Aesthetic Value

Assigning a value to an object based on its appearance and emotional effect is known as aesthetic value. People tend to prefer beautiful things, and these things tend to be more expensive than similar items without an aesthetic component. Objectively assessing an item’s aesthetic value can be difficult, but it is essential for determining its worth in general. Even though two identical homes differ only in size, location, and amenities, a Craftsman home may sell for considerably more than a generic manufactured home.

Aesthetic Value in General

A complex process goes into evaluating artistic value. As a result of cultural differences, aesthetics has been the subject of much debate across the globe, and a person’s perception of beauty is largely determined by their cultural background. In the West, many people appreciate Classical design, which is influenced by ancient Greece and Rome. However, in the East, such a design may not appeal to them. Artworks are judged based on their aesthetic value, so while the materials can be identical, they can have radically different price tags based on the way they appear and who created them.

• There are many fields in which aesthetic value is important, not just art. Real estate, in which the appearance of a home affects its sale price, must also consider aesthetics, as must furniture and clothing design. 
• Aesthetics is also taken into consideration when engineers design products as attractive designs can increase the value of the product in consumers’ minds. Keyboards, for example, can be arranged in several ways, and those that are unusual or distinguishable are likely to be more expensive.
• A concern with nature can also fall under this category. Although some natural landscapes may be regarded as more attractive than others in many cultures, the concept of nature having inherent aesthetic value is widely accepted.
•  National parks in the United States were established not to serve as development sites for citizens but to preserve the natural landscape of the countries. Nature reserves were not established for citizen use but the benefit of their beauty.

• The coursework offered at colleges and universities aims to enhance students’ ability to make informed decisions regarding beauty and aesthetics. 

• Researchers from psychology and social science are also interested in this area because they want to know how cultures develop ideas about beauty, and how those ideas display themselves in cultural manifestations.

Aesthetics as a concept

Art, philosophy, social science, and cultural history all fall under the umbrella of aesthetics. Thus, aesthetics can have different meanings depending on the field of study. The fundamental purpose of aesthetics is to examine the beauty of art and the value of works of art. The method involves judging objects from many perspectives, for example, from an emotional standpoint, from a practical perspective, from a rarity point of view, and an experience point of view. 

• Observing beauty (defined as the qualities of an object), which generates pleasure when this affective response is positive, can give one a feeling of pleasure.
• The classically aesthetic concept of beauty considers balance, symmetry, order, and magnitude to be key features.
• According to this perspective, aesthetics refers to the characteristics of the observed object, i.e., from the standpoint of the ‘transmitter’. Hume, in contrast, contends that objects do not have innate qualities of beauty but that they are modified by human education and nature. 
• The same principle applies to Kant’s concept of the ‘aesthetics of reception’. From these two complementary views of aesthetics, modern aesthetics defines aesthetics as between transmitting and receiving, which form a foundation of the modern approach.
• In some aesthetic views, such as those in the philosophy of art, beauty is not considered to have physical properties but is seen as a relation between an object and its observer, as if it were a conduit connecting the sender and receiver. 
• Another view of aesthetic experience encompasses social and moral aspects of arts, including meanings and representations in addition to beauty

Assessing the aesthetic value 

When it comes to copyright, customs law, and obscenity, judges have traditionally avoided making decisions about aesthetic value. The exact reason for this refusal was explained by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1903 in terms often quoted by contemporary jurists:

• Until they reach the obvious and narrowest limits, people only educated in law would be risky to exercise final judgement on work.
• The absence of other criteria may even lead to the work of a genius being overlooked. It would take the public some time to learn new things about aesthetic values and to be able to appreciate them until the public had acquired them. 
• A common view holds that objective standards of judicial reasoning will not be used by judges or other members of the legal community.
• A judge’s belief that aesthetic value cannot be determined objectively enough to satisfy the court’s needs is questionable. 
• This supposed subjectivity is not supported by a closer reading of Justice Holmes’ 1903 statement. 
• To think that Holmes said the public needs to learn “the language in which their author writes” before being able to appreciate a genius seems rather ironic. According to the statement, once we learn to appraise a work, we can accurately assess its quality. 
• Taking a rational approach to the work, reasonable people — competent observers — will all arrive at the same conclusion. Taking an objective approach to aesthetic value is the key to “objectivity”.

A link between aesthetics and value

Landscape quality and management practices have a direct or indirect effect on aesthetic value. Human perception has traditionally placed a greater focus on the general nature of landscape patterns, mostly structural. While the aesthetic and the natural properties of landscapes have been recognised, the definition of naturalness is still vague, primarily because the definition is based on human perceptions and not a clear biophysical assessment. Ecological value offers operational indicators of ecological value, whereas naturalness provides a conceptual framework. Nevertheless, landscape aesthetics do not measure biodiversity, and this field is only just starting to incorporate it into its evaluation.

Conclusion

Whether an object has an aesthetic value or not is a matter of personal opinion. A beautiful object may be worth nothing to some people, while an unpleasant object might be precious to others. At the end of the day, a person’s reaction to an object is dependent on how they feel about it.