18th Century Philosophical Aesthetics

In the 18th century, philosophical aesthetics explored beauty and the sublime, focusing on how we perceive art and nature. Philosophers like Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant distinguished between beauty, which evokes pleasure and harmony, and the sublime, which inspires awe and sometimes fear through overwhelming grandeur or power. The sublime evokes a sense of something greater than ourselves, thrilling yet terrifying, while beauty is associated with balance and pleasure. This exploration helped shape modern ideas about art, emotion, and our relationship with the natural world, significantly influencing literature, art, and cultural thought during the Enlightenment.