The relationship between Aesthetics and Knowledge

I've been reading Algorithmic Aesthetics lately, and its gotten me thinking a bit about how we see the world, and to what extent that view is based on how informed we are about what we're seeing.

The authors start out by defining Aesthetics as

concerned with how existing works of art can be described, interpreted, and evaluated and about how new works of art can be created. The description, interpretation, and evaluation of an existing work of art is called criticism...

Later they go on to describe how two paintings may look identical, so from that standpoint they're aesthetically equal. But if you gain knowledge (through something other than simple observation) that one of the two paintings is a forgery, that extra-sensory knowledge effects the aesthetic judgement.

I began to think about this in terms of abstract art. If an image is not particularly representational, or at least it's not obvious what the image represents, do you as an observer change how you feel about that piece of art if the title or some other descriptor tells you what it is that you're looking at?

How much visual stimuli do we gloss over in our daily lives that would take on new meaning if there were some other additional knowledge we could know that would give it more meaning?

[edit] I wanted to start this from the art point of view, but obviously such discussion could also cover the conspiratorial realm as well... what we see vs what it really is.

[edit on 5/17/2009 by JoshNorton]

Originally posted by JoshNorton

I began to think about this in terms of abstract art. If an image is not particularly representational, or at least it's not obvious what the image represents, do you as an observer change how you feel about that piece of art if the title or some other descriptor tells you what it is that you're looking at?

Interesting question. I enjoy some abstracts, but I think it's from the visual stimulation angle. Having seen the titles on many of them, I am not entirely sure that I always understand the artist's viewpoint. I do have a very dear friend who is a professional artist and whose works have been shown in many galleries... but I don't "get" the full implications unless I know what his reference is and what the pun is (there's usually a pun.)

It's not that he's dealing on an abstract plane that I can't approach, but rather that the picture is existentialist and I'm not living his life so I don't actually get the fullness of meaning and symbol.

How much visual stimuli do we gloss over in our daily lives that would take on new meaning if there were some other additional knowledge we could know that would give it more meaning?

Josh, meet the Anthropological-Linguistic field called "Semiotics." Semiotics, meet Josh.

Seriously, there's a whole huge academic field that studies this. It's terribly interesting.

Originally posted by Byrd
Josh, meet the Anthropological-Linguistic field called "Semiotics." Semiotics, meet Josh.

Seriously, there's a whole huge academic field that studies this. It's terribly interesting.

Heh, yeah, we're acquainted (not great friends or anything, but I suspect we'd be closer if I knew French...) I'm at least familiar with many of the works of Baudrillard, Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, etc. I've read more Barthes and a handful of general surveys of post-modernism. I guess I'm taking this from less a sign/signifier to more of what additional values are contained by the signifier, perhaps from the intent of the author/artist that can be gleaned by the observer, and how important is it to our enjoyment of the work that we know the minutia of the back-story?

reply to post by JoshNorton


I love art, but when I look at a painting, it either speaks to me, or it doesn't. No matter the title or the artists' intentions are going to change that. I look for certain vibrations in the artwork, not for meaning.

On the other hand, there is this famous "The crying boy" from Bruno Amadio. A friend of mine used to have it in her livingroom. That painting facinates me so much. I always thought of getting a copy of it. Then I heard about the curse of the crying boy and that changed everything, not that I'm suppersticious, but the paintings vibrations changed for me....