The Form-Pleasure

This section discusses pleasure by drawing on Sigmund Freud’s work on the subject of aesthetic form, particularly his notion of sexual pleasure as opposed to aesthetic pleasure. Freud views aesthetics as a matter of pleasure. Sensuality takes pleasure in tension and gives itself what Jacques Lacan calls “pleasure desiring” in commenting on Freud. It is impossible for Freud to consider aesthetic form or art as legitimate in their own right. The pleasure of form—in a certain manner doubly diminished by Freud as the pleasure of tension—is what he actually considers aesthetic pleasure. Also...

This section discusses pleasure by drawing on Sigmund Freud’s work on the subject of aesthetic form, particularly his notion of sexual pleasure as opposed to aesthetic pleasure. Freud views aesthetics as a matter of pleasure. Sensuality takes pleasure in tension and gives itself what Jacques Lacan calls “pleasure desiring” in commenting on Freud. It is impossible for Freud to consider aesthetic form or art as legitimate in their own right. The pleasure of form—in a certain manner doubly diminished by Freud as the pleasure of tension—is what he actually considers aesthetic pleasure. Also included in this section is a “Sketchbook” of quotations on art from André Breton, Plotinus, René Magritte, Paul Gauguin, Wassily Kandinsky, and Georges Bataille.