I have yet to meet the piece of art (keep in mind my firmly held, yet easily contested opinion that life itself is art (we are all involuntarily artists in the medium of life) and that the world around us is an art object of our own creation) the central themes of which did not focus on the subjects of aesthetics and time.  Prime examples of which… Shakespeare’s immortal lover (which sonnet was that again?), Joyce’s ‘eternity sermon’ in Portrait, does anyone care to hear the list continued? 

My question is this, with mathematical advances what they are (i.e. relativity, quantum physics, string theory, etc.) time has become the more discussable of the two enigmas. (Don’t worry the question is forming still) Aesthetics still holds strong as a major theme in art–it is art–but Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day exists, in which aesthetics (I’m admittedly only halfway though the behemoth) plays only the most minor of roles, while time (the stopping, travelling through, defeat, and manipulation of) is the major theme.  Has time joined aesthetics in holding the dual role in artistic expression of both subject and object?

Does my miniature almost pre-thesis make any sense?  I’m not sure I’ve fully decided what I’m trying to say here.

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