Philosophy of Aesthetics in Art
Clive Bell’s Opinion on What Art is and why he was wrong
Clive Bell, a philosopher and British art critic, defended a form of art known as abstract art. He broke a new ground in aesthetic by defining art independently of representational subject matter, emotional expression, political content or social context. Bell came up with a formalist theory of art that has become among the classics of philosophical aesthetics of the twentieth century. Bell claimed of the presence of a unique form of aesthetic emotion that is evoked by the qualities in an object. The definition of art according to Clive Bell is in terms of a property he refers to as ‘significant form’. Bell notes that the grasp of significant form in art is one of the most exquisite human pleasures and the source of aesthetic appreciation (Canfield, 272).
A good example that Bell gives is a photograph of a loved one, which has the possibility of evoking feelings of love and fond memories. Another example is a statue representing the planting of the flag art Iwo Jima, which may evoke patriotism feelings. Feelings of grief or lament may be evoked by the Vietnam War Memorial. Despite the fact that the mentioned examples are precisely appropriate responses, they can not be aesthetic responses. Instead, a response to the forms and association of forms themselves, regardless of what other definitions, relations of uses they may have are what define an aesthetic response. This response is an emotion that is strong and a kind of ecstasy such as the one applicable to religious contemplation. This emotion as well as forms evoking it is similar to the one applicable to a cave art, Vermeer painting, Polynesian carvings or a Cezanne (Canfield, 272).
Bell’s view not really a philosophy of a philosophy of art due to the fact that it does not incorporate objects normally viewed as works of art. His assertion is that the great bulk of statues, paintings and the likes are not works of art and do not provoke aesthetic motion. His theory is also not a philosophy of art since he says that a piece of art’s essential quality, significant from, at times occurs in natural objects. He gives an example of a butterfly wing. Therefore Bell’s classification of works of art incorporates objects that are not viewed by other people as art.
It is clear that Bell’s theory is an instrumental theory that is essential for evaluation visual art. This implies that it is a theory that seeks to explore the meaning of visual art, as well as its role on the production of valuable experience, known as aesthetic emotion. Both Bell’s theory and his arguments have been criticized but many quarters. However, it is clear that he articulates an essential component about the human experience of artworks, which gives his work an increased contemporary interest.
There are three facts about Clive Bell’s artistic culture. The first fact is photography, which was though to lead to reproduction of physically visual appearances. As Bell indicates, he had the intentions of differentiating the task of the painter from the photographer’s task. He illustrates a painter who transformed into “mere pictorial chatterboxes’. The second fact about Bell’s artistic culture is that the public was gaining access to artifacts originating from other cultures that were visually beautiful, though intellectually unfamiliar or unintelligible. The third fact about his artistic culture is that highly talented artists were starting to work towards abstraction.
Bell’s formalism acts as a response to the art world. He gives an explanation of why people might appreciate an African mask as an aesthetic object, despite the fact that they may not understand it in a way they might understand an English statue. Additionally, when the typical viewer gravitated to representational artworks that were impressive in their effective or verisimilitude for provoking moral sentiment, Bell argues of the irrelevance of representational content to true aesthetic appreciation of artworks. His view of appreciations entails both enjoyment and a discernment, distinctive, which results to a rapture that Bells deems to be a characteristic of aesthetic experience.
According to Bell, representational content, except in an enlightened spectator, will either cloud or conceal the artistic importance of work, which is impossible to appreciate while focusing on the technical virtuosity or subject matter of the artist. For Bell, this aesthetic meaning resides solely in an artwork’s formal elements. It thus evident that Bell successfully championed artists like Duncan Grant, Gauguin, Matisse and his two heroes, Picasso and Cezanne, all of whom were painting in ways that perplexed several spectators. What enables him to achieve this is his critical writings as well as his partnership with Roger Fry on the Groundbreaking, in 1910 and the post-Impressionist Exhibition in London, in 1912 (Canfield, 272).
There is a noticeable link between Bell’s theory and Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics. The detachment of aesthetic appreciation from other sorts of interest that might be present in an object was also emphasized by Kant. It is also clear that Bell’s views have a close connection to the ethical intuitionism of G. E. Moore, the philosopher and Bell’s British contemporary. Moore is popular for his claims that a property that things have in themselves of ‘goodness’ and that things are known to be good through a form of intuition. This implies that an individual simply thinks of a state of affairs or an object, and figures out immediately that it is good, in a similar way that he or she clearly identifies its color. Bell held a similar view with Moore, and considered aesthetic value to be among the intuited goodness forms (Wartenberg, 122).
