Saito, Yuriko Rhode Island School of Design
Print publication date: 2007 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2008
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-927835-0
doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278350.003.0007
 

Yuriko Saito
Several issues emerge from exploring everyday aesthetics. First, its normative mission to illuminate the hidden aesthetic potential of the ordinary may conflict with its descriptive role in analyzing our ordinary aesthetic reaction toward the ordinary. Second, while everyday aesthetics questions our tendency to judge some thing/body by the cover, it cannot dismiss this familiar phenomenon. Third, in fully acknowledging and appreciating the power of the aesthetic for guiding our attitudes and actions, we must be vigilant about utilizing this power toward a certain end, which can range from green aesthetics to the political nationalism promoted in modern Japan. Finally, some contemporary artists' attempt to overcome the gap between art and life by emulating or appropriating the everyday may be fraught with paradoxes created by the inescapable predicament of arthood that stands out from the everyday. These tensions reinforce the point that everyday aesthetics are quite complex, worthy of further exploration.
Keywords: normative aesthetics, descriptive aesthetics, ordinary experience, personal appearance, power of the aesthetic, nationalism, art of the everyday
doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278350.003.0007
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