The Online Books Page

Aesthetics -- History

See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.

• Aesthetics
• Philosophy -- History
• History

• Aesthetics, Modern -- 18th century
• Aesthetics, Modern -- 19th century
• Aesthetics, Modern -- 20th century
• Aesthetics, Modern -- 21st century
• Avant-garde (Aesthetics) -- History
• Romanticism -- History
• Sublime, The -- History

• The Topography of Modernity: Karl Philipp Moritz and the Space of Autonomy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library, c2012), by Elliott Schreiber (PDF and Epub at Cornell Open)
• The Role of the Sublime in Kant's Moral Metaphysics, by John R. Goodreau (PDF at crvp.org)

• Cities Built to Music: Aesthetic Theories of the Victorian Gothic Revival (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c1984), by Michael Bright
  • PDF at Ohio State
  • PDF files with commentary at Ohio State Press
• Flight From Eden: The Origins of Modern Literary Criticism and Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), by Steven Cassedy (HTML at UC Press)

• 1910: The Emancipation of Dissonance (Berkeley: University of California Press, c1996), by Thomas J. Harrison (HTML at UC Press)
• Revenge of the Aesthetic: The Place of Literature in Theory Today (Berkeley : University of California Press, c2000), ed. by Michael Clark (frame-dependent HTML with commentary at UC Press)
• The Aesthetics of Paradoxism (second edition, 2002), by Titu Popescu, trans. by Florentin Smarandache, Lucian Popescu, and Paul Georgelin (PDF at UNM)
• Flight From Eden: The Origins of Modern Literary Criticism and Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), by Steven Cassedy (HTML at UC Press)

• Bigger Than You: Big Data and Obesity (Goleta, CA: Punctum Books, c2016), by Katherine Behar (PDF with commentary at Punctum Books)
• Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2018), by Ari Larissa Heinrich (PDF files at Project MUSE)

• Amazons of the Avant-Garde (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, c2000), ed. by John E. Bowlt and Matthew Drutt, illust. by Alexandra Exter, Nataliia Sergeevna Goncharova, Liubov' Sergeevna Popova, Ol'ga Vladimirovna Rozanova, Varvara Fedorovna Stepanova, and Nadezhda Udal'tsova (multiple formats at archive.org)

• Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905-1931 (Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, c2002), by Gennifer S. Weisenfeld (multiple formats at archive.org)

• Chic Ironic Bitterness (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2007), by R. Jay Magill (page images at HathiTrust)

• A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, by Henry A. Beers (Gutenberg text)

• Ann Radcliffe in Relation to Her Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920), by Clara Frances McIntyre (multiple formats at archive.org)

• The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1935), by Samuel Holt Monk (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Role of the Sublime in Kant's Moral Metaphysics, by John R. Goodreau (PDF at crvp.org)

Items below (if any) are from related and broader terms.

• Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality (Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press, 2013), by Timothy Morton (HTML and PDF with commentary at Open Humanities Press)
• Post-Digital Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c2019), by Justin Hodgson (PDF at Ohio State)
• Aesthetic Politics in Fashion (Pub. series of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, v14; Berlin: Sternberg Press, c2014), ed. by Elke Gaugele (PDF with commentary in Austria)
• Romanticism and the Insistence of the Aesthetic (2005), ed. by Forest Pyle (HTML at Romantic Circles)
• On the Spiritual in Art (first complete English translation; New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1946), by Wassily Kandinsky, ed. by Hilla Rebay (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Aesthetic and Miscellaneous Works of Friedrich von Schlegel: Comprising Letters on Christian Art; An Essay on Gothic Architecture; Remarks on the Romance-Poetry of the Middle Ages and on Shakspere; On the Limits of the Beautiful; On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians (London: H. G. Bohn, 1860), by Friedrich von Schlegel, trans. by E. J. Millington
  • page images at HathiTrust
  • multiple formats at Google
• Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, by Benedetto Croce, trans. by Douglas Ainslie (Gutenberg text)
• Aesthetics: or, The Science of Beauty (New York and Chicago: Potter, Ainsworth, and Co., 1871), by John Bascom (page images at MOA)
• Aesthetics: or, The Science of Beauty (New York and Chicago: Woolworth, Ainsworth, and Co., 1872), by John Bascom (page images at MOA)
• Aesthetik: oder Wissenschaft des Schönen (3 volumes (third in multiple parts), in German; 1846-1857), by Friedrich Theodor Vischer (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Beautiful: An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1913), by Vernon Lee (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• Belcaro: Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions (London: W. Satchell and Co., n.d.), by Vernon Lee (Gutenberg text)
• Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky, trans. by Michael Sadleir (Gutenberg text)
• The Desire of Beauty: Being Indications for Aesthetic Culture (London: J. R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1892), by Theodore Child (page images at HathiTrust)
• Essay on the Beautiful, etc.: or, Elements of Aesthetic Philosophy (second edition; London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1860), by Vincenzo Gioberti, trans. by Edward Thomas (page images at HathiTrust)
• Essays Aesthetical (Boston: Lee and Shepard; New York: Lee, Shepard, and Dillingham, 1875), by George Henry Calvert (page images at HathiTrust)
• Estetica, Come Scienza dell'Espressione e Linguistica Generale: Teoria e Storia (third revised edition, in Italian; Bari: Gius. Laterza et Figli, 1908), by Benedetto Croce
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• Estética, Como Ciencia de la Expresión y Lingüística General: Teoria é historia de la estética (in Spanish; Madrid: F. Beltrán, 1912), by Benedetto Croce (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Hegel's Aesthetics: A Critical Exposition (Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Co., 1885), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, ed. by John Steinfort Kedney (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Introduction a une Esthétique Scientifique (in French; Paris: La Revue contemporaine, 1885), by Charles Henry
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • page images at HathiTrust
• The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1886), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, ed. by Bernard Bosanquet (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Laurus Nobilis: Chapters on Art and Life, by Vernon Lee (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good (with an appendix on French art; New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1854), by Victor Cousin, trans. by O. W. Wight
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good (with an appendix on French art; New York and London: D. Appleton and Co., 1871), by Victor Cousin, trans. by O. W. Wight
  • multiple formats at Google
  • page images at HathiTrust
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man, by Friedrich Schiller (HTML at Fordham)
• The Philosophy of Art: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Aesthetics (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd; London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1886), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Ludwig Michelet, trans. by W. Hastie
  • page images at Google; US access only
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• The Philosophy of Art: Being the Second Part of Hegel's Aesthetik, in Which are Unfolded Historically the Three Great Fundamental Phases of the Art-Activity of the World (New York: D. Appleton and Co., c1879), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, trans. by William McKendree Bryant
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• The Principles of Aesthetics, by De Witt H. Parker (Gutenberg text)
• The Psychology of Beauty, by Ethel Puffer Howes (Gutenberg text)
• The Science of Aesthetics, by Henry Noble Day (page images at MOA)
• The Science of Beauty, As Developed in Nature and Applied in Art (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1861), by D. R. Hay (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory (New York et al: Charles Scribner's Sons, c1896), by George Santayana
  • Gutenberg text
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• Skönhet för Alla: Fyra Uppsatser (in Swedish; Stockholm: A. Bonnier, 1899), by Ellen Key (Gutenberg text and page images)
• The Subject and Other Subjects: On Ethical, Aesthetic, and Political Identity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1998), by Tobin Siebers (page images at HathiTrust)
• Music and Meaning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932), by Elizabeth Robinson Woods (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Cult of Beauty in Charles Baudelaire (2 volumes; New York: Institute of French studies, Columbia university, 1929), by S. A. Rhodes (page images at HathiTrust)
• Art Culture: A Hand-Book of Art Technicalities and Criticisms, Selected From The Works of John Ruskin, and Arranged and Supplemented by Rev. W.H. Platt, for the Use of Schools and Colleges; Together With a New Glossary of Art Terms, And an Alphabetical and Chronological List of Artists (New York: J. Wiley and Son, 1873), by John Ruskin, ed. by W. H. Platt (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Art Culture: A Hand-Book of Art Technicalities and Criticisms, Selected From The Works of John Ruskin, and Arranged and Supplemented by Rev. W.H. Platt, for the Use of Schools and Colleges; Together With a New Glossary of Art Terms, And an Alphabetical and Chronological List of Artists (New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1877), by John Ruskin, ed. by W. H. Platt (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Creative Will: Studies in the Philosophy and the Syntax of Aesthetics (New York and London: J. Lane, 1916), by Willard Huntington Wright (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Ancient Art and Ritual, by Jane Ellen Harrison (illustrated HTML at sacred-texts.com)
• Art (New York: F. A. Stokes Co., ca. 1914), by Clive Bell (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• Kunst ("Art" translated into German; Dresden: Sibyllenverlag, 1922), by Clive Bell, ed. by Paul Westheim (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The Birth of Tragedy: or, Hellenism and Pessimism (from the Complete Works v1), by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ed. by Oscar Levy, trans. by William A. Haussmann
  • Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, trans. by Ian Johnston
  • HTML in Canada
  • Javascript-dependent page images with commentary at Richer Resources Publications
• The Laws of Harmonious Colouring, Adapted to Interior Decorations, Manufactures, and Other Useful Purposes (London: W. S. Orr and Co.; Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers, 1838), by D. R. Hay (multiple formats at archiuve.org)

More items available under broader and related terms at left.