The Beautiful

An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics

by Vernon Lee

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Pages: 65

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About this book

Vernon Lee's book carries the subtitle An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics. The author says there is a main difference between our attitude when we use the word good or useful, and when we use the word beautiful. One example is a road that the traveller is admonished to take because he will find it good, and that an enthusiastic coachman describes as beautiful.

The author adds that we have all heard an engineer apply the apparently far-fetched adjective Beautiful to a piece of machinery, and even a surgeon to an operation. A chapter headed AESTHETIC IRRADIATION AND PURIFICATION says the word Beautiful has been extended from whatever is satisfactory in our contemplation of shapes to a great number of cases where there can be no question of shapes at all. The contents list names chapters called Aspects versus Things, Perception of Relations and Facility and Difficulty of Grasping.