Aesthetic properties and their (non-)contribution to artistic value

Abstract

What makes us experience artworks and their aesthetic properties? Can all aesthetic properties be found in all artworks? What aesthetic qualities are required to evaluate artworks? How do we differentiate between aesthetic and artistic values and is there any relationship between the two? This paper aims to answer these questions by examining influential arguments mainly about aesthetic concepts introduced by Frank Sibley and which were later developed by several other contemporary aestheticians including Robert Stecker, Peter Lamarque and Jerrold Levinson. This paper briefly glances at the historical development of aesthetic properties, from Classical to contemporary times. To avoid speculation and vagueness, the paper proceeds to define some of the aesthetic properties as opposed to non-aesthetic ones and applies them to different literary and visual artworks. Such aesthetic qualities are attributed to a particular experience especially when considering literary works. This aesthetic experience, which includes mainly pleasure, plays an important role in the process of judging and evaluating art. It can also lead to several non-aesthetic values such as the cognitive value which is discussed in this paper. All these conceptions are open to perennial discussion. However, one cannot deny that there is a close connection between the aesthetic and the artistic value which do not exclude one another, especially in the process of identifying and evaluating artworks.