ABSTRACT
Aesthetic appreciation is to a large extent a matter of perception, of seeing and hearing, and any theory of aesthetic and artistic appreciation must take into account the nature of perception. The task of philosophical aesthetics is complicated by the fact that perception is such a complicated affair and that there are so many different uses of verbs of perception such as "to see" and "to hear." The aesthetic use of the word to describe a composition is derivative from its primary use in referring to mechanical equilibrium. Any understanding of aesthetic balance presupposes this primary sense. In art appreciation text books balance is sometimes explained as a principle of composition by means of a schematic representation of the design of a painting where the figures are shown as if standing on a see-saw whose fulcrum is on the vertical axis of the painting.
