the United States during the postwar period, the
   "push-pull" theories of Hans Hofmann, positing a relation between
   colour and perceived depth, strongly influenced a generation of
   prominent abstract painters, many of whom studied under Hofmann and
   were generally associated with abstract expressionism. Hofmann's
   general attitude toward abstraction as virtually a moral imperative for
   the serious painter was also extremely influential.

   Some aesthetic effects available in visual arts include variation,
   juxtaposition, repetition, field effects, symmetry/asymmetry, perceived
   mass, subliminal structure, linear dynamics, tension and repose,
   pattern, contrast, perspective, 3 dimensionality, movement, rhythm,
   unity/Gestalt, matrixiality and proportion.

Maps

   Qin player Wu Jinglüe 吳景略
   Enlarge
   Qin player Wu Jinglüe 吳景略

   Aesthetics in cartography relates to the visual experience of map
   reading and can take two forms: responses to the map itself as an
   aesthetic object (e.g., through detail, colour, and form) and also the
   subject of the map symbolised, often the landscape (e.g., a particular
   expression of terrain which forms an imagined visual experience of the
   aesthetic).

   Cartographers make aesthetic judgments when designing maps to ensure
   that the content forms a clear expression of the theme(s). Antique maps
   are perhaps especially revered due to their aesthetic value, which may
   seem to be derived from their styles of ornamentation. As such,
   aesthetics are often wrongly considered to be a by-product of design.
   If it is taken that aesthetic judgments are produced within a certain
   social context, they are fundamental to the cartographer's
   symbolisation and as such are integral to the function of maps.

Music

   Some of the aesthetic elements expressed in music include lyricism,
   harmony, hypnotism, emotiveness, temporal dynamics, volume dynamics,
   resonance, playfulness, colour, subtlety, elatedness, depth, and mood
   (see musical development). Aesthetics in music are often believed to be
   highly sensitive to their context: what sounds good in modern American
   rock might sound terrible in the context of the early baroque age.

Performing arts

   Performing arts appeal to our aesthetics of storytelling, grace,
   balance, class, timing, strength, shock, humor, costume, irony, beauty,
   drama, suspense, and sensuality. Whereas live stage performance is
   usually constrained by the physical reality at hand, film performance
   can further add the aesthetic elements of large-scale action, fantasy,
   and a complex interwoven musical score. Performance art often
   consciously mixes the aesthetics of several forms. Role-playing games
   are sometimes seen as a performing art with an aesthetic structure of
   their own, called RPG theory.

Literature

   In poetry, short stories, novels and non-fiction, authors use a variety
   of techniques to appeal to our aesthetic values. Depending on the type
   of writing an author may employ rhythm, illustrations, structure, time
   shifting, juxtaposition, dualism, imagery, fantasy, suspense, analysis,
   humor/cynicism, and thinking aloud.

   In literary aesthetics, the study of "effect" illuminates the deep
   structures of reading and receiving literary works. These effects may
   be broadly grouped by their modes of writing and the relationship that
   the reader assumes with time. Catharsis is the effect of dramatic
   completion of action in time. Kairosis is the effect of novels whose
   characters become integrated in time. Kenosis is the effect of lyric
   poetry which creates a sense of emptiness and timelessness.

Gastronomy

   A selection of desserts
   A selection of desserts

   Although food is a basic and frequently experienced commodity, careful
   attention to the aesthetic possibilities of foodstuffs can turn eating
   into gastronomy. Chefs inspire our aesthetic enjoyment through the
   visual sense using colour and arrangement; they inspire our senses of
   taste and smell using spices, diversity/contrast, anticipation,
   seduction, and decoration/garnishes. In regard to drinking water, there
   are formal criteria for aesthetic value including odour, colour, total
   dissolved solids and clarity. There are numerical standards in the USA
   for aesthetic acceptability of these parameters.

Information technology

   Aesthetics in information technology has focused upon the study of
   human-computer interaction and creating user-friendly devices and
   software applications; aesthetically pleasing "graphical user
   interfaces" have been shown to improve productivity. Software itself
   has aesthetic dimensions ("software aesthetics"), as do
   information-technology-mediated processes and experiences such as
   computer video games and virtual reality simulations. Digital culture
   is a distinct aesthetic to judge the appeal of digital environments
   such as browsers, websites, and icons, as well as visual and aural art
   produced exclusively with digital technologies. The notion of
   cyberspace has sometimes been linked to the concept of the sublime.