It is clearly seen that the aesthetic of Bell enabled him to support abstract art, According to him the success of a representation of an object has nothing to do with the aesthetic value of a sculpture or painting. Just like Kant’s aesthetics, Bell’s aesthetics has a certain first appeal, and gives a representation of novel knowledge. One demerit that can be noted abut Bell’s theory is its circularity, which is apparent. This problem is also seen in the intuitionist ethics of Moore. There is an extremely small aesthetic emotion, conceptual circle and significant form, that in the end, one is not able to give reasons for describing an artwork as good. This is a set-up for the tyranny of unaccounted for judgments by influential critics, for a theory which aims at claiming the fact that some works objectively have aesthetic value (Murray, 31).
Another problem seen in Bell’s view is the sharp distinction between aesthetics and extra emotions. A few writers have questioned if the “aesthetic emotion” really exists in the first place. Even if such emotion exists, it is rather obvious that the value and power of many artworks is linked to their portrayal of meaning. The formal properties of such artworks are mere part of the vocabulary employed in communicating this meaning. Hence, the theory postulated by Clive Bell seems to overlook symbolism. A view representing sufficient aesthetic theory always accounts for symbolism.
Bell argues that a personal experience of a familiar emotion must the starting point of all aesthetics systems (Canfield, 272). This implies that, he starts with the assumption, which is thought to originate from the notion of the privacy associated with an aesthetic experience. Additionally he claims that a fact acknowledged by virtually all sensitive people is the objects responsible for provoking this aesthetic emotion. According to my opinion, if Bell’s view is true, then the role of aesthetics is that of finding a quality that is a characteristic of all objects producing the said aesthetic emotion. This view is dissimilar to Plato’s attempts to make a discovery of the importance of specific concepts like justice, knowledge, beauty, truth and many other aspects. For instance, a sort of question that Plato asks is: “Given the fact that there are several kinds of things termed as beautiful, what is it that makes an object to be termed as beautiful? What is it is these objects that would give our justification of referring to them ass beautiful?”
My perspective is that Clive Bell can be viewed as following the lead of Plato, which entails searching for the essence of an object. That is, he holds the view of Art being an essence. However, this claim clearly not true, and is extremely contentious. It could easily be true that, though many objects are termed as “Art”, merely a few of them have a common feature or property. For instance, one can ask themselves, a common property that is applicable to all games. Perhaps there is a common property, it is however extremely difficult to get a group of intellectual experts to come to an agreement on the identity of the property in question. Due to this difficulty, majority of the people have become skeptical about the validity and existence of the common property in question. Similar problems are applicable to Art as a concept.
Another subject that is worth examining is significant form. According to Bell’s point of view, it is essential to have one quality that gives meaning to Art, and without which it is impossible to refer to an object as a piece of art (Canfield, 272).. Significant form is the essential quality referred to by Clive Bell. Some of the questions that one can ask are what Clive means by “significant form” and how one can know this quality. The features of significant form include certain forms and relations of forms and lines and colors interconnected in a distinct manner. This is according to Bell’s account.
It is notable that Bell fails to comment on the distinct nature of the colors, lines and relations of form (Wartenberg, 120). He has almost overlooked the specific visual nature applicable to these forms. In fact, he holds the view that the way human beings detect such aspects is solely by feeling and not by means of description. This special form of feeling is known as aesthetic emotion. But then, it is extremely hard to know that a specific emotion is aesthetic in nature rather than other form of feeling that can be easily confused with aesthetic emotion.
The subjectivity of aesthetic experience is another concept of Clive Bell’s critical work that is worth examining. According to Bell’s view, significant form is responsible for producing aesthetic emotion (Canfield, 272). The quality that makes an object a piece of art is the significant form. Therefore, it follows that virtually all artworks result to the production of aesthetic emotion. It also follows from Bell’s opinion that there is no objective criterion through which an individual cold differentiate an art piece from personal feelings towards that piece. Art appreciation is a matter of taste. A similar view traces back to the empirical tradition pertaining to Hume, Shaftebury and Hutcheson.
