Aesthetics In The 18th Century "free" Concept Analysis

The greatest achievement of the eighteenth century is the birth ofthe concept “aesthetic freedom”. Setting against the profoundideological and cultural background, the feeling of freedom enteredinto the field of aesthetic. The formation of freedom concept inaesthetic field is worth studying. It can be found among the numerousworks about aestheticism before the eighteenth century; the conceptof freedom was not used. It was not until the beginning of thenineteenth century that the concept of freedom became the core ofaesthetic thoughts.This thesis tries to analyze the cause of the concept “freedom”entering into aesthetic filed in the eighteenth century and describe theway that it manifest itself by probing into its ideological and culturalbackground, which focus on political, economic and other fields. Withthe shouting for “liberty, equality and fraternity” in the movement ofenlightenment, people gradually paid attention to freedom andextended this concept into aesthetics filed. Some new ideas onaesthetic were found in the eighteenth century, such as passion,imagination, emotion, lofty, symbol and genius and so on. Which wereall based on modern concept “freedom” or put it in another way theperformance of the concept “freedom” in aesthetic field. This sort offree concept has its pertinence in art creation and cause a series ofaesthetic problems which of unique aesthetic connotation. And finally,this kind of free concept gets its independent expression in theaesthetic field, which generates “aesthetic freedom” in the aestheticfield. This thesis is a description and analysis of this process.This thesis is divided into six parts, consisting of introduction, fourmain chapters and conclusion. In the introduction, it mainly makes ahistoric description of free concept, expounding traditional thinkers’ views on freedom from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Theirthoughts are from different angles and the extents of freedom are alsodifferent. Before the eighteenth century, the discussion was mainlyconcentrated on the art imagination and social political level. Theconcept “freedom” wasn’t used in the field of arts entirely.Chapter one discusses the concept of aesthetic freedom in theideological background, for a rational understanding of the sense ofspiritual freedom in enlightenment and the political and economicsense of freedom in modern natural sense so that we can accuratelygrasp the relative particularity of the concept in aesthetic concept incompared with other free concepts.Chapter two discusses the conflict between the new classicalismaesthetics and modern concept of freedom. The new classicalism hasdifferent levels of constraint, such as the choice of subject, languageand emotional expression, art form and creation principle. In thiscontradictory state, modern aesthetic idea of freedom has a newdevelopmentChapter three discusses the connotation of aesthetic freedom inthe eighteenth century and explains its expression in art subject matter,art form, emotional expression, art creation and genius thoughts, theconcept of nature and so on.Chapter four discusses the theoretical appealing of this concept ofaesthetic freedom. Aesthetic freedom is originated from Kant’saesthetic thoughts and Friedrich Schillers aesthetic thoughts and it istend to develop in a certain degree, which reflects itself in aestheticthoughts and becomes personal aesthetic appeal. On this basis, theaesthetic freedom develops further, and has connotation different fromother freeom thoughts in the field of aesthetic.In the conclusion, this thesis summarizes the specific connotationand the influence of the concept of freedom to the development of aesthetic thought in the eighteenth century. It clarifies that the conceptof freedom as an independent expression in the field of aesthetics.Thatis aesthetic freedom.The aesthetic freedom is different from otherfreeom thoughts in the field of aesthetics. However, the aestheticfreedom is originated from other freeom thoughts in the field ofaesthetics. The aesthetic freedom is a unique phenomenon in thehistory of modern aesthetics.