Aesthetics

Amid the rapid advancements in clinical aesthetics, there lies an intricate gap between the artistic and sensory experience of facial aesthetics and the technical approach of medical sciences. As the field of clinical aesthetics veers further into the realm of the ideal, tensions arise between patient expectations and the practitioner's delivery. Central to this issue is the growing reliance on technology, which often overlooks the immediate sensory experience crucial for aesthetic satisfaction. Drawing inspiration from the arts and humanities, this dissertation introduces "Phenoesthetics" as an epistemological bridge, harmonizing the seemingly disparate domains of sensory experience and scientific analysis. By using visual art, particularly the composite works of the Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, as an illustrative tool, this work seeks to elucidate the dual nature of facial aesthetics perception: the universal, tangible forms and the more abstract, cultural interpretations. By weaving together elements from the arts, humanities, and sciences, this study propounds a Phenoesthetics approach — a comprehensive method designed to enhance understanding and communication in clinical aesthetics. The aim is to provide practitioners with a robust framework, fostering more aligned expectations and improving satisfaction rates in the field of aesthetic medicine.

Loose-line is a visual style where dramatic lines are created with quick, swift strokes, often randomly overlapping each other. Loose-lines can be used to depict a subject and emphasize its actions. They capture the viewer's attention and provide them with an understanding of the narrative depicted through its implication or suggestion of action.
In this thesis I will examine, the loose-line technique and its components. I will show how loose-line has been used as a foundational technique for pre-visualizing painting, sculpture, and architecture throughout art history, and especially with regard to its role in the development of cinema and animation. And finally, I will apply the loose-line technique to contemporary visual compositions and reveal how merging rough sketches with 3D renders contributes to an innovative aesthetic style.

The field of computer vision has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade. The rapid advances can be largely attributed to advances made in the field of Artificial Neural Networks and more specifically can be attributed to the rapid advancement of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Deep Learning. One area that is of great interest to the research community at large is the ability to detect the quality of images in the sense of technical parameters such as blurriness, encoding artifacts, saturation, and lighting, as well as for its’ aesthetic appeal. The purpose of such a mechanism could be detecting and discarding noisy, blurry, dark, or over exposed images, as well as detecting images that would be considered beautiful by a majority of viewers. In this dissertation, the detection of various quality and aesthetic aspects of an image using CNNs is explored. This research produced two datasets that are manually labeled for quality issues such as blur, poor lighting, and digital noise, and for their aesthetic qualities, and Convolutional Neural Networks were designed and trained using these datasets. Lastly, two case studies were performed to show the real-world impact of this research to traffic sign detection and medical image diagnosis.

Pro-migration scholars and advocates for stricter immigrant legislation alike tend to rely on an economic framework to measure the value migrants bring toward the nation they’ve immigrated to and whether that value constitutes their right and ability to attain citizenship. By analyzing the influence and value found within Vladimir Nabokov’s use of the aesthetics of displacement, as well as other migrant writers since Nabokov, such as Cristina Garcia and Claudia Rankine that have expanded the racial and ethnic perspective of what can be considered “American,” I argue the criteria for citizenship within the United States should extend beyond traditional economic justifications and encompass the cultural capital immigrants produce through means of artistic labor and participation, influencing what is defined as American culture by being representations of what comprises the nation’s literature and the nation itself.

The purpose of this study was to compare the aesthetic tastes of
subjects with formal design training to the aesthetic tastes of the
general population. The Graves Design Judgment Test was used as the
Design Knowledge set of data in this correlational Ex post facto
study. The visual art stimuli were chosen by a panel of art experts
using dual 7 point bipolar scales for realism and design. Visual art
stimuli were reproduced from various worldwide gallery and museum
collections. A diverse set of art stimuli subject matter was used to
minimize content preference by subjects. A multivariate analysis of
variance, a correlation matrix, regression analysis, and principle
components were used to statistically discern a significant difference
between the groups studied. The group with a high cognate knowledge
of design showed a preference for non-objective or abstract art more
than the group without cognate design knowledge. Analysis of variance found a significant difference at the .05 level between the two
groups' preferences for non-objective art but revealed no significant
difference at the .05 level for either group's preferences for
realism. The results of this study are consistent with earlier art
preference research describing differences in trained and untrained
subjects' preferences.

