Clive Bell and his theory of Art...

This is a partial review of Clive Bell's theory and definition of Art. He originally published 'Art' in 1914. Through out the next several decades, he published additional works further refining his definition and adding to it. I was required to read an essay concerning his work for a class while working on a Master's of Fine Art (expected graduation Dec. 2010).

I disagree with much that Nigel Warburton says about Clive Bells’
theory of Significant Form and Aesthetic emotion. Bells’ book, Art
(1914), was just the beginnings of his theory and was revisited and
revised through several other books and writings through out his
career, such as his book, Since Cezanne (1922). His theory in Art was
a response to his experience and emotional response to Cezanne’s
paintings, but it wasn’t the end of his development of the theory. In
later writings, Bell addresses some of the criticism that Warburton
mentions, such as his elitism and circular arguments. In addition, Bell
further defines his concepts of aesthetic emotion and significant form.
Bell begins formulating his philosophy from his emotional response to
Cezanne’s work, which he labels as “aesthetic response” – an emotion
particular to the experience of works of visual art. Philosophically,
starting with a subjective claim of the existence of an aesthetic
emotion is a questionable foundation that Bell is clearly aware of
(McLaughlin, 1977). However, “The starting point for all systems of
aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. (Art,
pg 16-17)”(McLaughlin, 1977) The function of the highest art is to
produce this aesthetic emotion and the profound experience Bell
sought was not the presence of significant form directly, but to be
transported “…to a purely artistic world, cut off from life.” (McLaughlin,
1977)
For Bell, visual art should free the viewer from their normal moral
response to the events he or she experiences every day in their
demanding world to be “merely spectators” of the forms created by
the artist. (McLaughlin, 1977) The experience of Art was Clive Bell’s
release from the drudgery he experienced everyday. He is often
criticized as elitist from his statement in Art, on page 18, “I have no
right to consider anything a work of art to which I cannot react
emotionally.” He felt to view a work of art required this aesthetic
emotional response (especially when viewing the work of Cezanne)
and that critics and critical viewers should be particularly sensitive.
However, what Bell misses is the interaction between Artist and
Viewer. It is through this “baggage” that the isolated experience that
Bell seeks has context and meaning for the viewer – hopefully leading
to emotional growth, which should be the universal goal of artist and
critical viewer alike. Bell begins to allude to this when he compares the
aesthetic emotion and his response to the beauty of a butterfly or
nature in general. The difference in emotional response is part of what
makes our emotional growth from art (even if it is a photograph or
painting of nature) so important and different from our experience of
nature, especially our everyday urban experiences of manicure lawns
and landscaped parks. When a given artist views the world around
them, they in effect come into direct contact with the emotions of all of
the other artists that have come before him (or her). His struggle,
then, is to express his own unique sensibility and join the tradition.
Significant form is the purely visual qualities of the art and the
universal mechanism from which Bell was detached from his emotional
baggage and his normal instincts and ideals, creating an insolated
experience of the art. “Significant form is a combination of lines,
shapes and coulors in certain relations.” (Warburton,p.10) Where Bell
falls short, especially in relation to photography, is that these are not
the only or even the most important qualities of visual art. The illusion
of time, the plasticity of the frame, the conveyance of three-dimension
space (which Bell does eventually concede can be a property of
significant form), as well as the mental modeling each viewer brings to
the experience are all critical qualities of a work of visual art.
Bell is further criticized for his disparaging portrayal of representative
or “descriptive painting”. Warburton states, “Yet for Bell art had
nothing intrinsically to do with representation. If representation
occurs, that is incidental to it…however, to dismiss all representational
elements of paintings as of no concern to the art appreciator is simply
implausible.” (Warburton, p. 27) Bell’s concern with representation
was when it was used mainly as a conveyance of information. In later
writings, Bell further defines descriptive paintings in terms of vulgar
objects created to gratify the vanity of patrons who gained pleasure
from representations of objects they already possessed. Ultimately,
Bell was after an escape from everyday, mundane life. He sought art
that offered that escape by expressing the world in perfect form, line,
shape, and color – how he felt “real” artists’ viewed the world around
them.
Bell’s theory of aesthetic emotion and significant form are useful
definitions for one way of experiencing Art, but are by no means the
universal definition Bell sought. He was correct in defining art as an
individual experience, but went too far in defining it in terms of HIS
experience as universal. In addition, his removal of the viewer from
the context of their personal experiences isolates the viewer from the
vision the artist was sharing – the very one Bell desired – and limits
the viewer to a very small part of the sensation and experience Art can
contribute of the human condition.
References:
Clive Bell's Aesthetic: Tradition and Significant Form,
Author(s): Thomas M. McLaughlin Source: The Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Summer, 1977), pp. 433- 443
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society
for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/430609
Accessed: 2/09/2010 22:56
Warburton, Nigel,(2008),The Art Question, Routledge Publishers, New
York, New York
Bell, Clive, (1914), Art, Publisher Unknown