What´s Postmodern Aesthetics?

Postmodern aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of what is considered beauty at the specific time/era.1 For example, during the Renaissance, women that were to be considered beautiful and sexy would have to have curves and voluptuous bodies as opposed to today’s size 0 beauty standards. This shows that points of view, perception and aesthetics change with each era. Etymologically, the word aesthetic comes from the greek verb αισθάνομαι, which means I perceive, I feel. One key feature of postmodern aesthetics is the ideology and theory that the author is dead and that his intentions should not be considered the most important thing of his work, but how others interpret his work. The main person that discusses this theory is French literacy critic and theorist Roland Barthes in his essay "The Death of the Author" (1967).
In his text, the traditional notions of authorship are being challenged and, by doing so, challenging the writers/authors control over their own text. For example, many postmodern critics including Roland Barthes would argue that what the reader brings to a text has as much to do with how a reader interprets a text as what the author writes and intends. Equivelantely, social constructionists argue that authors themselves are written by their cultures and societies, authorship is a social construct and is granted by various communities, such as academic and professional groups. After reading Rolands text, I believe he is right about the authors intention not being the only way of interpreting a piece of art , text, or even music (song), since each individual viewing a specific piece has their own set of values, morals and l...

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...hem and their work.21 This relates greatly to what Barthes talks about in his text, because if it is not the author/artist himself that produces a body of work but a "muse/genius", then we cannot entirelly believe that the author/artist should have any say in what their work is about. In addition, it is clear within the fashion and music industry that things repeat themselves after a certain amount of time. Therefore, their is not much originallity left in the world since everyone is "inspired" by someone in the past to help them produce their work. All in all, I strongly believe that Roland Barthes is correct with his ideology that the artist in general, is progressivelly losing their authority over their creations, because if they were not and we had to thank everyone who contributed into a body of work they produced in any way, we would be dead before we finished.