Showing titles in Aesthetics

*A Financial Times and Waterstones Book of the Year 2025* Many artists are unaware of the mathematics that bubble beneath their craft, while some consciously use it for inspiration. Our instincts might tell us that these two subjects are incompatible forces with nothing in common, but what if...

Counsels and Maxims is a classic work by noted German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. His work has influenced some of the modern world's greatest thinkers, including Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Erwin Schrödinger. This piece was originally translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders.

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Through architecture, ceramics, theatre, food, women, and even toilets, Tanizaki explains the essence of shadows and darkness, and how they are able to augment beauty. He laments the heavy electric lighting of the West and its introduction to Japan, and shows how the artificial, bright, and polished aesthetic of the West contrasts unfavorably with the moody and natural light of the East.

A philosopher/mechanic's wise (and sometimes funny) look at the challenges and pleasures of working with one's hands “This is a deep exploration of craftsmanship by someone with real, hands-on knowledge. The book is also quirky, surprising, and sometimes quite moving.” —Richard Sennett...

From one of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, Religion for Atheists and The School of Life The Architecture of Happiness explores the fascinating hidden links between the buildings we live in and our long-term wellbeing...

An updated version of the seminal 1994 classic volume on the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Nearly every book with "wabi" or "wabi sabi" in the title is based on the concepts first elucidated in this book. Wabi-sabi is the quintessential Japanese aesthetic. It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.... 

Who wears lipstick today – as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick reconsiders the beauty world’s most conspicuous – and contentious – tool of artifice. Tossing expired ideas about femininity like so many tubes of melting wax, Lipstick explores how self-adornment can be a source of play, pleasure, and transformation, as well as how lipstick can knock gender norms off balance.

Ballot examines the psychological, cultural, and political significance of voting in an increasingly anti-voting climate. Armed with her personal experiences as a poll worker, electoral organizer, and activist, Anjali Enjeti unspools a timely narrative about the precarious state of the ballot during one of the most tumultuous political eras in US history, and recounts the astonishing events leading up to the 2024 presidential election.

In the hierarchy of foods, snacks are deemed trivial – perhaps even childish – especially in contrast to meals, which are seen as substantial and necessary. The multiple aisles devoted to sweet and savoury treats in supermarkets, and the availability of snacks even at places like home improvement and department stores, speak to the popularity of snacking. But the ubiquity of snacks is relatively new and not common to all countries.

Postmodernism has become the buzzword of contemporary society over the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this highly engaging introduction, the mysteries of this most elusive of concepts are unraveled, casting a critical light upon the way we live now, from the politicizing of museum culture to the cult of the politically correct. The key postmodernist ideas are explored and challenged, as they figure in the theory, philosophy, politics, ethics, and artwork of the period, and it is shown how they have interacted within a postmodernist culture. 

The Aesthetic Brain takes the listener on a wide-ranging journey through the world of beauty, pleasure, and art. Chatterjee uses neuroscience to probe how an aesthetic sense is etched in our minds and evolutionary psychology to explain why aesthetic concerns feature centrally in our lives. Along the way, Chatterjee addresses fundamental questions: What is beauty? Is beauty universal? How is beauty related to pleasure? What is art? Should art be beautiful? Do we have an instinct for art?

Featuring long-awaited selections from Robert M. Pirsig's unpublished writings, from before and after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an original collection illuminating the central theme of Pirsig's thought: “Quality” “The ultimate goal in the pursuit of excellence is...

In this influential sequence of linked interviews, Ranciere explores the interplay of art and politics. The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relationship between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from the narrow confines it is often reduced to. Jacques Rancière reveals its intrinsic link to politics by analysing what they both have in common: the delimitation of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible.

One of the great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kind of walls, chairs, buildings, and streets we’re surrounded by. And yet a concern for architecture and design is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be - and argues that it is architecture’s task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.

In his new book, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley looks to the peculiar mating rituals of birds to better understand the rich origins and ongoing significance of Darwin's sexual selection theory. 'FASCINATING' The Times ‘Matt Ridley is one of our finest science writers … A treat for bird...

A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, for the philosophy of Schopenhauer and for the music of Wagner, to whom this work was dedicated. Nietzsche outlined a distinction between its two central forces: the Apolline, representing beauty and order, and the Dionysiac, a primal or ecstatic reaction to the sublime. He believed the combination of these states produced the highest forms of music and tragic drama, which not only reveal the truth about suffering in life, but also provide a consolation for it.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object - either in art, in nature, or the human form - beautiful and examining how we can compare differing judgments of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely.  

Poststructuralism changes the way we understand the relations between human beings, their culture, and the world. Following a brief account of the historical relationship between structuralism and poststructuralism, this Very Short Introduction traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture. 

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse—a fear of corruption or contamination through color—lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge color, either by making it the property of some foreign body—the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological—or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.

Leo Tolstoy wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These culminated in What Is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered and rejected the idea that art reveals and reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire, and even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned and iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good; for the improvement of humankind.