I’m sorry to have neglected this blog for so long. I know my many fans are waiting anxiously for new entries (hi Paul!), so I’ll take a quick break from thesis-writing to share some thoughts on the Baroque.

 

Cognition Sensitiva (sensual knowledge) is philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s (1714-62) term that I particularly like, because it attempts to seals the breach established in the dominant Cartesian mind/body dualism. Baroque sensuality with it’s theatrical sensuality of folds, convolutions, dynamic movement, expressive power, and uncanny verisimilitude speak to me of cognitio sensitiva.

 

By the way, Baumgarten also introduced the term “aesthetics” and called for a science of aesthetics: of human perception. Eventually, aesthetics became accepted as a legitimate branch of philosophical enquiry, although considered somewhat radical, during the Enlightenment.

 

Opposition to the study of aesthetics--beauty-- was often tinged with distrust, moral alarm, and accompanying charges of hedonism. We can see traces of that alarm today.

 

Reference: Beauty and Art by Elizabeth Prettejohn