ABSTRACT
The Danish and English words are derived from the Greek αἰσθητά, which means “that which can be sensed.” The first modern usage of the word is in the work of the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten, who in his book Aesthetica (1750-58) defined the beautiful as the sensuous representation of the perfect. Subsequently, aesthetics became the discipline that deals with the beautiful in art and nature. This in turn gave rise to the notion of the aesthete, as a person who to an extreme degree pursues beauty in everything.1
