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The Art of Not Knowing: Elizabeth Peabody and New England’s Antebellum Aesthetic Culture
Alison Hills, Ph.D. Candidate, UCLA
March 8, 2007

Should aesthetic qualities matter in moral deliberations? In May 1849, the year after the United States’ war with Mexico, the 1848 European revolutions, and amidst protests and riots about slavery, Elizabeth Peabody responded to this question with the publication of her journal Aesthetic Papers. Peabody, and her fellow contributors, including Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau believed that aesthetic perception – attention to aesthetic qualities -- could increase readers’ engagement with such controversies and diminish the violence of human interactions.  By focusing readers’ attention on the pleasures produced by aesthetic qualities and the sources and purposes of these pleasures, Peabody sought to provoke interest in the aspects of phenomenon that evade intellectual and moral concepts. Contemplation of these aspects induces a state of not knowing that she hoped would make readers receptive to different perspectives and forms. This state of not knowing also characterized aesthetic culture in New England at this time.  While a few artists had gained popularity, no one had the authority to establish a dominating standard. Although many lamented this lack, it animated debates about art and its role, fueled the popularity of Lyceums, panoramas, salons, and increased the demand for places of beauty, like public parks. “The Art of Not Knowing” re-constructs the model for aesthetic inquiry that emerges from this journal to understand the relationship between this inquiry, public entertainment, and moral controversies that its contributors believed was necessary to sustain a pluralistic society.