Why pause and study this particular painting among so many others ranged on a gallery wall? Wonder, which Descartes called the first of the passions, is at play

This little work has been done on the aesthetics of wonder; the writers on Sanskrit poetics have had little to say about this most attractive sensation. This wo

The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise: Phenomenology and Speculation covers issues central to contemporary continental philosophy (desire, expectations, excess,

It is often difficult to describe beauty or even justify attempts to experience something beautiful. Yet if artists--whether painters or poets, actors or musici

In Wonder and Exile in the New World, Alex Nava explores the border regions between wonder and exile, particularly in relation to the New World. It traces the p