Aesthetics: A Very Short Introduction

Nanay argues that aesthetics is not only about art and not only about beauty. Its subject is a wide range of experiences: noticing the light on a building, enjoying a meal, being absorbed by a song, as well as looking at paintings. He puts attention at the centre, distinguishing the open, freely roaming attention typical of many aesthetic experiences from the focused attention of ordinary tasks, and discusses how aesthetic experience relates to emotion, to our sense of who we are, and to the value we place on our tastes and their changes over time. Nanay deliberately draws examples from many cultures and periods rather than only from European art, and he keeps the discussion close to what actually happens when we look, listen and taste. The book is short, written without jargon, and full of everyday examples.

It is a fresh, global introduction that starts from experiences everyone has, not from definitions of art.