In response to a growing interest among educators in improving aesthetic education, this paper explores aesthetic response, defined as what happens in the mind and body of a person who encounters an aesthetic object or phenomenon. An initial section overviews the major theories of aesthetic response, including the work of Plato, Aristotle, Freud, Santayana, Bullough, Read, Feldman, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Dewey, and Tolstoy. The works of modern writers in the field such as Madenfort, Chandler, Holden, and Eisner are also explored. The second section of the paper postulates a theoretical model of the aesthetic response in two phases: intuitive apprehension of reality and cognitive apprehension of reality. The eight stages of the cognitive mediation phase of aesthetic response, i.e., preference, critical analysis/evaluation, judgment, the value decision, accommodation, choosing, acting, and ideating-imaging are defined. Conditions which facilitate aesthetic response are discussed. An illustration of the aesthetic response model is included. (JAC)