Course detail
Aesthetics 1 - Aesthetics History from Antiquity Till 19th Century
FaVU-1EST-1Acad. year: 2025/2026
The Aesthetics 1-4 course series aims to equip learners with the concepts and strategies to understand their own and others' artistic motivations, intentions, and assumptions. The lectures are conducted in dialogue with the students so that the lecturer can respond to their attitudes and interests, and thus be all the more able to place the attitudes in the context of the tradition of European aesthetic thought, as well as non-European traditions of thought.
Aesthetics 1 will introduce students through historical probes into aesthetics as a reflection on the role of sensuality in the creation of meaning and its common forms of sharing. Aesthetic thinking will be presented not as a single-track European tradition "from Plato to Hegel" but as a thinking necessary wherever situations or objects arise that are meant to attract attention by the way they are presented.
The course will not follow a strict chronological sequence, but will be divided into four thematic areas that will focus on four fundamental aspects of the use and experience of the sensuality of situations or objects: sensuality as (i) what expresses us / what we express ourselves with; (ii) what attracts us / what we are attracted to; (iii) what transcends us / what we transcend; (iv) what controls us / what we are controlled by.
Language of instruction
Number of ECTS credits
Mode of study
Guarantor
Entry knowledge
None.
Rules for evaluation and completion of the course
The following conditions are set for the granting of the examination:
- active participation in class (3 unexcused absences allowed);
- final written exam.
Teaching takes place in the classrooms of the FFA BUT in the hours determined by the schedule. Attendance is compulsory (3 unexcused absences allowed). Higher number of absences will be reflected in the number of questions on the final exam.
Aims
The course will enable students to place their own thinking about the meanings and conditions of artistic creation in historical context and with respect to different traditions of thought. The acquired overview will facilitate their orientation in the basic issues of artistic production, circulation and reception and will direct them towards further self-study.
Study aids
Prerequisites and corequisites
Basic literature
Katharine Everett GILBERTOVÁ – Helmut KUHN, Dějiny estetiky, Praha: SNKLU 1965
Miloš JŮZL – Dušan PROKOP. Úvod do estetiky: předmět a metody, dějiny, systém estetických kategorií a pojmů, Praha: Panorama, 1989
Władysław TATARKIEWICZ, Dejiny estetiky, Bratislava: Tatran, 1985
Recommended reading
Aron Jakovlevič GUREVIČ, Kategorie středověké kultury, Praha: Mladá fronta, 1978
David COOPER (ed.), A companion to aesthetics, Oxford: Blackwell 1995
David HUME, O standardu vkus, Aluze 2002, č. 2, s. 82-92
Denis DIDEROT, O umění, Praha: Odeon 1983
Ernst Hans GOMBRICH, Umění a iluze, Praha: Odeon 1985
Erwin PANOFSKY, Význam ve výtvarném umění, Praha: Odeon 1981.
Eugenio GARIN (ed.), Renesanční člověk a jeho svět, Praha: Vyšehrad 2003
Friedrich NIETZSCHE, Zrození tragédie z ducha hudby, Praha: Gryf, 1993
Gotthold Ephraim LESSING, Hamburská dramaturgie – Láokóon – Stati, Praha: Odeon 1980
Immanuel KANT, Kritika soudnosti, Praha: Odeon, 1975
Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Dopis d´Alembertovi (Dopis o divadle), Praha: KANT 2008
PLATÓN, Dialogy o kráse, Praha: Odeon, 1979
PLÓTÍNOS. Dvě pojednání o kráse, Praha: Rezek, 1994
Umberto ECO, Umění a krása ve středověké estetice, Praha: Argo, 2007
Classification of course in study plans
- Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory
Type of course unit
Lecture
Teacher / Lecturer
Syllabus
1. The origins of European philosophy in antiquity. The nature of philosophical enquiry. Ancient theories of beauty (Presocratics, Plato). Ancient concept of art (techné, ars).
2. Art as mimesis. The concept of imitation and the theory of arts in Plato and Aristotle.
3. The concept of art, beauty and the sublime in the philosophy of late antiquity. Free and mechanical arts. The concept of art and beauty in the Middle Ages.
4. The conception of beauty and art in the Renaissance. Humanism. Changes in the social framework of the production and reception of art.
5. Modern philosophy. Rationalism vs. empiricism. Enlightenment.
6. The beginnings of modern aesthetics and art theory in the 18th century. Batteaux and the "beautiful arts". Baumgarten and aesthetics. Taste in Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Hume. Burke and the sublime.
7. Kant and the establishment of modern aesthetics. The foundations of Kant's critical philosophy. Kant's theory of taste, beauty, the sublime and genius.
8. Art, beauty and society in German thought of the second half and the end of the 18th century. Winckelmann and art history. Lessing and the discovery of the medium. Schiller, early German Romanticism and the educational role of art.
9. Hegel and the discovery of the history of art. The context of Hegel's philosophy, the dialectical method. The place of art in the history of the Spirit.
10. Art and society in 19th century thought. Utopian socialism and Marxism. Comte, Tain, Ruskin, Morris. The Theory of Realism – Lukács
11. Aestheticism in artistic practice and philosophy. Dandism, l'art pour l'art. Baudelaire, Wilde, Kierkegaard. Modern artistic movements and their theories.
12. Student presentations and discussions of topics covered during the semester.
13. Student presentations and discussions on topics covered during the semester.