This dissertation focuses on the elements of performance that contribute to the actress's development of somatic practices. By mastering the art of articulation and vocalization, by transforming their bodies and their environment, these actors created their own agency. The female actors lived the life of the characters they portrayed, which were full of multicultural models from various social and economic classes. Somaesthetics, as a focus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation and somatic awareness, provides a pragmatic approach to understanding the unique way in which the woman of the early modern Spanish stage, while dedicating herself to the art of acting, challenged the negative cultural and social constructs imposed on her. Drawing from early modern plays and treatises on the precepts and practices of the acting process, I use somaesthetics to shed light on how the actor might have prepared for a role in a comedia, selfconsciously cultivating her body in order to meet the challenges of the stage.

Gaze to discover is the approach a viewer should take as s/he encounters the work within this exhibition. The main idea is that the work should be interactive. Developing this interaction is the objective of each piece. To engage viewers to interact with a piece of art coincides with the ability to acquire their undivided attention. The realization that it is difficult for a viewer to have a tangible interaction with artwork in a gallery setting leads to asking the viewer to interact visually, "to look fixedly" - to gaze (Webster's Dictionary). Gazing at the work will direct the viewer to discover; "to gain knowledge through observation, study, or search" (Webster's Dictionary). The desired outcome is a personal relationship with each piece observed. Games, play, and visual interaction are what this installation addresses. The familiar vessel forms chosen draw the attention, but the alliteration imagery keeps the viewer intrigued. With the help of a game card, a viewer is left with a puzzle to solve only obtainable through the gaze to discover.

This thesis examines Walt Whitman's use of the body in his poetry as a location for spiritual experience, and how his use of the body bears strong connection to its use by medieval Persian Sufi poets. The first chapter focuses upon Sufi poetry's role as a shared point of interest between Whitman and his onetime mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their differing philosophies regarding the cultivation of the soul caused them to absorb Sufi ideas into their own bodies of work in separate ways, and contributed to the split that eventually occurred between them. The second chapter focuses upon connections between Whitman's poetry and that of Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the greatest Sufi poets yet an oftoverlooked figure in Whitman scholarship. The final chapter examines multiple ways in which Whitman expresses the divine nature of the body in several poems from Leaves of Grass, and how those expressions reflect Sufi influences.

This thesis represents a study of Kate Chopin's groundbreaking novel, The Awakening. Further, it applies Nietzsche's principles of Dionysiac and Apollonian impulses to the literary analysis of the novel. I argue that the protagonist of the novel, Edna Pontellier, embarks on a quest to determine how she may live an authentic life - that is, a life whereby she is true to herself above all others. Ultimately, her search for self is overwhelmed by the imbalance of the Apollonian and Dionysiac impulses against which she struggles. Because Edna cannot successfully mediate this struggle, she reaches the conclusion that she may only attain a truth to her self if she finds that truth in death.

Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? Historically, philosophers, poets, artists, and scientists have striven to define and express one of the most complex words in the English language : beauty. In contemporary society we tend to casually ascribe the word beauty to many various objects,paintings, sounds, and ideas. Its meaning can adhere to a stone, to the oscillating waves of an ocean, to the nonorganic as to the organic. Perceptions of Beauty is a project the follows my journey as an artist and how my perception of beauty has changed over the past four years. Using examples from select artists, philosophers, and scientific studies, I will contend that Beauty is not "in the eye of the beholder," but is a complex and formulated characteristic that inspires not only an emotional response, but evokes mechanisms that defy our understanding of ourselves.