You probably wouldn’t expect a musician to cite a game designer as an influence. However, the most concise discussions of the foundations of art and aesthetics that I have read are to be found in articles by screenwriter-turned-game-designer Mark Rosewater. If anyone knows of good books or websites on these topics, let me know.
From Rules of the Game:
“Art,” one of my favorite teachers would always say, “is the act of expressing as much as possible with as little as possible.”
“Art Is Not Supposed To Have Rules.” I’m not quite sure where this myth comes from. My guess is that people see art as a right-brain activity and rule creation as a left-brain activity. But the two are fundamentally intermixed. Art, music, poetry, dance, photography, writing – each one is filled to the brim with rules. Whether it’s called technique or theory or simply “the proper way,” each form of art comes with its own discipline.
From Zen and the Art of Cycle Maintenance:
Humans have an innate desire for balance. Their aesthetic senses respond favorably to having things even out.
Beauty isn’t subjective. The first thing we learned in the class is that beauty is very objective. There are certain qualities hardwired into the human brain that make some traits more attractive than others. That isn’t to say that there isn’t some variance from person to person, because there obviously is, but aesthetics can be studied as a science.
EDIT: If you’re skeptical about these statements, consider Experimental music – its purpose is to throw away all rules and structure. In my experience, it’s not very popular.