Mathematics

   The aesthetics of mathematics are often compared with music and poetry.
   Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős expressed his views on the
   indescribable beauty of mathematics when he said "Why are numbers
   beautiful? It's like asking why is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
   beautiful." Math appeals to the "senses" of logic, order, novelty,
   elegance, and discovery. Some concepts in math with specific aesthetic
   application include sacred ratios in geometry, the intuitiveness of
   axioms, the complexity and intrigue of fractals, the solidness and
   regularity of polyhedra, and the serendipity of relating theorems
   across disciplines.

Neuroesthetics

   Cognitive science has also considered aesthetics, with the advent of
   neuroesthetics, pioneered by Semir Zeki, which seeks to explain the
   prominence of great art as an embodiment of biological principles of
   the brain, namely that great works of art capture the essence of things
   just as vision and the brain capture the essentials of the world from
   the ever-changing stream of sensory input.

Industrial design

   Ludwig Mies van der Rohes Barcelona chair (1929)
   Enlarge
   Ludwig Mies van der Rohes Barcelona chair (1929)

   Beyond providing functional characteristics, designers heed many
   aesthetic qualities to improve the marketability of manufactured
   products: smoothness, shininess/reflectivity, texture, pattern,
   curviness, colour, simplicity, usability, velocity, symmetry,
   naturalness, and modernism. The staff of the Design Aesthetics section
   focuses on design, appearance and the way people perceive products.
   Design aesthetics is interested in the appearance of products; the
   explanation and meaning of this appearance is studied mainly in terms
   of social and cultural factors. The distinctive focus of the section is
   research and education in the field of sensory modalities in relation
   to product design. These fields of attention generate design baggage
   that enables engineers to design products, systems, and services, and
   match them to the correct field of use.

Architecture and interior design

   Although structural integrity, cost, the nature of building materials,
   and the functional utility of the building contribute heavily to the
   design process, architects can still apply aesthetic considerations to
   buildings and related architectural structures. Common aesthetic design
   principles include ornamentation, edge delineation, texture, flow,
   solemnity, symmetry, colour, granularity, the interaction of sunlight
   and shadows, transcendence, and harmony.

   Interior designers, being less constrained by structural concerns, have
   a wider variety of applications to appeal to aesthetics. They may
   employ color, colour harmony, wallpaper, ornamentation, furnishings,
   fabrics, textures, lighting, various floor treatments, as well as
   adhere to aesthetic concepts such as feng shui.

Urban life

   Towns and cities have been planned with aesthetics in mind; here in
   Bristol (England), 19th century private sector development was designed
   to appear attractive.
   Enlarge
   Towns and cities have been planned with aesthetics in mind; here in
   Bristol (England), 19th century private sector development was designed
   to appear attractive.

   Nearly half of mankind lives in cities; although it represents a lofty
   goal, planning and achieving urban aesthetics ( beautification)
   involves a good deal of historical luck, happenstance, and indirect
   gestalt. Nevertheless, aesthetically pleasing cities share certain
   traits: ethnic and cultural variety, numerous microclimates that
   promote a diversity of vegetation, sufficient public transportation, a
   range of build-out (or zoning) that creates both densely and sparsely
   populated areas, sanitation to foster clean streets and graffiti
   removal (or co-ordination), scenic neighboring geography (oceans or
   mountains), public spaces and events such as parks and parades, musical
   variety through local radio or street musicians, and enforcement of
   laws that abate noise, crime, and pollution.

Landscape design

   Landscape designers draw upon design elements such as axis, line,
   landform, horizontal and vertical planes, texture, and scale to create
   aesthetic variation within the landscape. They may additionally make
   use of aesthetic elements such as pools or fountains of water, plants,
   seasonal variance, stonework, fragrance, exterior lighting, statues,
   and lawns.

Fashion Design

   Fashion designers use a variety of techniques to allow people to
   express the truth about their unconscious minds by way of their
   clothing. To create wearable personality designers use fabric, cut,
   colour, scale, references to the past, texture, colour harmony,
   distressing, transparency, insignia, accessories, beading and
   embroidery.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
