Alessandro Bertinetto

This article explores the intersection of the philosophy of art, everyday aesthetics, and existential aesthetics, focusing on the role of aesthetic habits in both artistic and everyday practices. Building on my previous work on the aesthetics of improvisation, the article challenges the idea that habits are rigid, uncreative routines. Instead, it argues that aesthetic habits play a crucial role in shaping artistic appreciation and participation, as well as in structuring our daily lives aesthetically. Besides discussing the aesthetic appeal of habitual routines and emphasizing the improvisational nature of habits, the article highlights how art is not separate from life but is deeply embedded in ordinary experiences, transforming and being transformed by habitual aesthetic sensibilities. To sum up, I propose that aesthetic habits, rather than limiting creativity, enable a dynamic, evolving engagement with both art and everyday life.

Improvisiert wird im Alltag und in den Künsten: Genau diesem Zusammenspiel Alltag – Kunst – Improvisation widmet sich der Schwerpunkt des Heftes. Die Improvisation ist der Ausgangspun [...]

In this paper I aim at discussing the aesthetic-normative conditions for the right understanding and the right evaluation of jazz. My main point is this: The aesthetics of jazz is an aesthetics of the successful performance, rather than an aesthetics of imperfection. The paper will be structured as follows. SectionI introduces the topic. SectionII presents the ›imperfection thesis‹, while III discusses some arguments against it. Sections IV and V investigate two related questions: the first is about the role of the »mistake« in jazz; the second concerns the crucial topic of normativity. At this regard I will maintain that the ›imperfection thesis‹ does not work, especially because it misunderstands the specific normativity of jazz as improvisational art. Section VI is devoted to clarifying both in which sense the idea of a normativity of the successful performance is sound and why this idea is important for understanding jazz. Finally (VII) I defend this view against possible objections.

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