The meaning of the word esthete. The meaning of the word “esthete” True esthete

Many terms that a person may encounter today are becoming less and less understandable to a wider audience, so they are often used in situations that are completely untrue.

An excellent example is the concept of esthete, which is often synonymous with a man of good taste. The true aesthetics of the things that surround us often become apparent only after independently studying such objects. Understanding aesthetics can be considered a basic feature of an intelligent person.

Aesthetes are different. So there is a concept inner esthete, which indicates the personal qualities of a person that are constantly developing in him over time.

It is impossible to study the basics of aestheticism at school, although teachers try to accustom their students to the sublime and beautiful. Therefore, only those who initially sought to follow this path can become an esthete, and everyone else simply bypasses this path.

The meaning of the term and its role in human life

In ordinary conversation with friends or colleagues, such a word remains a rare occurrence, so many only approximately understand its meaning. An esthete is usually called a person who has a personal opinion and is capable of distinguish the ugly from the beautiful.

Such a person can notice beautiful moments in almost everything, from works of art to the creations that surround him.

An esthete is considered an educated and sophisticated person. Such a comrade will eliminate the very idea of inappropriate behavior, but he will also be very strict and demanding of others. This character trait is usually associated with a clear understanding of beauty in every aspect:

manners;
ability to behave;
way of decorating a home.

An esthete may have such characteristics as pedantry, as well as punctuality, although such qualities are not mandatory. From the outside it may seem that the esthete is a superman, but in practice any citizen can develop a similar attitude to others, if he tries hard.

There is no reason to go to work as a librarian just to become a writer or learn how to write essays. So in the case of aesthetes, no one talks about a special gift. They don't perceive the world differently, they just see it from a different angle. The inner esthete can manifest itself in everyone if they want it.

How to cultivate an esthete in yourself?

For those who sympathize with a similar life position, there is some useful tips, which will help you quickly become aesthetes. So many experts on this topic are connoisseurs of classical music. But you don’t have to delete all the albums of your favorite popular artists to become an aesthete. Everything should start small.

Train yourself to listen to 1-2 songs a day and increase their number in the player every few weeks. In addition, you should not get hung up on a specific performer.

Listen to Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and other great composers who created many amazing masterpieces. The moment you can tell Chopin from Rachmaninoff, you'll know it's time to move on.

The next step could be to study classic works of writers. Naturally, you can listen to classical music and read texts that have become the property of humanity together, the main thing is to do it consciously.

What books should an esthete read? A lot here is determined by personal preferences. At the same time there is Brodsky's list, as well as collections of the best works of world literature from BBC, books that everyone should read. They will be able to show that beauty surrounds every person, and to recognize it all you need is a little diligence.

Today, fewer and fewer people can declare at least a few works of the classics by heart, because while studying them at school, it is difficult for us to understand all the beauty that they possess and that they bring to the world.

But it's never too late to correct the situation. It is enough to start reading Blok, Mayakovsky and other authors, whose works can have several interpretation options at once. It is not necessary to memorize them, it will be enough consciously study each interesting poem and try to analyze it.

If you couldn’t understand the author’s idea, then don’t despair. It is better to read the work again and continue to get acquainted with other creations of the author. Awareness of the message may come later, because unsolved secrets always arouse the interest of an esthete.

Studying the paintings of world famous artists will give you a completely different perspective on things. That's why trips to galleries should become a mandatory element of leisure.

The almost imperceptible fluttering of a moth's wings and a small multi-colored drop of dew on a delicate rose petal are something that ordinary people can pass by, but an aesthete can never pass by. An esthete is a person who perceives the individual components of the external reflection of art as a whole. This is the person who will always find beauty even on dirty city roads, just as an optimist will always find the positives in a gloomy life situation.

Is it easy to be an esthete? Judge for yourself: the age of progressive computerization, crazy changes in fashion trends and partial depreciation of some moral values. A time of different subcultures and fashion chaos, when everyone wears only what they first came across in their closet.

An esthete is a person who dresses harmoniously, always looks beautiful and loves purity in everything, even in feelings. You can recognize him in a crowd only if you exclaim: “This is beauty!” Believe me, very few people will stop to contemplate some beauty there. It will be easier for them to shout: “This is money!” - the chances of attracting the attention of the usual crowd rise sharply. But the esthete will definitely stop at the first call. For him, everything beautiful is air and the bread of life.

