ku # 479 ~ aesthetics

Rain and fallen birch on the forest floor • click to embiggenAesthetics - the dictionary says; 1. the branch of philosophy dealing with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the comic, etc., as applicable to the fine arts, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgments concerning works of art, and the principles underlying or justifying such judgments. and, 2. the study of the mind and emotions in relation to the sense of beauty.

Or, to simplify, a manner of thinking and making judgements about the concept of beauty.

In his easay, Beauty in Photography, Robert Adams suggests that Beauty is the beauty of Form, '... the coherence and structure underlying life ... [that] helps us meet our worst fear, the suspicion that life may be chaos and that therefore our suffering is without meaning ...'

Adams goes on to opine that if the goal of Art is Beauty (and he believes it is), then 'how do we judge Art?' His answer is that it should be judged '... by whether it reveals to us important Form that we ourselves have experienced but to which we have not paid adequate attention. Successful Art rediscovers Beauty for us ...'

Adams also believes that 'succesful' Art must be measured by '... the apparent ease of its execution. An artwork should not appear to have been hard work.'- a notion that he calls 'grace' in photography. As a counterpoint to his notion of grace in photography, Adams suggests that ... we need only to examine a copy of a mass circulation photography magazine (ed. - or a online nature photo forum). Most of the pictures suggest embarassing strain: odd angles, extreme lenses and eccentric darkroom techniques reveal a struggle to substitute shock and technology for sight.'

He goes on to point out that the work of most photographers of importance is 'usually marked by an economy of means, an apparently everyday sort of relationship with their subject.' Then, IMO, Adams lowers the boom - '... only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that Beauty is commonplace.'

As the poet Theodore Roethke wrote. 'I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.'

So, that is why, amongst other things, simple seeing, an everyday sort of relationship with subject, rediscoverying Beauty in that which has not been paid adequate attention are at the core of my asethetic beliefs.