10 Facts About Medieval aesthetics

Medieval aesthetics refers to the general philosophy of beauty during the Medieval period.

Medieval aesthetics is characterized by its synthesis of Classical and Christian conceptions of beauty.

For Eco, his historical approach is evident in his belief that Medieval aesthetics must be viewed as 'the ways in which a given epoch solved for itself aesthetic problems as they presented themselves at the time to the sensibilities and culture of its people'.

Medieval aesthetics largely derive from the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, when viewed through the lens of medieval Biblical exegesis.

Plotinus particularly influenced medieval aesthetics by expanding the notion of beauty so that it was not exclusively conceived in terms of symmetry.

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Medieval aesthetics writes that beauty is objective and that this objectivity is external to humans, who can contemplate beauty without having created it.

Medieval aesthetics highlighted that beauty is, in and of itself, an indispensable aspect of creation; it is inherently harmonious and its existence aligns with humanity's deepest, but 'proper' desires because measure, form and order make something good.

Medieval aesthetics justified this assumption through his idea that God is the Cause of everything, meaning that beauty and the beautiful are the same because they have the same cause.

Medieval aesthetics asserted that all things have beauty because everything originates in the Cause and that this means nothing can lose its beauty.

Such a conception, according to Ananda K Coomaraswamy, is important because medieval aesthetics were thereafter 'fundamentally based on [his] brief treatment of the Beautiful' in On the Divine Names.