In the modern world, aesthetes can be called by various names, including metrosexuals. Such people are often laughed at or discussed behind their back. Very often, male aesthetes are considered to be people of non-traditional sexual orientation. But all this is only due to one’s own bad manners and bad taste. An esthete will always understand another esthete in his desire for perfection in the interior of the house, in the wardrobe, and in life.

An esthete woman will always look beautiful and stylish, regardless of the latest “fashion fad” that is raging on the catwalks and streets. She doesn’t put on fashionable knitted summer boots just because of a herd reflex. An esthete will decorate the house only in a harmonious stylistic direction, thinking through the location of each decoration attribute down to the smallest detail. An esthete will have only meaningful paintings hanging in his room, and not the currently fashionable “masterpieces” painted with various parts of the body.

As for the professions that a true esthete chooses for himself, they will never be associated with agriculture (the only exception may be gardening) or with farming. Typically, aesthetes work in museums, art galleries, jewelry stores, or beauty salons.

Life without beauty and the constant manifestation of art and harmony in all the little things will seem unnecessary and gray to an esthete. They are very capricious in choosing friends and life partners, since they prefer to choose for themselves the same subtle natures as themselves. Aesthetes are strongly attached to home, place of work and a certain style of clothing. But that doesn't mean they can't do some crazy things. Aesthetes, after all, differ from other people, by and large, only in that they see natural beauty in everything and constantly surround themselves only with impeccable things and works of art. Well, one can only envy them for this.

As often happens in our world, when a concept is used both for the purpose and not for the purpose, then the words get dragged down and lose their meaning! This happened with the words aesthetics and esthete, which came into our language from the blessed ancient Greece.

Aesthete and aesthetics are not dirty words

Aesthetics, in its original sense, is a philosophical, bookish concept that reveals the essence of the process of man’s cognition of the world through his sensory perceptions. That is, an esthete is a person who is able to feel.

And since there are no people in the world who are not capable of feeling, then we are all aesthetes in the philosophical understanding. The opposite of an esthete is a logician. And there are few such people, but for some reason they are the ones who are criticized with the word “esthete” in our time.

Beauty and expediency

Nature strives for expediency, and therefore for beauty. So Aristotle once calculated and wrote down this thought, but after thinking about this topic a little, he moved on to other issues. And after him, his followers made an axiom out of this almost random phrase of his. And a dead-end philosophical trend arose. Over the course of a century, it descended into emptiness, but their words were picked up by artists, and it turned out that an esthete is no longer any person, but some kind of specially sensitive world.

Philosophers gave these terms to artists for use and began to deal with deeper issues. And the words began to circulate among people until they acquired an ironic, disdainful connotation. Now, for most ordinary people, an esthete is a person who is not understood by others because, in his opinion, they are all too rude. In the Russian language, there is a precise term to define this - “with foolishness”, i.e. a person behaves this way without the goal of deceiving anyone for his own benefit, but just like that, on a whim, because he cannot live any other way.

But be that as it may, beauty and purposefulness exist in the world. The connection between these concepts is questionable, but the artists nevertheless systematized them as best they could. They are usually at odds with logic, so the world of an esthete, in the artistic understanding of this phrase, is ambivalent and pretentious.

Aesthetics is the science of beauty

When philosophers returned to a topic abandoned for 2000 years, at the beginning of the twentieth century they formed the science of beauty for artists - aesthetics, with the help of which they try to find out: why does one person consider one thing beautiful and another ugly? And we achieved some successes. It turned out that the object itself is neither beautiful nor ugly. It becomes such only in the feelings of a particular person. Then philosophers identified a special type from the general mass of humanity and called these people aesthetes.

Most of us accept the canons of beauty into our inner world at the age of 5 as we grow up and then follow them for the rest of our lives. And an esthete is one who forms the canons of beauty for himself, and not until the age of 5, but until the end of his life. Such people make real artists, pioneers, madly in love and other restless individuals.

A normal dose of aesthetics is good for everyone

If you exclude the concepts of beautiful and aesthetic from a person’s life, then he will grunt like a pig the very next day. It is beauty that often keeps us from doing ugly things. Some people don’t even hang themselves only because the person doing this action does not look at all aesthetically pleasing.

And people of art, for example, actors in theaters, even try to quarrel with each other beautifully and aesthetically. Most would take their example in this, and not in anything else. The same acting to the top" can hardly be called beautiful.

