CLIVE B LL (1 881 1 964) ON AR AN MO ION

For Bell, aesthetics must begin with a person's experience of a distinctive kind of

emotion.
The objects which produce this kind of emotion are called 'artworks.' Bell does not mean that all artworks produce the same particu/aremotion, but that they produce the same kind of emotion.

B
~

ONA

Ie MO ION

All works of visual art produce a certain kind of emotion which Bell calls' aesthetic

emotion.'
~

The question is: what is the distinctive qualitywhich is common to all artworks which provoke aesthetic emotion? For Bell, there must be such a common quality "or when we speak of 'works of art' we gibber." (This talk of a "common quality" which good artworks share recalls Plato.)
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IGNIFICANT FORM I
Bell: "There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist," and an object cannot be an artwork unless it has th is quality. ~ This quality Bell calls 'significant form,' and, according to Bell, "significant form is the one quality common to allworks of visual art." ~ significant form = df. "relations and combinations of lines and colors."
~
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CRITICISM AND THE SUBjECTIVE BASIS OF AESTHETICS

~ ~

Bell: "I have no right to consider anything a work of art to which I cannot react emotionally." A critic can help me to react emotionally to something to which I have not so reacted before. However, a critic cannot just tell me that something is a work of art, rather, he or she must make me feel that it is a work of art. (Note the similarity here of Bell's view to that of Coil i ngwood and Malevich regard i ng the importance of feeling in art.) This a critic can only do "by making me see; he must get at my emotions through my eyes."

UBJ C IVI Y AN VALIDI Y

~

G N RAL

Bell: "All systems of aesthetics must be based on personal experience - that is to say, they must be subjective." However, Bell says that "it would be rash to assert that no theory of aesthetics can have general validity." Thus, even though people can and will disagree on which works are moving, Bell thinks they should agree that what moving artworks have in common is significant form. (Note how this and the previous remark about "general validity" call Hume to mind.)

SIGNIFICANT FORM II
~

Significant form consists of combinations of lines and colors which produce aesthetic emotion. Bell: There is no defensible distinction between color and form: "you cannot conceive a colorless line or space; neither can you conceive a formless relation of colors." And "you cannot imagine a boundary line without any content, or a content without a boundary line."
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D
~

C IP IV PAIN INC

A painting is descriptive, for Bell, when its forms "are used not as objects of emotion, but as means of suggesting emotion (such as fear) or conveying information." Descriptive paintings do not move us aesthetically, and so are not works of art. Only those objects which have significant form move us aesthetically, and hence only these qualify as works of art.

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EDVARD MUNCH

FORM, COLOR, SPAC ,AND AR APPRECIATION

~

For Bell, "to appreciate a work of art we need only have a sense of form and color and a knowledge of three-dimensional space." However, three-dimensional space is not relevant to the appreciation of all artworks, only those that attempt to represent that space.

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The Turning Road, L'estaque, Andre Derain (1880-1954), 190

The representation of three-dimensl space IS painting by Derain, but not to the painting by Rothko.

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PROB
~

OR B

According to Bell, we know that an object has significant form when it results in aesthetic emotion, but when we ask what aesthetic emotion is, the answer is that it is what is produced by significant form. Thus significant form seems to be defined in terms of its relation to aesthetic emotion at the same time that aesthetic emotion is defined in terms of its relation to significant form. This is circular.
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PROBl M FOR B l
~

II

It is artworks which are said to have significant form, but an object qualifies as an artwork in virtue of having significant form. Thus it seems that the notions of 'artwork,' 'significant form,' and 'aesthetic emotion' are defined in terms of one another.

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PRO
~

OR

L III

Bell only talks about aesthetic experience in terms of a distinctive kind of emotion which artworks produce. But can we rule out that some artworks produce an intellectual response that deserves to be called 'aesthetic? For Bell, the subject matter of a visual artwork is irrelevant, only form is relevant. But surely the subject matter of some works is relevant to our aesthetiC appreciation of it.

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PROBLEM FOR BELL IV

~

Finally, we can ask: "Is the point of all art to be aesthetic?" - however 'aesthetic' is to be defined, and whether or not it might include intellectual in addition to emotional experience. Is it not legitimate to ask if art can do things other than provide aesthetic emotion, and things which are culturally significant? (Recall Duchamp's readymades, and Minimal and Conceptual art.) ~ That is, Bell's theory seems to be too simple to

accou nt for the wide variety of visual artworks and what we experience in experiencing them.

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GR
~

RGIAN MOD RNI M I

Clement Greenberg (1909-1994): "The essence of Modernism lies in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself . .. to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence." Modernism for Greenberg begins with Kant, since Kant used philosophy to criticize philosophy.

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GR
~

NB RGIAN MOD RNI M II

The procedure of Modernism is selfcriticism, or criticism from the inside, that is, "through the procedures themselves of that which is being criticized." The arts are valuable when they are capable of demonstrating: 1) that "the kind of experience they provided was valuable in its own right, and 2) that experience "could not be obtained from any other kind of activity."

