Since beauty is a natural human creation, the aesthetic values of skiing are influenced by the observer’s experience. What is considered an aesthetically beautiful skiing can vary across time and place.
In the first expression, we attempt to objectively convey aesthetic values in our own skiing. Our ‘artistic production’ can be considered an objective and aesthetically beautiful skiing reality. Secondly, the artistic production projects our subjectivity—as an emotional state within our Aesthetic-Skier-Self—onto the art object of our skiing. Thirdly, all aesthetic activity has an appreciative purpose. Therefore, from an external appreciation, we can focus on the aesthetic analysis of our ‘work of art.’ However, it is essential to first define what constitutes an aesthetic visual experience, which we will deconstruct below.
In every aesthetic experience, we must maintain a certain mental distance between the skier and the object—their aesthetically beautiful skiing—because otherwise, on one hand, it would turn into a purely emotional experience. On the other hand, if we exaggerate this psychic distance, our appreciation will likely cease to be aesthetic and instead transform into a particularly analytical-technical one.
If we observe how the skier manages their skis, the postures they adopt, their speed, or their rhythm, we cannot call it an aesthetic experience, as we are assuming a purely analytical attitude toward the aesthetic run. However, if emotions arise, we will be facing a purely sensory experience. In both cases, we fail to maintain the psychic distance between objectivity and subjectivity, which is essential to any aesthetic experience.
