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The Substance of Style

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The Substance of Style

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Highlights

  • Maybe our desires for impractical decoration and meaningless fashion don’t come from Madison Avenue after all. Maybe our relation to aesthetic value is too fundamental to be explained by commercial mind control. (Location 66)
  • When we declare that mere surface cannot possibly have legitimate value, we deny human experience and ignore human behavior. (Location 75)
  • We veer madly between overvaluing and undervaluing the importance of aesthetics. Instead of upholding rationality against mere sensuality, we tangle ourselves in contradictions. (Location 76)
  • Clifford identified the sketch as the work of Michelangelo. Other experts concurred. If a drawing is by Michelangelo, we presume it’s art. But the candlestick sketch is still a blueprint—a design, not a display piece. (Location 127)
  • In a crowded marketplace, aesthetics is often the only way to make a product stand out. Quality and price may be absolutes, but tastes still vary, and not every manufacturer has already learned how to make products that appeal to the senses. (Location 157)
  • Aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes. To succeed, hard-nosed engineers, real estate developers, and MBAs must take aesthetic communication, and aesthetic pleasure, seriously. We, their customers, demand it. (Location 199)
  • The issue is not what style is used but rather that style is used, consciously and conscientiously, even in areas where function used to stand alone. (Location 209)
  • Aesthetics is the way we communicate through the senses. It is the art of creating reactions without words, through the look and feel of people, places, and things. (Location 217)
  • While the sound of poetry is arguably aesthetic, the meaning is not. (Location 219)
  • Aesthetics may complement storytelling, but it is not itself narrative. (Location 221)
  • Aesthetics shows rather than tells, delights rather than instructs. The effects are immediate, perceptual, and emotional. They are not cognitive, although we may analyze them after the fact. As a midcentury industrial designer said of his field, aesthetics is “fundamentally the art of using line, form, tone, color, and texture to arouse an emotional reaction in the beholder.” (Location 222)
  • Psychologists tell us that human beings perceive changes in sensory inputs—movement, new visual elements, louder or softer sounds, novel smells—more than sustained levels. (Location 237)

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title: The Substance of Style longtitle: The Substance of Style author: Virginia Postrel url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2021-07-25 type: books tags:

The Substance of Style

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Metadata

Highlights

  • Maybe our desires for impractical decoration and meaningless fashion don’t come from Madison Avenue after all. Maybe our relation to aesthetic value is too fundamental to be explained by commercial mind control. (Location 66)
  • When we declare that mere surface cannot possibly have legitimate value, we deny human experience and ignore human behavior. (Location 75)
  • We veer madly between overvaluing and undervaluing the importance of aesthetics. Instead of upholding rationality against mere sensuality, we tangle ourselves in contradictions. (Location 76)
  • Clifford identified the sketch as the work of Michelangelo. Other experts concurred. If a drawing is by Michelangelo, we presume it’s art. But the candlestick sketch is still a blueprint—a design, not a display piece. (Location 127)
  • In a crowded marketplace, aesthetics is often the only way to make a product stand out. Quality and price may be absolutes, but tastes still vary, and not every manufacturer has already learned how to make products that appeal to the senses. (Location 157)
  • Aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes. To succeed, hard-nosed engineers, real estate developers, and MBAs must take aesthetic communication, and aesthetic pleasure, seriously. We, their customers, demand it. (Location 199)
  • The issue is not what style is used but rather that style is used, consciously and conscientiously, even in areas where function used to stand alone. (Location 209)
  • Aesthetics is the way we communicate through the senses. It is the art of creating reactions without words, through the look and feel of people, places, and things. (Location 217)
  • While the sound of poetry is arguably aesthetic, the meaning is not. (Location 219)
  • Aesthetics may complement storytelling, but it is not itself narrative. (Location 221)
  • Aesthetics shows rather than tells, delights rather than instructs. The effects are immediate, perceptual, and emotional. They are not cognitive, although we may analyze them after the fact. As a midcentury industrial designer said of his field, aesthetics is “fundamentally the art of using line, form, tone, color, and texture to arouse an emotional reaction in the beholder.” (Location 222)
  • Psychologists tell us that human beings perceive changes in sensory inputs—movement, new visual elements, louder or softer sounds, novel smells—more than sustained levels. (Location 237)