i’m reading a lot right now about beauty and wonder.  i’m interested in understanding more about beauty’s role in art and nature and the separation of beauty and aesthetics.

i probably should have listened more in undergrad when they were talking about greenberg and modernism right?  some of the sources i’m looking at talk about beauty being removed from aesthetics way before modernism by philosophers drawing a stark like between anything that elicits desire and anything aesthetic.

i’m more inclined to side with plato’s take on the whole thing (which i am currently interpreting as) beauty makes you feel all awesome and that makes you want to understand and that leads to knowledge.  or something.

i think work should be able to hold up criticism or evaluation that can take longer than an instant to be fully realized.

but is that hook so bad?  (schopenhaur thinks so)  maybe beauty can be the neon sign that brings somebody in closer, a means to an end.  but where does beauty end and wonder begin?

“the wonder of the aesthetic state of wonder is the play of te mind over the details of the object itself.  aesthetics is part of the mobility of attention, interest and delight.  its lingering over the widest range of details so as to prolong its pleasurable contact…”  phillip a. fisher

thanks to mia familia for all this green inspiration.