How is art influenced by ideology? Is there a relationship between ideology and art? At a time when many speak of the end of ideologies, can we talk about art and ideology?

These questions, as problems of contemporary aesthetics, such as the relationship between technology and art, the meaning of art, and the way humans experience art—not as a commodity, but as a creation, as a means of expressing human sensitivity and imagination, as well as an experiential contribution—are examined in the small aesthetics (parva aesthetica) of this volume.

They seek dialogue with the initiated reader and those who love art in all its forms and expressions. These texts have been written at different times in Paris, Strasbourg, Munich, Bochum, Frankfurt, Regensburg, and Athens, and particularly aim to emphasize the human dimension of aesthetics and art, whether as visual, theatrical, poetic, or even musical or interpretative processes.

The beautiful, beauty as challenge or surprise, as experience and dilemma, as paradox and adventure, will touch the human being and enrich their feelings and life. The nature of beauty is what indelibly 'defines' us in the extent to which our receptivity dialogues, our sensitivity participates, and our imagination creates.

The forms of expression of the beautiful, of beauty, do not merely capture one of the many possibilities of humanity, but the multiple transformations of our world through being and its creative presence, its uniqueness, and the inexhaustible content of its feelings, its loving relationship with our 'world,' this small and great world.

Munich - Athens, May 2011 [Excerpt from the text of the prologue]