Based on the essay on art by N. Kononov, the article reconstructs his system of ideas about the aesthetic, key aesthetic concepts are identified, and their connections are described. In N. Kononov’s understanding, only the art, in which artists ‘exist within their life limit’, and the creative effort is a ‘sacrifice’, is worth noticing. This is what allows art to retain the significance of the only scope of genuine and unimitated existence. It helps preserve the measure of things and call things by their proper names. ‘Pretentiousness’ is a characteristic of the ultimate aesthetic form; ‘sincerity’ is a characteristic of the ultimate self-disclosure of a subject. They are aimed at gaining authenticity, as well as combining the experienced and the expressed. Its condition is an artist’s desire to constantly surpass their own capabilities. The desire for an elusive goal makes any art ‘the art of approximations,’ determines its filling with ‘aporias’ and contradictions. The desire to comprehend an object from all possible angles makes one wonder about the limits of what is accessible to expression. Any artist is obsessed with the ‘hunt’ for elusive meanings. However, according to the logic of ‘aporias’, the success of this hunt can simultaneously mean the loss of the object.
For citation: Zhitenev A.А., Skryabina A.V. N. Kononov’s aesthetics, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2024, iss. 3, pp. 33—41.