Dear all,
Some remarks on beauty and aesthetics
I¹ve written that the Aquinas concept of beauty (³Šthe very perception of
which pleases.²) is an elegant gateway to understanding the biosocial and
interactive nature of the beautiful as well as its larger home in aesthetic
valuing and valuing generally (in ³Designing in an Aesthetic Field.²) If
interested, you can find it at: https://uoregon.academia.edu/JerryDiethelm
I¹ve also identified ³three faces² of aesthetic valuing that play an
important role in designing. The first is aesthetic valuing for its own
sake, the kind of interests and responses we have to pure pattern or
spectacle, as for example when we admire the composition, color or shape of
something without regard to its role or usefulness in any other way.
The second is the ever present, supportive role of aesthetic valuing in the
making, realization and expressiveness of all the other values, as in the
costuming and staging of a ritual or play, the reification of a poem¹s
emotion in song, the turning of an ordinary observation into an elegant
statement or bon mot, or perhaps more simply, the right font on an important
form.
The third is the meta-aesthetic; it's what Dewey described as the ³overall
qualitativeness² of an experience or thing, as in such perceptions as
identity, unity, harmony and wholeness, and such holistic evaluations as
³firmness, commodity and delight,² and apt, poetic and just.
I find that this contemplative path leads to all manor of beautiful (and
useful) connected thoughts and things.
Jerry
--
Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service € University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
€ e-mail: [log in to unmask]
€ web: http://pages.uoregon.edu/diethelm/
€ https://oregon.academia.edu/JerryDiethelm
€ 541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
€ 541-206-2947 work/cell
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