Concepts

Attention, in the sense that runs through the wiki's philosophical frame, is the capacity to be genuinely present to what is before you — without immediately translating it into what it resembles, what it costs, or what you already think of it. It is the capacity to let the thing speak before you respond.

Chic, in Dariaux's account, is the innate quality that elegance is not. It is intellectual, intuitive, partially unteachable. It has nothing to do with beauty: Marlene Dietrich had it; Elizabeth Taylor did not. It cannot be acquired through effort; it can only be diminished by it.

Judgement, in the aesthetic sense the wiki uses the term, is the faculty that calls one thing beautiful and another not — and can give reasons for the distinction that others can follow and dispute. It is what distinguishes taste from preference, and what makes aesthetic conversation possible.

Proportion is the governing principle of the interior, the face, the musical phrase, and the well-set paragraph. It is the relation of parts to the whole that produces the sense of rightness — the recognition that things are as they should be.

Restraint is the cross-domain concept that unifies the wiki's argument. It is not deprivation. It is the form that attention takes once it has matured — the capacity to withhold, to leave the space empty, to refuse what does not belong.

Selection is the discipline shared by the wardrobe, the room, the ear, and the page. It is the cross-domain expression of the same faculty: the capacity to choose, and to choose well, which requires knowing what to refuse.