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GR

NB RGIAN MOD R ISM III

For Modernism: 1) art in general has to use and exhibit what is "unique and irreducible" to art in general; and 2) each particular art form has to use and exhibit what is "unique and irreducible" to that art form. "Each art had to determine, through operations peculiar to itself, the effects peculiar and exclusive to itself." An art form becomes more insular because of this, but by becoming more narrow it becomes more pure.

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GR

NB RGIAN MO

RNI M IV

An art form discovers its "area of competence" by focusing on what it shares with no other art form. By focusing on what is "unique to the nature of its medium," an art form is rendered pure. Each art form should eliminate whatever it shares with any other art form, or eliminate any effects that might be produced from experiencing a different kind of art form.
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MOD RNI
~

PAIN ING I

Rea lis tic 0 rill u s ion i start i s not Mod ern i st, since it directs attention away from rather than to the unique characteristics of painting. ~ The unique characteristics of painting are: 1) its flat surface; 2) the shape of its support; 3) the properties of pigment.

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MOD RNI T PAINTING II

~

Manet is the first Modernist painting because his work draws attention to their surfaces. (Point 1 about flatness). The Impressionists continued the Modernist trend by drawing attention to paint as paint. (Point 3 about pigment). Cezanne replaced more fluid forms of representation with geometrical forms which were fit "more explicitly to the rectangular shape of the canvas." (Point 3 about the shape of the support).
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MOD RNI
~

PAIN INC III

Although pigment as pigment (color), and the shape of the support (typically rectangular) are important aspects of Modernist painting, it is flatness which is

most important.
~

The rectangular shape of the painting support - stretcher bars - is found in the curtain frame of the theater. Color is found in theater, sculpture, film, photography, etc.
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MO
~

RNI

PAIN

NG IV

Modernist painting is directed towards flatness since flatness is "the only condition which painting shared with no other art." Although the surfaces of representational paintings are flat, they draw attention away from their flatness through illusion. ~ In representational painting one is aware of i II u sion fi rs t, fl at n e ssse co n d . ~ In Modernist painting one is aware of flatness first, and there is no illusion.

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MOD RNI T PAINTING V

~

Even the barest or most primitive kind of illusion will suggest a 3-d space beyond the surface of the canvas. And for Greenberg this "alienates" painting from its unique feature in the arts of two-dimensionality. Three-dimensionality is "the province of sculpture," and to keep its purity, painting must disassociate itself from sculpture. And in this disassociation it becomes

abstract.
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MO
~

RNIS

PAIN INC VI

~ ~

The focus of Modernist painting is on purely optical experience which lacks tactile associations. One achieves that focus through concentrating on "flatness and the delimitation of flatness." However, flatness is never a complete flatness since even a single line drawn on a surface "destroys its virtual flatness." For instance, even Mondrian's work suggests a "strictly optical (not tactual) third dimension."

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MO
~

RNI

AIN INC VII

Modernist painting must concentrate on visual experience as visual, and make no reference to other kinds of experience. Particularly, it should avoid reference to tactual space or a space into which or through which one could imagine walking. By concentrating on the surface of the painting as two-dimensional, painting becomes optical, and "entirely loses its literary character."
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Mysteries: Solar, Kenneth Noland, 1999

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MODERNISM, SCI NC ,AN SELF CRITICISM

~

After talking of Kant, Greenberg now says that "self-criticism finds its perfect expression in science rather than philosophy." ~ Here' self-criticism' means that the problems of a discipline are addressed and solved in terms of the nature of that discipline. ~ For Modernist painting, this means that the aesthetic problems of painting must be addressed in terms of the nature of painting colors spread on a flattwo-dimensional surface in such a way that no subject matter is represented but only non-objective shapes are uti I ized.
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Untitled, Agnes Martin, 1997

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MOD RNI M AN

VALU
Greenberg says that aesthetic value does not follow necessarily from attending merely to flatness. That is, one must look at the results of a method, and not merely the method itself - which mayor may not lead to good results.

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THE NATURE OF MODERNISM'S SELFCRITICISM

~

Modernism's self-criticism is carried on in "a spontaneous and sub/imina/way." This recommends an avoidance of technique that is similar to Collingwood's rejection of craft, and hence has something in common with expression ist views of art. ~ Modernism as a theory about art developed out of the practices of arti sts, it did not fi rst exist as theory from which certain artworks followed. ~ "Th e i m me d i at e aim s of Mod ern i start is t s remain individual before anything else."
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THE NATURE OF MODERNISM'S SELFCRITICISM

Modernism's self-criticism is carried on in "a spontaneous and sub/imina/way." This recommends an avoidance of technique that is similar to Collingwood's rejection of craft, and hence has something in common with expressionist views of art. Modernism as a theory about art developed out of the practices of artists, it did not first exist as theory from which certain artworks followed. "The immediate aims of Modernist artists remain individual before anything else."
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MOD RNI M AN
~ ~

ART HI TORY

Modernist art does not break with the art of the past, but develops out of it. Modernist art represents part of the development of art history, and so is continuous with it. Greenberg: "Wherever Modernism ends up it will never stop being intelligible in terms of the continuity of art." And it does not change the value of art that came before it.

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