Analytic of the beautiful

The sensory object is usually considered to be excluded from aesthetic judgments by Kant. However, design is characteristic of aesthetic form and yet must be sensory because it is capable of ‘holding the eye’. All sensory objects have form, but only some display design as free outline, which requires a particular harmony between mind and world. Kant’s account of monogram or sensible form in the ‘Schematism’ allows for a better understanding of the activity of imagination making design possible: design holds up sensible form for our reflection. Kant’s focus on design has been criticised for being insufficiently restrictive in extending beauty to all sensible objects and too restrictive in excluding colour and tone. The first is answered by addressing the singular and contingent status of design. The second identifies a shortcoming, but I argue both that Kant holds that beauty stands in some necessary relation to the general forms of sensory experience, space and time, and that he was right to do so. In conclusion, referring to Hogarth’s idea of the wavy line of beauty I suggest that design – in contrast to images – is the signature of the activity of imagination standing in relation to beautiful things.