Smak i geniusz. Teoria piękna Alexandra Gerarda

• Authors: Krzysztof Wawrzonkowski

Title variants

EN

TASTE AND GENIUS. ALEXANDER GERARD’S THEORY OF BEAUTY

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The article deals with Alexander Gerard’s theory of beauty and his analysis of the categories of taste and genius. Gerard begins his enquiries with delineating a distinction between external and internal senses. The former category includes five traditionally named senses, while the latter are: novelty, sublimity, beauty, imitation, harmony, oddity and virtue. According to Gerard, internal senses are a sort of particular, intermediate tastes, which due to harmonizing with each other, create the taste proper. Therefore, the taste’s sensitivity and proficiency in judgment making depends to a large extent on particular tastes. Reconstructing the draft of Gerard’s theory of beauty the author of the article describes particular types of this aesthetic category: the beauty of shape, the beauty of proportion and the beauty of colour. Also, the author points out some relations between taste and genius. Moreover, by virtue of some similarity between Kant’s philosophy and the earlier British tradition, the author compares Kant’s and Gerard’s theories on the role of genius in creativity.

Keywords

EN

ALEXANDER GERARD; THEORY OF BEAUTY; KANT’S PHILOSOPHY; TASTE; GENIUS

• Publisher: Oficyna Wydawnicza Epigram
• Journal: Filo-Sofija
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 105-120

Contributors

author

Krzysztof Wawrzonkowski