To a normal extent, designers have grasped the meaning of aesthetics. They make everyday and useful things attractive to look at. And it’s nice that they don’t pretend to be exclusive and don’t lecture us. But the workers of the so-called haute couture are somewhat overplaying their hand. After all, aesthetics is not a mockery of people. Otherwise, the cloying nature of their research sometimes makes one sick. For example, a woman should not, no matter what anyone claims, look like a nail. The law does not exist for geometry.

So, everything that is not in moderation is not healthy, even beauty.

Esthete[ste], - ah, masculine 1. Supporter of aestheticism (in 1 meaning) (bookish). 2. A fan of all things elegant. || and. aesthetics, - and. || adjective aesthetic, - oh, - oh.

Examples of using the word esthete in the context

esthete

We most often learn about the true aesthetics of things and the world around us ourselves. This is not taught in school. Understanding aesthetics is one of the hallmarks of an intelligent person. The inner esthete is that side of the personality that everyone has to cultivate on their own. And this is a path that you either choose for yourself one day or avoid.

Who is an esthete

We don't use this word very often, and when we do, we roughly understand its true meaning. An esthete is a person who distinguishes between the beautiful and the ugly, sees the beautiful in life, art, the world around him, lives and creates according to the laws of beauty.

Aesthetes are educated and sophisticated. They will not indulge in inappropriate behavior and will not tolerate such behavior. Their ability to sense beauty is manifested in everything: manners, speech, clothing, apartment interior, and what they eat.

These are not superhumans or creatures from another planet. Despite the fact that an esthete is a sensitive person who perceives beauty on a purely intuitive level, everyone can develop a sense of beauty in themselves.

It is not at all necessary to work in a library or museum, write critical articles, be a writer or. You don't need any gift to see more in ordinary things than others see. An inner esthete lives in everyone.

How to cultivate an esthete in yourself

1. Listen to classics

Start simple. Listen to at least one song a day. No one is saying that you need to give up your musical preferences. To begin with, diversify your playlists with the works of Beethoven, Vivaldi, Chopin. When you begin to distinguish Rachmaninov from Mozart by ear, you will want more.

2. Read classic prose

Start with Russian classics. Use the advice of the Strugatsky brothers or the list of the 200 best books according to the BBC. Believe me, the classics will teach you to see beauty and prove that you were in vain for not taking up them earlier.

3. Read poetry

Re-read Pushkin, whom you were not able to understand in your school years. Rethink Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Blok, delve into the work of Brodsky, who is often absent from the school curriculum even now.

Poets saw the beautiful and the ugly. They will become the best guides to the world of aesthetics. Don't limit yourself to domestic poetry. Get to know the works of Shakespeare, Frost, Auden. Use translations or try reading in the original.

This is what we miss most in our daily lives. Instead of getting to know something great, we overwhelmed ourselves with photos of funny cats and rather flat humor.

Read thematic magazines, visit websites and exhibitions dedicated to painting. Figure out which direction of painting you like best and dig deeper. You just don't realize how much it will affect your vision of the world.

5. Stop using obscene language

Obscene language is something that pollutes not only speech, but also thoughts. By abandoning it, you will increase your level of culture and free up your speech for more useful and beautiful words.

6. Go to the theater

Buy tickets a month or two in advance and go to the performance on the appointed day and time. This will be a big deal, especially if you've been putting off this outing for a year.

7. Diversify your cultural life

Going to the cinema, restaurants and cafes is great. And cinema itself is a separate art form. But by cultural life we need to understand slightly different things. Go to museums, galleries, exhibitions and presentations. It will turn out to be much more interesting and useful than a weekend spent at home under the covers.

8. Rethink your surroundings

It is often difficult to look objectively at what is happening in life. But once you have decided to cultivate an esthete within yourself, it is necessary to do so.

Take a fresh look at what you wear, what you carry with you, what you use in everyday life. You can listen to the classics as much as you like, read Maugham in the morning, and Lermontov before bed, but if you are surrounded by unaesthetic things, it will be difficult for you to change for the better.

Update your wardrobe, let it become stricter and more beautiful. Transform yours using the advice of designers and your own instincts. Don't be afraid to experiment.

9. Update your menu

Food should also be beautiful. Healthy and wholesome food has its own aesthetics, philosophy and concept. Add simple and healthy dishes to your menu and you will understand how much food influences your life.

It is not easy to cultivate a sense of beauty. But this is another way to take a fresh look at life, learn to see and feel what is inaccessible to others.