DE Weekly: Art, Angst, & Existential Aesthetics
Below is an archived email originally sent on July 27, 2026.
Art, Angst, & Existential Aesthetics
Sometimes, I will be reading something, or watching something, or I’ll simply see something and think to myself, “There is something existential about this.” Perhaps it is just me, and the amount of time I spend with the philosophy––but, I’ve seen others make similar observations, so maybe it is something inside of all of us to some degree.
Existentialism is called what it is because of its emphasis on existence: how humans exist and operate in the world as unique beings.
To the existentialist, a human being is more than “what it is.” Not only do we know what we are; we can also choose what we are, to some extent.
In other words, according to this statement, Jean-Paul Sartre was right when he said that “existence precedes essence.” We first of all exist, and then we form our essence through actionable choices.
All of the above is what contributes to our givenness, the unalterable aspects of the base of our existence and life. And, it is precisely due to this givenness of our existence that we can look at something and think, “There is something existential about this.”
This is what can be called “existential aesthetics.”
Due to the nature of the philosophy, Existentialism has certain aesthetic considerations that make it what it is. And what that “is” is an aesthetic experience that is of existential importance to humans.
The radical freedom that we have as humans is unique, and it grants us the capacity of understanding certain aspects of life unavailable or unrelated to other beings. Under certain conditions, we can communicate these essential features of being with each other.
Something with an “existential aesthetic,” say, a work of art, a novel, a movie, or a song, can communicate this sort of existential importance through illuminating feelings or answers to existential questions, and/or affecting the existential nature of one’s life.
I realize if this is something you have never heard of or never thought of before, this might sound quite convoluted. I think it’s helpful to give an example of what I mean.
When I was fifteen or sixteen years old, I was introduced to Existentialist literature for the first time in an Ethics class. I believe we started with Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, probably with The Stranger and No Exit, respectively.
Although I had never read either of these authors before and, being so young, had not really had the sufficient life experience to think about the themes present in those books, they each struck a chord with me because there was just something about them that felt true to me, like they had communicated something I knew to be true but had never before put into words.
These two books, it is fair to say, accomplish capturing the “existential aesthetic” I wrote about earlier.
That is exactly what an “existential” work aiming to be aesthetically existential should do: say something about what the world is about, and what it is to be human in the world.
Friedrich Nietzsche, a huge influence on the existential philosophy that followed him, said that art is the ultimate justification of life. For Nietzsche, art was necessary for bearing the “suffering” of existence, providing a metaphysical illusion to help us bear it.
Art, he wrote, is largely devoted to expressing the absurdity of the human condition (even though we might not always realize it). If the world does not give us anything in the way of meaning and order, why should we not make our own? Something that we can understand, and which speaks to us?
What differentiates existential aesthetics in art from the artistic tradition before it is that its sole focus is not on beauty and expertise; rather, it is instead an avenue of revealing something true, expressing our radical human freedom and communicating the angst we experience in our existence in the world.
This is why Sartre believed art to be the supreme act of freedom: engaging with the ethics and politics of the world through art, for him, was taking responsibility for the meanings we create.
For Camus, acknowledging the apparent senselessness and meaninglessness we encounter at various stages in life is a brave act, and there is no better way to do so than through the creation of art––not as an escape or an illusion, but as rebellion.
Do I mean to say that everything aesthetically existential must communicate the same ideas, all the time? Not at all.
As I certainly hope I have demonstrated in the past, that is simply not what it does. But after reading and indulging enough in the philosophy and in its authors, I have a feeling you will be able to detect the themes when you see them.
At its core, existential aesthetics means to mirror certain aspects of human experience and existence. We are thrown into the world with no inherent or apparent meaning, forced to be the authors of our own lives. How do we do it?
“One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world. If I fix on canvas or in writing a certain aspect of the fields or the sea or a look on someone’s face which I have disclosed, I am conscious of having produced them by condensing relationships, by introducing order where there was none, by imposing the unity of mind on the diversity of things.” –– Jean-Paul Sartre
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
I’ve written about many, many pieces of art and pop culture and covered so many authors in these newsletters that you can go back and get an idea of what existential aesthetics looks like any time you want.
P.P.S.––
This is my 100th newsletter. Thank you for reading!
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