To me the aesthetic of art is what it evokes in you, it is beautiful not in the sense of technicalities though they are pleasing, but rather what it reveals within your own soul. Prettejohn supports a similar idea, saying art it is a “collaboration between the viewer and the work” (2005, p22). Unlike the past, particularly the aestheticism movement where art was to be viewed as a decoration, society did not want to see any of themselves in the work, rather to put up a front of only outer beauty, a rose with out thorns, the modernist movement of today strives to highlight the gnarly facts of life, we want to look at a painting and realise with no small amount of horror that it is a part of ourselves and our society staring back.
An example of this concept is photographer Paul Strand documenting the world with out a smokescreen, his 1916 image ‘Blind’ of a street beggar shows the harsh realities of life that was previously shrouded, not only does this method of art highlight urgent issues, it shows the viewer the truth of themselves, the world they are a part of- their aesthetic.
Paul Strand. Blind. 1916
References
Berleant A. (1991). Art and Engagement. 1st Ed. Temple University Press.
Prettejohn, E. (2005). Beauty and Art, 1750-2000 . 1st Ed. Oxford University Press USA.
Bengua, J. (2014, March 14). Photographic art movement: Modernist Photography. [online]. (URL https://joselitobengua.wordpress.com//2014/03/03/welcome/)