Catching the Aesthetic Dimension: On Aesthetic Experience of Colour and Light

Abstract

This paper springs from a project about concept formation in the field of colour and light. It is based on own reflections and on scientific and scholarly references. It is an attempt to describe a conceptual approach to aesthetic experiences of colour and light relating them to different levels of experience: categorical perception, direct experience and indirect – cultural – experience. Art and design have a special and complex relation to the different levels of experience. Artistic works can serve as ”models” or “examples” – indirect experiences – for how we may attend to light and colour in our direct approach to the world. They are also, as appearances, direct experiences. The emotional content we can experience in a piece of art or a designed object is symbolic in a special way; perceptual patterns of colour, light and form, abstracted from their normal context in life, can be used as symbols for felt life in pieces of art and in designed objects. What we are used to calling formal aesthetics belongs primarily to the categorical – basic – perception. Adopting a reflective attitude we consciously attend to this perceptual process of understanding and open up for reflection on experiences as such