Reading Response #5 to Artful Design • Chapter 5: Interface Design + Prelude br> Marise Van Zyl. October 24, 2021 Music 256A / CS476a, Stanford University
A Quick Google Search brings up the defition of "AESTHETICS" as:
"the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste."
Assuming this as our working definition, aesthetics have something to do with beauty and artfulness.
Heartbreak, in my opinion, is something of beauty. It is raw emotion that shows evidence of something powerful that came before - love. Maybe. Maybe when we think of design, that distinction becomes even clearer. Something might be a thing of beauty, but no one in their right mind would call it beautiful. An example would be the "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" by Penderecki. This piece is NOT aesthetically pleasing. It is incredibly touching as it moves your soul and makes you feel things. It is, however, not beautiful - AT ALL. Is it a thing of beauty though? I do think so. Perhaps artfulness is knowing to create a thing of beauty, even from something which is not beautiful. Perhaps the beauty lies in the artfulness itself. |