"I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic."

- J.G. Ballard.

Source: Adbusters.org. Downloaded [2010-11-17] from http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/aesthetics-of-activism.html

"If we wish to understand and appreciate formal beauty we must learn to see in a detailed way. We must concentrate on the details, on the form of the roof of a tree, on the way in which a leaf is connected to its stalk, on the structure of the bark, on the lines made by the turbid spray on the shores of a lake. Also we must not just glance carelessly at the form. Our eye must trace, minutely, every curve, every twist, every thickening, every contraction, in short we must experience every nuance in the form. For there is only one point in our field of vision which we can see exactly, and it is only that which is clearly seen, which can hold some meaning for us. If we see in this way, an immensely rich new world is revealed to us, full of totally new experience. A thousand sensations are awakened within us. New feeling and shades of feeling, continual unexpected transformations. Nature seems to live and we begin to understand that there really are sorrowing trees and wicked treacherous branches, virginal grasses and terrible, gruesome flowers. Of course, not everything is going to affect us in this way, there are also things which are boring, meaningless and ineffectual, but the alert eye will everywhere observe forms of superb, soul-shattering magnificence.

This is the power of form upon the mind, a direct immidiate influence without any intermediary stage, by no means an anthropomorphic effect, but one of direct empathy. If we speak of a sorrowing tree, we do not at all think of the tree as a living being which sorrows, but mean only that it awakens the feeling of sorrow within us. (...) We are employing nothing more than a verbal aid to make up for an inadequate vocabulary and to produce a living concept more quickly."

- August Endell (1871-1925) in "The Beauty of Form and Decorative Art" .

Source: Endell, August. 1897-8. "The Beauty of Form and Decorative Art", in Dekorative Kunst, I, Munich, 1897-8, pp. 75-7, 119-25; Translation by T. and C. Benton and D. Sharp (eds.), Form and Function, London, 1975. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. pp. 59-61. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Also available from URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&q=collingwood#v=snippet&q=endell&f=false

"Appreciation of visual form is also something that must be aquired. We must learn to see it and really immerse ourselves in form. We must discover how to use our eyes"

- August Endell (1871-1925) in "The Beauty of Form and Decorative Art" .

Source: Endell, August. 1897-8. "The Beauty of Form and Decorative Art", in Dekorative Kunst, I, Munich, 1897-8, pp. 75-7, 119-25; Translation by T. and C. Benton and D. Sharp (eds.), Form and Function, London, 1975. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. pp. 59-61. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Also available from URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&q=collingwood#v=snippet&q=endell&f=false

"This is a society where human relations are no longer 'directly experienced', but start to become blurred in their 'spectacular' representation. Herein lies the most burning issue to do with art today: is it still possible to generate relationships with the world, in a practical field art history traditionally earmarked for their 'representation' "

- Nicolas Bourriaud in Esthétique Relationelle, 1998.

Source: Bourriaud, Nicolas. 2002. Relational Aesthetics. Les presses du réel. p.9. translation by Simon Pleasance & Fronza Woods with the participation of Mathieu Copeland. ISBN2-84066-060-1

"Beauty is nothing but a promise of happiness."

- Stendhal

Source: Stendhal (Mari-Henri Beyle) quoted in Baudelaire, Charles. 1859. Originally printed in essay "La Peinture de la Vie Moderne". Le Figaro, Paris, 26 & 28 November and 3 December 1863. Translation by Jonathan Mayne (ed). 1964. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. In Chapter: Beauty, Fashion and Happiness. London: Phaidon Press. p.3. Available online from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf [Downloaded 2010-05-26].

Original quote in French: "La beauté est l'expression d'une certaine manière habituelle de chercher le bonheur"

"This is in fact an excellent opportunity to establish a rational and historical theory of beauty, in contrast to the academic theory of an unique and absolute beauty; to show that beauty is always and inevitably of a double composition (...) Beauty is made up of an eternal, invariable element, whose quantity it is excessively difficult to determine, and of a relative, circumstantial element, which will be, if you like, whether severally or all at once, the age, its fashions, its morals, its emotions. (...) The duality of art is a fatal consequence of the duality of man. Consider, if you will, the eternally subsisting portion as the soul of art, and the variable element as its body."

- Charles Baudelaire

Source: Baudelaire, Charles. 1859. Originally printed in essay "Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne". Le Figaro, Paris, 26 & 28 November and 3 December 1863. Translation by Jonathan Mayne (ed). 1964. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. In Chapter: Beauty, Fashion and Happiness. London: Phaidon Press. p.3. Available online from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf [Downloaded 2010-05-26].

"Even in those centuries which seem to us the most monstrous and the maddest, the immortal thirst for beauty has always found its satisfaction"

- Charles Baudelaire

Source: Baudelaire, Charles. 1859. Originally printed in essay "Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne". Le Figaro, Paris, 26 & 28 November and 3 December 1863. Translation by Jonathan Mayne (ed). 1964. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. In Chapter: Beauty, Fashion and Happiness. London: Phaidon Press. p.3. Available online from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf [Downloaded 2010-05-26].

"The idea of beauty which man creates for himself imprints itself on his whole attire, crumples or stiffens his dress, rounds off or squares his gesture, and in the long run even ends by subtly penetrating the very features of his face. Man ends by looking like his ideal self. These engravings can be translated either into beauty or ugliness; in one direction, they become caricatures, in the other, antique statues."

