subLime & beautiful…

I was used to thinking that something great & splendid or grand & transcendental is something totally positive. Burke’s Sublime & Beautiful taught me another idea. I have looked deeply on the different forms of sublimity through his article. When an object astonishes us, we are brought to a point where our minds are focused to that particular object alone and no other things can make our attention depart from that object. Astonishment, then, is the result of sublimity in its highest degree.

The idea that sublimity equaled some degree of horror seems strange to me at first. Now, I have found myself nodding in agreement with this idea. Sublimity is not just on things that we consider as positively breathtaking. The sublime can also be seen on objects of terror regardless of its size. Similarly, obscurity also equals sublimity. Humans are usually terrified of the unknown. Objects, then, are considered sublime when they appear dreadful to people in a sense that they do not exactly know or understand what those objects are.

It is truly fascinating to know that even the vastness of the ocean, the privation, strength & power of several objects and the fact that there are certain things that are infinite define sublimity. Just as stated earlier, sublime is just a mere word that I encounter in some days of my life. Interestingly, there is something really deeper than that.

a gLimpse of aesthetics…

COMA110- The course began with a sort-of essay quiz that asked to define BEAUTY. The moment the question was asked, tons & tons of definitions of beauty popped out my mind. That was when I realized that it is way too hard to give an exact definition of beauty. Well, I think you do not need to complicate its meaning. For me, beauty is not skin-deep. It is not seen on the surface alone but on what is beneath that surface. Nevertheless, aesthetics teaches me more than that.

I had encountered the word aesthetics several times but I really did not know what it is all about. Just lately, I have come to know that it deals with the study of how we put value on things or objects. It has a great deal to do with the philosophical examination of our perception by means of senses. True enough, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” We, human beings are the ones who put meaning on what we see. We define objects based on how we view them. Particularly, aesthetics is concerned with our experiences of art & natural beauty. When we put pleasure in an object or become interested in that certain object, we are said to have an aesthetic attitude & our experience is called an aesthetic experience.

One of the best things that I have learned so far about aesthetics is in the form of a question- is beauty inherent in the object or just in the eyes of a person? If beauty then is just in the eyes of a person, we can actually learn it. But how? I guess that is something I still need to find out as we go on with this course.

Since I am usually fascinated with interesting questions, I’d like to leave this thought too. I have learned in my further readings that one of the central questions aesthetics asks & seeks to answer, either directly or indirectly is “why art itself is valuable?” It was stated that art is valuable because art is beautiful. Why, then, is beauty valuable? I do not quite know why it is. Maybe that is also something I need to learn about.