18th Century Sensibility and Classical Theory

In the eighteenth century period of art history, divergences between the classical concepts of art and the new empirical view of sensibility divided the European art world. The classical theorists were bound to the Aristotelian view of art as means to bring about morality through its participants. The principle of sensibility, founded from the non-artist world, questioned the subjectivity vs. objectivity distinction in morality and beauty. Two writers on this discussion, Percy Bysshe Shelley and …

…this reaction to art has been referred to as 'reasoning' by classical theorists, all of our ideas were originated from sensations. The empiricist philosophers have given a new meaning to reasoning, as it has shifted from the objective reasoning of nature to the subjective responses to sensation. Sensibility in art works of this time simply shift to focus on impressions of the participants rather than trying to reveal objective principles of nature through stretching allegories.