- Charles Baudelaire

Source: Baudelaire, Charles. 1859. Originally printed in essay "Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne". Le Figaro, Paris, 26 & 28 November and 3 December 1863. Translation by Jonathan Mayne (ed). 1964. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. In Chapter: Beauty, Fashion and Happiness. London: Phaidon Press. p.2. Available online from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf [Downloaded 2010-05-26].

"The transferring of real objects onto canvas is the art of skilful reproduction, and only that. And between the art of creating and the art of copying there is a great difference. The artist can be a creator only when the forms in his picture have nothing in common with nature. For art is the ability to construct, not on the interrelation of form and colour, and not on an aesthetic basis of beauty in composition, but on the basis of weight, speed and the direction of movement"

- Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935)

Source: Malevich, Kasimir. From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting. Translation by T.Anderson (ed.), K.S. Malevich: Essays on Art 1915-1933, vol. 1, Copenhagen, 1969, pp. 19-21, 23-5, 26-36 and 38-41. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, pp173-183.

"Every utterance and every gesture that each one of us makes is a work of art. It is important to each one of us that in making them, however much he deceives others, he should not deceive himself"

- R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943)

Source: R.G. Collingwood. 1938. "Good Art and Bad Art", in The Principles of Art, pp. 280-5, Oxford: Oxford university Press. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Also available from URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&q=collingwood#v=snippet&q=collingwood&f=false

"Any theory of art should be required to show, if it wishes to be taken seriously, how an artist, in pursuing his artistic labour, is able to tell whether he is pursuing it successfully or unsuccessfully: how, for example, it is posible for him to say, 'I am not satisfied with that line; let us try it this way...and this way...and this way...there! that will do.' "

- R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943)

Source: R.G. Collingwood. 1938. "Good Art and Bad Art", in The Principles of Art, pp. 280-5, Oxford: Oxford university Press. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Also available from URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&q=collingwood#v=snippet&q=collingwood&f=false

"What the artist is trying to do is to express a given emotion (...) A bad work of art is an activity in which the agent tries to express a given emotion, but fails."

- R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943)

Source: R.G. Collingwood. 1938. "Good Art and Bad Art", in The Principles of Art, pp. 280-5, Oxford: Oxford university Press. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Also available from URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&q=collingwood#v=snippet&q=collingwood&f=false

"The definition of any given kind of thing is also the definition of a good thing of that kind: for a thing that is good in its kind is only a thing which posesses the attributes of that kind. To call things good and bad is to imply success or failure. When we call things good or bad not in themselves but relatively to us, as when we speak of a good harvest or a bad thunderstorm, the success or failure implied is our own. (...) a work of art is an activity of a certain kind; the agent is trying to do something definite, and in that attempt he may succeed or he may fail. It is, moreover, a conscious activity; the agent is not only trying to do something definite, he also knows what it is that he is trying to do; though knowing here does not necessarily imply being able to describe, since to describe is to generalize, and generalizing is the function of the intellect, and consciousness does not, as such, involve intellect. A work of art, therefore, may be either a good one or a bad one
(...) Any theory of art should be required to show, if it wishes to be taken seriously, how an artist, in pursuing his artistic labour, is able to tell whether he is pursuing it successfully or unsuccessfully: how, for example, it is posible for him to say, 'I am not satisfied with that line; let us try it this way...and this way...and this way...there! that will do.' (...) The watching of his own work with a vigilating and discriminating eye, which decides at every moment of the process whether it is being successful or not, is not a critical activity subsequent to, and reflective upon, the artistic work, it is an integral part of that work itself.
(...) What the artist is trying to do is to express a given emotion. To express it, and to express it well, are the same thing (...) A bad work of art is an activity in which the agent tries to express a given emotion, but fails."

- R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943)

Source: R.G. Collingwood. 1938. "Good Art and Bad Art", in The Principles of Art, pp. 280-5, Oxford: Oxford university Press. Printed in: Harrison & Wood (ed). Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Also available from URL: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SWu4SB92fHMC&q=collingwood#v=snippet&q=collingwood&f=false

"Det å male et ansikt er således ikke noe man bør gjøre - hvis man nå har forstå meg rett - med det vulgære og tarvelige mål for øye å etterligne den naturlige skjønnhet og rivalisere med ungdommen. Man har for øvrig bemerket at hesligheten slett ikke blir forskjønnet gjennom kunstgrep; de kan bare tjene skjønnheten. Hvem ville våge å tilkjenne kunsten den åndsfattige funksjon å skulle etterlikne naturen? Sminkekunsten behøver ikke å skjule seg eller prøve å gjøre seg usynlig; den bør tvert imot stilles til skue, om ikke med skapaktighet så i hvert fall med en slags oppriktighet"

- Charles Baudelaire

Source: Baudelaire, Charles. Fra Kunsten og det moderne liv (1863). Translation to Norwegian by Arne Kjell Haugen. I Bale og Bø-Rygg. 2008, s. 167-172. Quoted in Bale, Kjersti. 2009. Estetikk: En Innføring. Oslo: Pax Forlag. s. 56.

"Understood in its metaphysical sense, Beauty is one of the manifestations of the Absolute Being. Emanating from the harmonious rays of the Divine plan, it crosses the intellectual plane to shine once again across the natural plane, where it darkens into matter."

Jean Delville (1867-1953). Quoted in Wikipedia. Available online from URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Delville. Downloaded [2010-01-07]