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Single Idea 20424

[filed under theme 21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude ]

Full Idea

In the imaginative life no action is necessary, so the whole consciousness may be focused upon the perceptive and the emotional aspects of the experience. Hence we get a different set of values, and a different kind of perception

Gist of Idea

Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art

Source

Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.24)

Book Ref

Fry,Roger: 'Vision and Design' [Penguin 1937], p.24


A Reaction

Good. A huge range of human activities are like scientific experiments, where you draw on our evolved faculties, but put them in controlled conditions, where the less convenient and stressful parts are absent. War and sport. Real and theatrical tragedy.


The 22 ideas with the same theme [distinctive frame of mind in aesthetic experience]:

The disinterested attitude of the judge is the hallmark of a judgement of beauty [Shaftesbury, by Scruton]
Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics [Hume, by Scruton]
Only rational beings can experience beauty [Kant, by Scruton]
The aesthetic attitude is a matter of disinterestedness [Kant, by Wollheim]
It is hard to see why we would have developed Kant's 'disinterested' aesthetic attitude [Cochrane on Kant]
Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks [Hegel, by Pinkard]
Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
Experiencing a thing as beautiful is to experience it wrongly [Nietzsche]
Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry]
Everyone reveals an aesthetic attitude, looking at something which only exists to be seen [Fry]
Good art produces exaltation and detachment [Bell,C]
Aesthetic enjoyment combines pleasure with insight [Ross]
Consider: "Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful" [Wittgenstein]
Interpretation is performance for some arts, and critical for all arts [Wollheim]
A love of nature must precede a love of art [Wollheim]
The aesthetic attitude is nothing more than paying close attention [Dickie, by Giovannelli]
The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing [Scruton]
Art gives us imaginary worlds which we can view impartially [Scruton]
Aesthetic experience informs the world with the values of the observer [Scruton]
We don't often respond to events in art as if they were real events [Jacobson,D]
Maybe literary assessment is evaluating the artist as a suitable friend [Gaut]
Aesthetic experience involves perception, but also imagination and understanding [Davies,S]