This beginner’s guide on Aesthetics by Charles Taliaferro is not only for beginners but also for all artists, writers, musician and students of philosophy interested in art and aesthetics. Why? Because the wealth of ideas, theories, examples and questions presented could keep anybody going, irrespective of their background and experience, for years and years. I say this having myself dedicated much of my adult life to the study and pursuit of philosophy, literature and the arts.

Indeed, I would go further – I’ve read a number of intro texts on aesthetics and judge Taliaferro’s book the very best one I’ve come across. Very clear; very accessible. As a way of providing a sample of what a reader will find, I have listed some of the philosophers and artists/artworks examined along with the types of questions posed from each of the six chapters:



1 – WHAT IS BEAUTY?
Plato and Aristotle’s idea of beauty - Homer’s Iliad - Confucius and his philosophy - John Milton’s Paradise Lost - David Hume’s ideas about taste - Iris Murdock’s thinking on the return to beauty as a prime value

What do you consider beautiful and how does this beauty become part of your life?

Is beauty by its very nature linked with goodness?

Do your friends and family take on a special beauty because you love them?

Is there anything having a higher value than beauty, things like glory or victory or moral rightness?



2 – WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
Duchamp’s Fountain (an upside down urinal) - Picasso’s Guernica – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Leo Tolstoy – R. G. Collingwood – Arthur Danto

Who gets to choose or judge what’s a work of art?

Must a work of art contain an element of beauty?

What place does an artist’s expression and feeling have in creating a work of art?

What does it mean to have an aesthetic experience?



3 – ART AND MEANING
Monroe Beardsley - Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov - Lord Shiva statue – Immanuel Kant – Jacque Derrida

Does the intent of an author or artist count in the way we consider the meaning of their creation?

How does the meaning of a work change over time?

How important is the context in which we experience a work of art?

Does a work of art have an objective meaning or is meaning entirely individual and subjective?



4 – WHAT MAKES ART GOOD?
Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse - C.S. Lewis - Coppola’s Apocalypse Now - Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will - Indian aesthetician B.N. Goswami - Edmond Burke

Is there a definite set of criteria in determining what makes art good?

How does one define creativity and imagination?

What is meant by ‘the sublime’?

What moral obligations does an author or artist have to their community and society?



5 – THE LOCATION, OWNERSHIP AND DANGERS OF THE ARTWORK
Jerrold Levinson - Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs - Michelangelo’s David -Daniel Shapiro -André Malraux

Should modern artists have the right to borrow liberally from traditional and religious cultures?

What roll does censorship have in relation to art/writing/films/performance?

What is the difference in our experiencing a reproduction as opposed to the original?

Should we be able to copy music freely via the internet?



6 – CROSS-CULTURAL AESTHETICS
Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji - Liu Xie’s The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (a highly regarded Chinese aesthetics text) - Japanese poets Saigyō Hōshi and Matsuo Bashō – Zen Gardens and Zen tea ceremonies

What links are there between aesthetics and the harmony of nature?

How familiar must we be with the artist’s culture to properly view the work of art?

What can we learn from Japanese aesthetic and the value placed on spontaneity and sincerity in works of art?

What is unique about a Zen garden?