I don't think that natural beauty and artistic beauty are fundamentallydistinct, but the beauty of art often depends on representation in away that the beauty of natural objects does not. Works of art can bebeautiful because of what they represent. For example, a portrait orlandscape painting might be beautiful in large part because of thebeauty of that which is depicted. But they may also be beautifulbecause of the way thatthey represent. So, for example, it is possible for a painting to bebeautiful even though it depicts anobject or event that is not beautiful. There are, for example,beautiful paintings that depict scenesof great suffering, which we would not count as beautiful (e.g., somebeautiful paintings that depict St. Sebastian's martyrdom). Or considersome famous paintings of ordinary objects (Cezanne's still lifes) orordinary scenes (Vermeer's). We might be hesitant to describe thoseobjects or scenes as beautiful, even though the paintings of them arepretty central cases of beauty. And that...

This questions raises all sorts of interesting issues. I'm going tolimit my focus to the question of the relationship between morality andbeauty and avoid any discussion of more general questions relating totruth and the value of art. But there's a wealth of good literature onthe relation between morality and artistic value. See, for example, theessays in Jerrold Levinson (ed.), Aesthetics and Ethics , (Cambridge: CUP, 1998). But here are a few thoughts on beauty and morality. Itis true that we sometimes talk of immoral beliefs being ugly. We mayalso characterize immoral actions as ugly and moral ones as beautiful.And character assessment is sometimes made in terms of beauty andugliness ; e.g., 'she has a beautiful soul'. But I'm tempted by thethought that these usages are metaphorical; that is, we are not reallymaking aesthetic judgments--we are not literally ascribing beauty tothese objects-- when we talk this way. Why? Well, beauty and uglinessin the paradigm cases are associated with...

Here are a few good introductions (there are others): Noël Carroll, Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction Marcia Muelder Eaton, Basic Issues in Aesthetics Cynthia Freeland, But is it Art?: An Introduction to Art Theory (note: this is the least academic, but it's fun and interesting) Gordon Graham, Philosophy of the Arts: an introduction You also might look at some of the good anthologies out there. Here are two that I like: Peter Lamarque and Stein H. Olsen (eds.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition (note: this is excellent, but it's more difficult than the other books on the list) Alex Neill and Aaron Ridley (eds.), Arguing about Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (note: this doesn't give a general overview, but it focuses on a variety of interesting topics)

I want to emphasize that the question of the subjectivity of beautyis distinct from the question of whether there are rules or principlesabout beauty. Many aestheticians are particularists. They believe thatthere are no general rules or principles governing what makes thingsbeautiful, and that what may count towards beauty or aesthetic merit inone context may be aesthetically irrelevant in another context (or mayeven count against overall beauty or merit). But this is consistentwith such a view that judgments of beauty are more than merelysubjective. Kant is famous for having arguing that there can be no rules or principles of taste in his Critique of Judgment .Interesting contemporary discussion of the possibility ofgeneralizations regarding beauty and artistic merit can be found inMary Mothersill's book Beauty Restored . Mothersill isskeptical of there being any interesting generalizations here, but I'mnot convinced by her arguments. What about the principles of design that are...

I don't think there's much reason to think that what we find beautiful in artistic realms is entirel ysubjective . Our judgments of beauty do not seem to be pure matters ofpersonal preference (e.g., like whether you prefer sushi to fish andchips). There's at least the appearance of reason-giving and/orjustification when we talk about beautiful art. For example, we oftencan say something when we are asked why we judge something tobe beautiful. And we often treat disagreement about judgements ofbeauty as, well, real disagreement. We may find ourselves surprisedwhen we run across someone who disagrees with our judgment that a workof art is beautiful. We are often tempted--at least initially--to tryto explain away disagreement about artistic beauty by appeal to somefailing in one of the parties (e.g., a failure of attention, a lack ofsensitivity). We sometimes offer explanations in terms of the beauty ofcertain objects. All of these features make it seem as if the domain isnot one which is purely...

It isn't quite right that we see no difference between a flower or a bunch of flowers and a standard still life. For example, we see paintings as largely flat, and we take notice of their painted surfaces. This distinguishes our experience of them from our experience of flowers. More importantly, we typically value the two sorts of objects in different ways. A still life might be valued because of its beauty but also because of the skill of the painter, its capacity to express and evoke emotion, what it symbolizes, and/or the perspective on the world it manifests. That is, we value paintings as works of art, not as mere aesthetic objects. (Beauty is not our only concern when we look at paintings of flowers.) While we sometimes value bouquets of flowers for what they express, the art of flower arrangement does not seem to have the rich capacity for expression and meaning that painting does. The same is true for mere bunches of flowers. So the answer to your original question...

Yes. Some aesthetic questions are about natural beauty, and the notion of medium does not apply in the natural context. There are philosophial questions about artistic genres (e.g., how do horror and suspense work?), and it may be worthwhile to consider those independently of the specific media in which those genres are instantiated. Philosophical investigation into the objectivity of aesthetic and artistic value seem largely independent of concern for medium. Also, an overemphasis on medium can be misleading. For example, film and television are plausibly different media, but they function in very similar ways. It can be useful to think of them as two species of a larger category (the moving image).

There's plenty of room left for traditional art. Why? Because the arts aren't really in competition for room. Painting can give accurate images, represent an imaginary world, use symbolism, etc., but that doesn't mean there isn't room for sculpture, literature, photography, film, theater, dance, etc. Why wouldn't there be room for them? If it were the case that each art had a distinctive function, then it might seem that the invention of an art that could perform all artistic functions would render those other arts superfluous. But this would be mistaken. Swiss army knives haven't rendered screwdrivers and bottle-openers superfluous. Moreover, the individual arts don't work like that--they don't each have distinctive functions. Each one of them can do a variety of things--and it is up to artists to show us what can be done while working in those forms.

I'm not convinced that the golden ratio really is aesthetically pleasing to humans. See a special issue of Empirical Studies of the Arts (Volume Fifteen, Issue Two), 1997, which has a number of articles in it that challenge the idea that the Golden Ratio (or Golden Section) is really pleasing/preferred.

What a can of worms! To my mind, the most interesting philosophical work on the subject is David Hume’s wonderful essay “Of the Standard of Taste”. Humeargues that there are a number of criteria for what counts as being a‘true judge’ of the arts (that is, someone who has good taste). Here’s Hume summing up his account of true judges in that essay: “ Strongsense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected bycomparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics tothis valuable character…." Hume’s views (although they are controversial) seem pretty plausible. For example, it does seem that practice with—and experience of—a form of art is crucial to being a good judge of it. Prejudice (e.g., an unwillingness to put aside one’s own personal concerns) may certainly keep one from being a good judge. Areasonable degree of intellectual capacity (as exemplified in acapacity...

In many cases enjoyment and positive judgment go hand in hand. But enjoyment and positive evaluation can come apart in a number of ways. Some works of art do not seem to be designed to be enjoyed. Consider works of art that might be characterized as ‘difficult’ (e.g., some paintings of horrific scenes, certain movies about tragic events, novels that investigate evil, some contemporary political art, works of music such as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima ). It seems perfectly plausible that in some such cases we may judge these works to be valuable while not enjoying our interaction with them. There are, after all, a whole range of activities and experiences that we may judge to have value irrespective of whether they provide enjoyment (e.g., voting, helping those in need, writing lecture notes, etc.). Another sort of case stems from the possibility that we may be incapable--for some personal reason--from enjoying a work of art that we judge to be good. ...