How to start with aesthetics? Recommended books and philosophers

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>>9823259

>>9823259

As you yourself know deep down inside, as evidenced by your choice of OP, literature is not the proper place to go to understand and appreciate aesthetics. After all, it's just vulgar words on the paper, which do not achieve the sublime.

Instead, what you want are particular, immediate experiences of apprehension. These are most readily obtained in fine art museums, and by listening to good music.

A recent genre of music which has notably apotheosized aesthetics itself is vaporwave, as well as its offshoot, future funk. So if you listen to vaporwave while touring the Lourve or another appropriate museum, you might collapse into ego-death from the overflow of beauty (beauty is an important and central component of aesthetics).

>>9823259
take a class m8, i just took one and it was one of the best classes i've ever taken. took my appreciation of art to another level. hume and kant have the most interesting theories of art imo

Is John Ruskin a good place to start?

>>9823259
Get something like the Routledge aesthetics reader as well as Art in Theory since 1900 edited by Gaiger & Wood. Those will have selections of all the bangers you need like Kant's Critique of Judgment, Hegel Lectures on Fine Art, through to 21st century stuff like Politics of Aesthetics by Ranciere, minus all the bs that you would only need in a phd program. You might also get the birth of tragedy by Nietzsche. Personally I don't think you need to spend much time on the Greeks or Romans in this arena but Aristotle's poetics might be worthwhile if you're really into this.

Those anthologies though, especially the Routledge one will be instrumental no doubt

>>9823259
Portrait of the Artist as Une Homme De Juei. That way you're at least not wasting your time.

But really if it feels good do it is the only way to truly be a true aesthete.

You are massively limiting yourself if you stick to aesthetics in literature. Literature is just a small slice of what makes up aesthetics as a whole.

Go to a Museum and watch Movies with good cinematography. Live aesthetics, clean your room, I suggest the book the KonMari method if you want somewhere to start, but don't feel the need to religiously follow its advice, which suggests throwing out things that don't bring you joy and surrounding yourself with only beautiful things. Eat well, practice good hygiene, and workout to give yourself a beautiful body.

Reading about how some old farts philosophy is pointless if their arguments don't convince you to actually put their teachings into practice, you just get all enlightened but don't actually change in any meaningful way, to really understand aesthetics you need to LIVE aesthetics. The best way to learn about aesthetics is by doing, not reading.

Anyways, start with the greeks. Skipping the pre-socratics is fine unless you are super serious about this. Crash course in regards to IMO would be Hamiltons mythology, Illad, Odyssey, then going straight to Socrates and Plato and skipping the pre-socratics. You could skip the Iliad and Odyssey but you are missing much of the point of aesthetics if you don't read literature filled with depictions of what the Greeks considered prime aesthetics. The Greeks were so influential on aesthetics their influence continues to this day.

>>9823259
some simple recommendations of texts readily available online would be "on the sublime" by Longinus, Emund Burke's text with the copypastable name of "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful" and, my favourite, alexander pope's essay on criticism. that one

>>9823259
Beauty is only the beginning of terror from which we can not look away,

>>9823291
> Personally I don't think you need to spend much time on the Greeks or Romans in this arena but Aristotle's poetics might be worthwhile if you're really into this.

I don't think the Greeks have MUCH to say on aesthetics, but the Iliad/Odyssey I think are enlightening in that they give you insight into what was considered beautiful all those years ago which really makes you think about how some things considered beautiful have changed and some have stayed the same. Plus they're just the earliest western thinkers to have really discussed the subject. The Iliad is in many ways a tale of idealised masculinity, and the Odyssey gives countless depictions of idealised luxury.

Aesthetics is kind of a weird thing in that simply observing beautiful things can be more insightful than listening to somebody talk about beautiful things. I agree if your interest is strictly aesthetics you don't need to spend much time on the Greeks but it should be a starting point. You can skip the Sumerian meme.

What is Aesthetics point of view in post-modern art?

>>9823446
read Danto