Beauty

Can aesthetic claims be falsified?

Comments

Suppose I say that Rembrandt's "Night Watch" is insipid, because it is too big (about 350 × 450 cms.) and its particular blocklike use of chiaroscuro makes it naive and primitive. I have made three interlocking aesthetic claims, together with an explanation of each. Now you go to have a look at the painting. You are bowled over by it, and you decide, rightly, that my aesthetic pronouncements are false, and that my explanations of them are absurd. Haven't my claims been falsified just as much as my nonaesthetic claim would have been had I said that painting is very small, about 3 × 3 cms., and you, having had a look at the painting, reported that in fact it is very large? Size can be an aesthetic property, by the way, but for the most part it is entirely non-aestheticl. Little wildflowers can be charming because of their size, e.g. wild lupins. Some houses are attractive partly because of their size.

Read another response by Jonathan Westphal

Read another response about Beauty