THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

What is an aesthetic experience and what does it tell us about art or about ourselves? An aesthetic experience might be best initially defined as a subjective and often profound encounter with an object, artwork, or phenomenon that elicits a heightened sense of beauty, appreciation, or emotional response. It involves a deep engagement with the sensory, emotional, and intellectual aspects of the object of appreciation. Aesthetic experiences typically involve a sense of pleasure, contemplation, or emotional resonance, and they often transcend practical or utilitarian considerations. These experiences can encompass a wide range of phenomena, literature, natural landscapes, and even everyday objects when perceived with a heightened sense of awareness and appreciation. Aesthetic experiences are highly personal and can vary from person to person based on individual preferences, cultural backgrounds, and emotional responses.

For me, an aesthetic experience is both mysterious and confounding—I’m impacted physically as much as it might mentally or emotionally. In the throes of an aesthetic experience, I might feel the small hairs on my arms or on the back of my neck stand up. I might feel nearly ill from a racing heart or my stomach turning. I might feel energized by new thoughts prompted by the experience or feel my heart swell in appreciation and awe. I might also feel a deep sense of recognition—one that connects me to the art object and its maker in a way that transcends time and place. But why do I feel this? Where does this feeling come from? What is really happening?? In this class, we’ll study this question on two levels:

1. A ‘theoretical’ level. Theorists, critics, and philosophers have long tried to understand what it means to have an aesthetic experience. Plato likened this experience to madness, Kant to the sublime; Tolstoy argued the aesthetic experience was a form of communication only accessible through engagement in art. Historians place aesthetic experience within the context of time and culture. We’ll study and discuss theories that have tried to define this mysterious phenomenon. 

 2. A ‘practical’ level. We’ll also read the work of writers who have puzzled through this question of the aesthetic experience by writing about their connection to a work or body of work by another artist. Often this involves a search to understand the self via the work of another artist.

Books: Required books available at