...we are looking at a set of adjectives to be ranked and used to critique photographs?

I'm not a big fan of Janet Reno either, but I know better than to ever comment on relative attractiveness of women, in public or private.

As far as art goes, I think it's entirely possible that it can be either ugly, not remarkable, beautiful or sublime. If the Kantian definition that beauty causes an immediate surprising aesthetic experience is true, then whether some photograph is beautiful or not depends entirely on whether that effect has occurred.

Let's see - The Sublime leaves the viewer stunned, and Beauty causes the viewer an immediate surprising aesthetic experience. Those are the straightforward comments first used by Hegel then expounded upon by Kant. I'm not aware of any reputable challenge to them, so for now let's leave them standing and think about Beauty, specifically in art, and more specifically in photography.

I know this is plowing old tired ground, but recently I was reminded that not everyone recognizes the difference between a snapshot of something beautiful and a beautiful photograph. The former is more or less a record of something, and isn't usually art. (An exception would be for a body of such work used as a commentary on the life and time of an artist under the post-modernist definition of art.) A photograph which is beautiful, regardless of the beauty of the subject, is more likely to be art. An example of this is Salgado's work with the landless in Brazil, or Adams' work with Japanese-American internees during WWII.

So, does everyone recognize a beautiful photograph when they see it? Does everyone have an immediate surprising aesthetic experience when exposed to Beauty? No. Pretty much everyone with Good Taste will though.

Kant's conclusion that each with Good Taste can judge art for all with Good Taste, makes me a little nervous. I've met enough people who have no taste at all to be absolutely certain that Good Taste is real and is the product of study, thought, and an intense desire for Beauty. I've also seen people with Good Taste disagree on art. Kant accommodated this with a requirement that time pass in order to find consensus. I think that's a weak arguement, but as I haven't struggled through the entirity of Critique of Judgement yet, I could be wrong - he could be right.

Having a nice simple definition of Beauty up there, the real question is, "What causes an immediate, surprising aesthetic experience?"

Surprise is caused by something unexpected. The art must be unexpected, either in location, or presentation, or style, or content. Or something else. If it's expected, it can't cause surprise. Any slide on the light box that doesn't surprise me isn't beautiful. It might be an adequate rendition of a beautiful subject, but the image itself must surprise in order to be beautiful.

Immediate means right away. If the artwork requires study to elicit aesthetic experience it isn't beautiful. If I don't know it's beautiful when I first see it, going back through the slides and picking it out has already eliminated it from the "beautiful photograph" category. It might be good enough to show, but it isn't art.

Aesthetic experience is different. If it were easy, there wouldn't be hundreds of books written about it.

During the Age of Reason, philosophers and movements were denying the existence of a soul. All things were functions of the clockwork universe, and all things could be derived from observation and thought. Emotion was discounted as unnecessary and counter-Reason. Fifty years later, during the Romanticist Period, the world was again ready to try to balance the head and the heart. this was the time that philosophers were again aknowledging that emotion, and perhaps a soul, existed, and that feelings were as important as (maybe more important to an individual) the reasoning mind. During the Age of Reason, thinkers were trying to determine the cause of emotion, and fit it into the rational world. Romanticists quit trying so hard and accepted emotion as a real attribute of humanity.

An aesthetic experience is an emotional experience. Those of us that have had unfortunate dealings with mental care professionals have heard that "anger is the fear of loss." I don't recall any simple definition of aesthetic experience. I think that aesthetic experience is something done in isolation, inside one's self, and isn't shared, nor does it even allow communication during the event. Later, maybe. And aesthetic experience is exclusive. It leaves behind everything else that's going on and demands the full faculties of the viewer.

And finally, aesthetic experience is pleasurable. Intensely. Like most pleasure, it's something one has to surrender to. People can block emotions. I can block emotions. In order to feel the aesthetic experience, I have to be willing to let myself experience it.

Anyway, "cute" is like a calendar picture of a fuzzy kitten, "beautiful" is as defined above, and "stunning" seems to be like Hegel's "sublime."

-Don