Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Aesthetics

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences

  • 16 Accesses

Definition/Introduction

The early modern period witnessed a transition between two different theoretical discourses regarding artistic practice: From the theory of art to aesthetics. This transition is described in the entry below. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventieth centuries, theory of art existed in the form of practical manuals for practitioners of the various arts (as architecture, design, drawing, sculpture, machinery, engineering, music, literature, and rhetoric). Over the eighteenth century, for the first time, one finds the development of what one still calls “aesthetics,” that is to say an encompassing philosophy of art which is based on the sensual reception of the arts. This new phase was energized by the development art criticism and evaluation of art (see below). The corpus of early modern theory of art is a relatively cohesive group of writings, returning to regular, repeating concepts and stylistic standards. In this sense, theory of art can be viewed as...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alberti LB (1988) De re aedificatoria. On the art of building in ten books (trans: Rykwert J, Tavernor R, Leach N). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Alberti LB (2011) On painting, a new translation and critical edition by R Sinisgalli. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Barasch M (1985) Theories of art, vol. 1. From Plato to Winckelmann. New York University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumgarten AG (1750) Aesthetica. Kleyb, Traiecti cis Viadrum

    Google Scholar 

  • Bosse A (1648) Manière universelle de M. des Argues pour pratiquer la perspective par petit-pied comme le géométral. Des-Hayes, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Bosse A (1664) Traité des manières de dessiner les Ordres de l’Architecture antique en toutes leurs parties. A. Bosse, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Bosse A (1665) Traité des pratiques géométrales et perspectives enseignées dans l’Académie royale de la peinture et sculpture. Chez l’Auteur, Isle du Palais, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouvrande I (2007) Peindre le corps à la Renaissance: L’art de colorer chez Alberti. Dilecta 2(3):73–78

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchenau S (2013) The founding of aesthetics in the German enlightenment: the art of invention and the invention of art. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Da Vinci L (2001) Leonardo on painting: anthology of writings. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Damisch H (1994) The origin of perspective (trans: Goodman J). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • De Chambray F (2005) Parallèle de l’architecture avec la moderne [1650] (ed: Lemerle F, suivie de l’Idée de la Perfection de la peinture (1662), ed: Stanic M). École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • De L’Orme P (1567) Le premier tome de l’architecture. Federic Morel, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • De Piles R (1673) Dialogue sur le coloris. Nicolas Langlois, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • De Piles R (1677) Conversations sur la connoissance de la peinture et sur le jugement qu’on doit faire des tableaux. Nicolas Langlois, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • De Zurko ER (1957) Alberti’s theory of form and function. Art Bull 39(2):142–145

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Della Francesca P (2012) De Prospectiva pingendi c. 1480. Gizzi Edition of the late, vernacular version of the text. Ca Foscari Editions, Venice

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickie G (1996) The century of taste: the philosophical odyssey of taste in the eighteenth century. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Grez BD (2011) Traité de la peinture (1699). Vrin, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Duro P (2017) Diderot and the destination of art. Word Image 33(2):158–169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farago CJ (1999) Leonardo’s writings and theory of art. Garland, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Félibien A (1676) Des principes de l’architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture, et des autres arts qui en dépendent. B. Coignard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Fréart de Chambray R (1662) Idée de la perfection de la peinture. J. Ysambart, Le Mans

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregor MJ (1983) Baumgarten’s “Aesthetica”. Rev Metaphys 37(2):357–385

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant I (2013) Critic of the power of judgment (trans: Guyer P, Matthews E). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein R (2017) L’esthétique de la technè: L’art selon Aristote et les théories des arts visuels au XVIe siècle. INHA, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Brun C (1702) Méthode pour apprendre à dessiner les passions. François van der Plaats, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RW (1940) Ut Pictura Poesis: the humanistic theory of painting. Art Bull 22:197–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenstein J (1993) The eloquence of color: rhetoric and painting in the French Classical Age (trans: McVaris E). University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Lomazzo GP (1584) Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura. Paolo Gottardo Pontio, Milan

    Google Scholar 

  • Montagu J (1994) The expression of the passions: the origin and influence of Charles Le Brun’s conference sur l’expression generale et particuliere. Yale University Press, New Haven/London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Panofsky E (1968) Idea, a concept in art theory [1924]. University of South Carolina Press, South Carolina

    Google Scholar 

  • Panofsky E (1991) Perspective as symbolic form [1926] (trans: Wood CS). MIT Press, New Haven/London

    Google Scholar 

  • Panofsky E (2011) Dürers Kunsttheorie [1915]. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrault C (1673) Les dix livres d'architecture de Vitruve. Jean-Baptiste Coignard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrault C (1674) Abrégé des dix livres d’Architecture de Vitruve. Jean-Baptiste Coignard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Puttfarken T (1985) Roger de Piles’ theory of art. Yale University Press, New Haven/London

    Google Scholar 

  • Puttfarken T (2000) The discovery of pictorial composition: theories of visual order in painting, 1400–1800. Yale University Press, New Haven/London

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiller J C F (2004) Letters on the aesthetic education of man [Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1794)] (trans: Snell R). Dover Publication, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Serlio S (1982) The five books of architecture. Dover Publications

    Google Scholar 

  • Travelli B (2017) Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo’s Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura. Brill, Leiden

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wessell LP (1972) Alexander Baumgarten’s contribution to the development of aesthetics. J Aesthetics Art Criticism 30(3):333–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams R (1997) Art, theory, and culture in sixteenth-century Italy: from techne to metatechne. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff J (1901) Lionardo da Vinci als Ästhetiker: Versuch einer Darstellung und Beurteilung der Kunsttheorie Leonardos auf Grund seines “Trattato della Pittura”. B. Vopelius, Jena

    Google Scholar 

  • Working RC (2015) The visual theology of the Huguenots: towards an architectural iconology of early modern French Protestantism 1535–1623. Wipf & Stock, Eugene

    Google Scholar 

  • Yates F (1947) The French academies of the sixteenth century. Warburg Institute, London

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tel Aviv, Department of Art History, Tel Aviv-Jaffa and the Beit Berl College of Art, Kfar-Sava, Israel

    Adi Efal-Lautenschläger

Authors
  1. Adi Efal-Lautenschläger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dana Jalobeanu

  2. Département de philosophie, University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, France

    Charles T. Wolfe

Section Editor information

  1. ICUB-Humanities, Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Dana Jalobeanu

  2. Philosophy, Université de Toulouse Jean-Jaurès, Toulouse, France

    Charles T. Wolfe

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Efal-Lautenschläger, A. (2022). Aesthetics. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_598-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_598-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20791-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20791-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation