Aesthetics Theory

Abstract

This chapter aims to discuss sense of aesthetics in the context of contemporary culture and how humans experience the visual. It attempts to examine the aesthetic experience and its communicative role, discusses approaches to the construction of aesthetic experiences in art, and considers the effects of technology on aesthetic experience. A sub-discipline of philosophy, aesthetics incorporates theories of perception, sensorial experience, and the discerning of value and taste. Multiple levels of interaction and interpretation of meaning occur simultaneously during a visual aesthetic experience with an art object. Museums exist on the basis that the works of art that have provided positive aesthetic experiences in the past continue to do so decades or centuries later, and much of the art revered in this world affects viewers similarly despite differences in age, cultural background, and education. Regardless of a lack of consensus on the site or source of aesthetic qualities, the power of the aesthetic experience is undeniable.