Art and Aesthetic Appreciation by Description
Catharine Abell | University of Oxford
Gleebooks | Tuesday, 6 October | 5:45pm doors for 6:00pm start
The appreciation of many artworks requires us to perceptually experience them or recordings, copies or reproductions of them. This is consistent with the view that aesthetic appreciation is essentially perceptual. However, there are some artworks we do not need to perceive to appreciate. Descriptions of the non-aesthetic properties of some avant-garde and contemporary artworks can put those with the requisite background knowledge in a position to appreciate them. Either our appreciation of such artworks is not aesthetic, or such artworks show that aesthetic appreciation is not essentially perceptual. I will argue for the latter view and will explore its implications for the nature of aesthetic appreciation.
Please join us after the lecture for some refreshments.
