What Is Aesthetics?


Resurrection Chapel, 1925, Sigurd Lewerentz, architect, Stockholm, Sweden. Dismissed or Validated as “Classical” – but what of its fully stark mass. Image © Swedish Museum of Architecture

Resurrection Chapel, 1925, Sigurd Lewerentz, architect, Stockholm, Sweden. Dismissed or Validated as “Classical” – but what of its fully stark mass. Image © Swedish Museum of Architecture

Humans try very hard to make the inexplicable understood. Our spirituality becomes religion. Fairness becomes law. And what delights us becomes aesthetics, and aesthetics are dumbed down to “style” in fine arts and architecture. The description, then definition, of aesthetics enables us to judge, and hopefully, control what thrills us: “Styles may change, details may come and go, but the broad demands of aesthetic judgement are permanent”. — Roger Scruton

But the instant delight we sometimes feel when we hear, taste, think or see parts of our experience is unreasoned in its apprehension. We try to create value in our outcomes by defining them beyond experience – that is aesthetics.

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