Mutual Vanities: On Being Understood by Art

This paper illuminates and defends an acceptable form of aesthetic vanity, or the experience of thinking an artwork is about you. To do so, I attend to what I call the individualizing power of artworks, which I argue is their capacity to facilitate the exploration and discovery of our individuality. Set against this backdrop, aesthetic vanity becomes an important aspect of a view of aesthetic flourishing according to which aesthetic engagement helps a life go well by serving as a vehicle of self-understanding.