Given the fact that art appreciation is a matter of taste that is dependent on a properly trained observer, the critic must play the role of helping us understand the essence of form, and hence, have an experience of aesthetic emotion. This implies that aesthetic experience is not cognitive in nature, and is not a form of judgment comprising of concepts. Aesthetic judgments that do not follow significant form theory lack the general validity. Despite the fact that we may disagree to the fact that a object possessed a significant form, it is possible to still agree that an object must have significant form for it to be called a piece of art. Hence it is essential to distinguish between an object having significant for or not and the whether an art piece requires significant form so that it could be referred to as an artwork.
Another subject discussed by Bell is beauty and aesthetic experience. He claims that in a passage that is not included in a text, beauty is a concept that is more general rather than a significant form (Murray, 31). Though natural objects may have aesthetic value, they may fail to be artworks. It is essential for an individual to be careful to differentiate between appreciating beauty and having the urge to own the form or an aspect embodying the form. This distinction traces back to Kant and is an integral part of modern aesthetic. Taking pleasure in the mere appearance of an object is appreciating that object aesthetically, with no interest or thought of possessing, preserving it or having an attachment to it.
The autonomy of art is another concept that is revealed in Clive Bell’s critical work. Given the fact that Bell defines at as the personification of significant form, regardless of the message conveyed to the viewer by the artwork or representational features, it emerges that art neither depends on human life nor social interrelations (Wartenberg, 137). To the extent of treating an object as a piece of art, it is essential to enclose all concern in relation to day-to-day lives. Art moves the human mind from the normal activities to exaltation of aesthetic. This implies that art lifts individuals above the life stream to an emotional world. In other words, it carries the viewer out of life into ecstasy world. One of the most integral and contentious aspects of Bell’s formalism is the aspect of the autonomy of art. Hence, this aspect needs to be carefully considered and thoroughly investigated.
Clive Bell’s view may be wrong due to several challenges to formalism. One obvious move that can be made on behalf of Bell is an argument that he has kind of overstates his case. He need to have claimed that aesthetic emotion is evoked by all good art, and that bad art fails to evoke such emotion due to lack of formal qualities inspiring an appropriate response. This further raises a contentious question that is good art evokes aesthetic response, then there must be a significant property shared by both good and bad art, and that is responsible for making both of them to be called pieces of art. In this case, it is impossible to say that a common feature is the potential to evoke a given emotion through significant form because this property only applies to good art. If a formalist attempts to argue that there is an additional property that is shared by all artworks, then it has been acknowledged that another aspect besides significant form is fundamental to a piece of art.
Another serious objection is the fact that formalism holds the requirement that the vital role of art has to be displaying significant form. Art acquires value when artwork is organized in such a manner that it evokes aesthetic emotion, which is the main objective of an artist. Historically, this tends to be inaccurate. Long periods of European history have been associated with universal acceptance of Christianity, and several artists considering their role as that of conveying religious messages. This implies that the critical motive of the artist was that of representation. It is possible to argue that a representation of Christ’s work is one motive, and conveying the motive by use of significant form is another totally different motive. This view is questionable. It is obvious that there were several religious painters who viewed their role as that of accurately depicting Christ’s suffering on the cross, and who approached their role with the main objective of sincere representation of the event so as to promote religious understanding. For this to be the case, portrayal of significant form should play no role in the artist’s motives.
Formalism is reinforces with the fact that it can justify a wide spectrum of phenomena having artistic importance. Whether one is interested in the brushwork of an old master or the lines of a classic car, it can be argued that they have some common formal qualities, which make both of them artistic. However, this strength also results to a great failing of the theory. In an attempt to fix an abstract quality applicable to all art, it ignores the representational quality that is common to majority of artworks. This distinction of form and representation is unsustainable in the final analysis, and what is left behind is a theory that still fails to provide the essential condition which must be present in an object for it to be called a piece of art. The lack of a satisfactory account of significant form in combination with the theory’s inability to give an explanation pertaining to the existence of bad art merely intensifies the dilemma.
In conclusion, though Clive Bell clearly defends abstract art, it is evident that his views have raised significant objections and controversies.
Works Cited
Canfield, John, V. Philosophy of meaning, knowledge and value in the twentieth century. New York: Routledge, 1997
Murray, Chris. Key Writers on Art: The twentieth century. New York: Routledge, 2003,
Wartenberg, Thomas, E. The Nature of Art: An Anthology. Cengage Learning, 2011
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