Why beauty and why now? Historical perspectives of the contemporary discourse on beauty

Abstract

The term “beauty” has been a key category of aesthetic thinking for a long time. Relevancy of beauty of art, represented in ancient times by Plato’s transcendental theory of beauty or more factual inductive beauty of empirically oriented Aristotle and many others thinkers, placed beauty as a priority category of the world, including the world of art. Modern approaches primarily follow Kantian and Hegelian idealistic aesthetics of beauty, however, the state of today’s art world, or in the broader context, the aesthetic world of the 20th century, doubt beauty and even dethrone it from its pedestal. Does it make sense today to examine about beauty of art? Has beauty as an attribute of art not ended its journey together with the idea of the end of art? The paper aims to follow the connotations of beauty losing its place in art in the context of the end of art (Hegel and Danto) or end of its history (Belting). Contemporary new thematization of beauty after a century dominated by the ugly or the sublime in art (from Kant’s and Lyotard’s point of view) is an important shift showing beauty not only as a remnant of history but rather as a vital source that is worthily gaining renewed attention and new varieties with the spread of interdisciplinary approaches.