Despite the Kantian framework, Scruton, like Sartwell and Nehamas, throws the subjective/objective distinction into question. He compares experiencing a wonderful thing to a kiss. Santayana, for instance, as we’ve seen, whereas still gesturing within the path of the thing or expertise that causes pleasure, emphatically identifies beauty as a sure kind of pleasure. When Hutcheson then goes on to explain ‘original or absolute beauty,’ he does it, as we have Beauty seen, when it comes to the qualities of the beautiful thing, and yet throughout, he insists that beauty is centered within the human experience of pleasure. But in fact the idea of pleasure could come apart from Hutcheson’s particular aesthetic preferences, that are poised exactly opposite Plotinus’s, for example.

Frankenthaler (1928–2011) is recognized among the most essential American summary artists of the twentieth century, widely credited for her pivotal function within the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field …