SCIENCE OF AESTHETICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22166, 20 July 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

SCIENCE OF AESTHETICS

NEW LINE OF APPROACH In his essay on " Aesthetics and Psychology " 'Mr. Charles Mauron adopts an approach entirely different from that of most writers of tlio past. Their purpose was to establish it standard of values, supposed to bo absolute, which enabled them to distribute blame and recompense with a serene conscience. Mr. Mauron considers that aosthoticians should study facts, classify them, and seek to explain them. As there exists a science of religion which does not attempt to decide which is the best religion, nor to establish the right of certain believers to excommunicate the rest of mankind, so there should be, along tlio same lines, a science of aesthetics. » Tlio aesthetician, Mr. Mauron urges, should not be expected to construct a tablo of values, but to find the reason for values already posed. He should be concerned not with establishing his own preferences, tastes and distastes in art as absolute valued but in examining, explaining and classifying the preferences of others. There is 110 reason why we should all have the same preferences. Unanimity has no real importance. The interest of aesthetics lies in "the evercurious inquiry into one of tlio springs of our machinery." " Aesthetics and Psychology," by Charles Mauron, translated from the French by Roger Fry and Katherino John. (Hogarth Press.)