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From the 1970s to the early-1990s, the discourse surrounding aesthetics largely disappeared from the study of art history, theory and cultural studies. Claims for the aesthetic value of art-works were thought of as elitist and politically regressive. The 1990s witnessed a return to aesthetics, but one that stressed the independent claims of beauty, in reaction to its perceived suppression by ethical and political imperatives. However, beauty is just one aspect of the aesthetic. In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the ways in which aesthetics and ethics are intertwined. In a series of paired essays and responses, a group of the English-speaking world’s most distinguished thinkers consider this ‘new’ aesthetics, demonstrating its cross-disciplinary relevance in terms accessible to a non-specialist readership.

Author: Edited by Diarmuid Costello and Dominic Willsdon, English, Art General.

Specifications: softcover, 256 pages, 234 x 156 mm, 40 black and white illustrations
, ISBN: 978 1854376589 .

Price (ZA) R300.00

Keywords: Aesthetics, Art-Theory, critical theory, Diamuid Costello, Dominic Willsdon, ethic, images, philosophy, Semiotics, Tate