Unseen beauty: the persistence of the medieval in contemporary aesthetics = Beleza que não se vê: a persistência do medieval na estética contemporânea

Abstract

The experience of beauty is no less mysterious for the aesthetician today than it was in the Middle Ages. Here I focus on the notion of 'unseen beauty' and how certain aspects of medieval philosophizing about the nature of beauty can still be of use for the contemporary aesthetician. I draw a comparison between some concepts that pervade the whole of the Medieval period - that there is a transcendent source of visible beauty, and that visible beauties function as images of the invisible beauty - with a modern conception of aesthetic experience, as it is expressed in authors like Clive Bell.