Eighteenth-century European aesthetics was reasonably successful in providing an understanding of all art, including early abstract art, until the 1960s, when artists self-consciously rebelled against earlier notions of art. Since the work of these rebellious artists is quite beautiful but outside the bounds of the aesthetic theory then current, there can be no complete theory of aesthetics. The reasoning above is most vulnerable to criticism in that it ['takes for granted that it is more important for a complete aesthetic theory to account for the beauty of traditional art than for it to account for the beauty of self-consciously rebellious art', 'presumes, without providing justification, that eighteenth-century European aesthetics is as encompassing as an aesthetic theory can be', 'presumes, without providing justification, that an aesthetic theory developed in one part of the world cannot be applied in another', "presumes, without providing justification, that artists' rebellion in the 1960s against earlier notions of art was not guided by their knowledge of eighteenth-century European aesthetic theory"]