Art and Enlightenment
Scottish Aesthetics in the 18th Century

Brings together and provides contextual introductions to the most significant 18th century writing on the philosophy of art. From the pioneering study of beauty by Francis Hutcheson, through Hume's seminal essays on the standard of taste and tragedy, to the end of the tradition in Dugald Stewart, this work talks about art and its value.

During the intellectual and cultural flowering of Scotland in the 18th century few subjects attracted as much interest among men of letters as aesthetics. Their inquiries revolved around a cluster of issues - the nature of taste, beauty and the sublime, how qualitative differences operate upon the mind through the faculty of taste, and how aesthetic sensibility can be improved through education. This volume brings together and provides contextual introductions to the most significant 18th century writing on the philosophy of art. From the pioneering study of beauty by Francis Hutcheson, through Hume's seminal essays on the standard of taste and tragedy, to the end of the tradition in Dugald Stewart, we are swept up in the debate about art and its value that fascinated the philosophers of enlightenment Scotland, and continues to this day.

Archibald Allison: The Effect on the Imagination by Sublime and Beautiful Objects.
The Analysis of this Exercise of the Imagination
John Baillie: An Essay on the Sublime
James Beattie: Illustrations of Sublimity
Alexander Gerrard: Of the Standard of Taste
David Hume: Of the Standard of Taste
Of Tragedy
Of Beauty and Deformity
Of Contiguity, and Distance in Space and Time
Francis Hutcheson: On the Influence of Custom and Fashion Upon Our Notions of Beauty and Deformity
Thomas Reid: Of Beauty
Adam Smith: The Influence of Custom Upon Notions of Beauty
Dugald Stewart: On the Beautiful