To Kant, feeling is at the core of judgments of beauty. One’s positive arriving at a point of contact with one’s flowingly responsive intangible mechanisms upon viewing and acknowledging an existent, generates a certain pleasure that determines the weighing of the existent’s beauty. This characteristic differentiates Kant’s process of judgmental reception of beauty from regular objective perception and acknowledgment; it is received but neither concluded nor attributed by certain properties or “concepts” of the existent that the senses provide data for, but rather it is attributed by the feelings the existent provokes. Elaborately, the perceived properties and immediate understanding of them are not a limitation or a product of the judgment, they are a utility.
Kant also stated that the judgment of beauty is not backgrounded and swayed by intentions of desire fulfillment and that there are no inclinations behind one’s approach and attitude towards an observed existent. This differentiates it from ordinary preferences, “judgments of agreeableness”, that arise in certain instances from established likings (e.g., colors or food). It is a “disinterestedness” that strips the judgment of the existent of a peripheral clutter of details that are related to the observer personally and contaminates the observation.
The existent's lack of definition, its basing in an indeterminate and inapparent formative ground, launches the imagination, propelled by the “concepts” or understandings that acquaint objective cognition, into what Kant called “free play” which generates pleasure. The process does not intentionally produce any further understanding or rational explanation. It bounces off one's pre-existing understandings. Furthermore, a resolution is not aimed for, its objective is the simple knowledge of experiencing the beauty one is exposed to.
The surroundings are not approached for judgment with attentiveness to the beauty they hold. Generally, one’s manner of seeing the world is not an active function, it is largely deductive and reactive. It does not involve any indulgence unless it is planned or conditioned for. So, it can be said that one’s perception of the world aligns with “disinterest”. This also makes the series of sights one encounters successively vague and undefined, which can trigger the “free play” of imagination. However, feelings are not aptly and efficiently noticed due to reactivity. When a serenity in feeling is reached, every element of the surroundings is accounted somehow beautiful.Kant defined beauty as a matter of order, harmony, and pleasant feeling. But, the reasoning hereinafter is built on the basis that art’s inflictions are not negative; art serves as an instrument to examine and illustrate diverse emotions that are, in some cases, anticipated to be unpleasant for their articulation or ease.
A preceding reasoning for Kant’s “disinterestedness” in aesthetic judgments, when applied to art in specific, could be the following: One who is immersed in any form of art possesses a malleability that makes perception a more pleasant experience in general. This stems from the inadvertent loss of fear that develops. Not all pieces of art involve a peaceful landscape, there exist pieces that are somehow appalling. This demands the observer refuse to fall victim to emerging emotions, like fear, agony, or fear of agony. That is, for a vivid and real pondering upon the piece. The observer’s perception is more defined, as losing the fear of something detaches the commencing response. Thus, this redirects the senses to the mere existence of the piece and its provocative capacity, making the viewing experience more existential. That is, in regard to the piece’s simple existence and capability. Subsequently, the piece’s beauty is revealed and can be marveled at, and this extends to the perception of life.
It can be inferred, that the purest form of judgment of beauty to Kant would be experienced in observing abstract art. The distinctive nature of abstract art is in its lack of clear purpose and definition; the lack of definition and the lack of purpose expand the space for the imagination and make the process self-sufficient, respectively. His theory of judgment does apply to other forms of art, but utmost purity is more likely to be achieved in abstract art.