For plato, absolute beauty is eternal immutable, and beyond ordinary experience
Great works of art, though existing in the world of sense, would lead to this absolute
But art, thus conceived as imitation, was an inferior from of knowing
As the highest from of knowledge, for example, the "real" (in plato's case, the transcendent idea) bed is conceived as if by god while the carpenter makes a particular bed, which the painter merely copies
The artist, then, as creator of an appearance of appearance, is thrice removed from the truth
Other forms of idealistic aesthetics, more sympathetic to the organic unity of art (bosanquet), and the ideas of feeling expressed in form (langer)
Key assertions in idealism tend to be dogmatic rather than hypothetical
The method is, for the most part, non-empirical and sometimes intuitive or a priori ; oftentimes, evidence cannot be collected for or against central concepts in the theory
" Realism " is a label often used to represent the second position (not to be confused with realism as a label for an artistic style)
Here the " real " tends to be what the physicalist describes
As the scientists speak a physicalist language, the artists art said to speak an emotive language (I..A. Richards)
And while science provides knowledge, the purpose of art is to provide pleasurable sensation
The artist's job is to objectify his feeling in an art object
Artistic values, as pleasures, are subjective and relative, located as they are within the human physiology
As a distinguished representative of this position, santaya writes, "values spring from the immediate and inexplicable reaction of vital impulse and from the irrational part of our nature
Most psycho-physiological theories of art,such as cathartic therapy, could be pleaced in this category, and realism forms the basis of much art education today
Realism can claim to be sciennific
Quantitative analyses of color, physiological data of perception,psychological effects of art other evidence are sometimes offered to support conclusions; therefore the method is empirical -- but not about art ! Describing the necessary conditions for art is not saying anything intrinsic about the art work itself
The third position is experimentalism, with john dewey as its most influential exponent
Dewey calls all experience aesthetic by degree
Experiment, always takes place within a qualitative setting of situation
Art is experience intensified, perhaps more consciously transformed than our more prosaic everyday experiences
But since the emphasis in on experience, however aesthetic, chief attention is given to the plastic arts as ameans of working out this theory of experience ; dewey gives little assistance to educators of specific arts in their specialized work, unless all art educators are to be viewed as "experience educators