ART AND FORM

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ART AND FORM
Bathers by a River, Henri Matisse, 1916-1917
2
CLIVE BELL (1881-1964) ON ART AND EMOTION

• For Bell, aesthetics must begin with a persons
  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 particular emotion, but that they produce
  the same kind of emotion.

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BELL ON AESTHETIC EMOTION

• All works of visual art produce a certain kind of
  emotion which Bell calls aesthetic emotion.
• The question is what is the distinctive quality
  which 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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SIGNIFICANT 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 this quality.
• This quality Bell calls significant form, and,
  according to Bell, significant form is the one
  quality common to all works 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 Bells view to that of
  Collingwood and Malevich regarding 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.

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SUBJECTIVITY AND GENERAL VALIDITY

• 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.)

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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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PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Still Life with Basket of Apples, Paul Cézanne,
1890-1894
Still Life with Apples, Paul Cézanne, 1890-1894
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PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Le Monte Sainte-Victoire Paul Cézanne, 1902-1904
Le Monte Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves,
Paul Cézanne, 1902-1904
Le Monte Sainte-Victoire vu des Lauves, Paul
Cézanne, 1902-1904
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DESCRIPTIVE PAINTING

• 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.

11
EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944)
Munchs painting The Scream would seem to fit
Bells definition of descriptive painting since
it suggests anxiety or despair. However, does
it not nevertheless have significant form? It
does if we experience aesthetic emotion in
viewing the picture, aesthetic emotion which
would be due to the successful arrangement and
interrelation of color and form. Does it not
seem that a descriptive painting can have
significant form at the same time that it
suggests a common emotion such as despair?
The Scream Edvard Munch, 1893
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FORM, COLOR, SPACE, AND ART 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.

13
The Turning Road, Lestaque, Andre Derain
(1880-1954), 1906
No. 14, 1960, Mark Rothko (1903-1970), 1960
The representation of three-dimensional space is
relevant to the painting by Derain, but not to
the painting by Rothko.
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PROBLEMS FOR BELL I

• 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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PROBLEMS FOR BELL 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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PROBLEMS FOR BELL 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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PABLO PICASSO (1880-1973)
Guernica, Pablo Picasso, 1937
There is no doubt that Picassos Guernica has
significant form. However, is not the subject
matter extremely relevant to the success of the
painting, and to dictating the nature of the
response we have to it as perceivers? That is, we
do not merely respond to it formally, but have an
emotional reaction to the brutality of war. And
part of the aesthetic success of the painting is
in the way in which the horror of its subject
matter is depicted.
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PROBLEMS 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
  Duchamps readymades, and Minimal and Conceptual
  art.)
• That is, Bells theory seems to be too simple to
  account for the wide variety of visual artworks
  and what we experience in experiencing them.

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GREENBERGIAN MODERNISM 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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GREENBERGIAN MODERNISM II

• The procedure of Modernism is self-criticism, 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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GREENBERGIAN MODERNISM 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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GREENBERGIAN MODERNISM 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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MODERNIST PAINTING I

• Realistic or illusionist art is not Modernist,
  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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MODERNIST 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).
• Cézanne 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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EDOUARD MANET (1832-1883)
The Balcony, Eduard Manet, 1869
Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère, Edouard Manet,
1881-1882
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CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Water Lilies, Green Reflection, Left Part Claude
Monet, 1916-1923
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PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Monte Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves, Paul
Cézanne, 1904-1906
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MODERNIST PAINTING 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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MODERNIST PAINTING 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
  illusion first, flatness second.
• In Modernist painting one is aware of flatness
  first, and there is no illusion.

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MODERNIST 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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MODERNIST PAINTING 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 Mondrians work suggests a strictly optical
  (not tactual) third dimension.

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PIET MONDRIAN (1872-1944)
Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red 1939-1942
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MODERNIST PAINTING 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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KENNETH NOLAND (1924-)
Thrust, 1963
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Mysteries Solar, Kenneth Noland, 1999
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MORRIS LOUIS (1912-1962)
Autumnal, 1959
133, 1962
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MORRIS LOUIS (1912-1962)
Beta Kappa, 1961
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JULES OLITSKI (1922-)
Third Stride, 1971
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MODERNISM, SCIENCE, AND 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 flat two-dimensional surface in such
  a way that no subject matter is represented but
  only non-objective shapes are utilized.

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AGNES MARTIN (1912-)
Untitled, 1963
White Flower, 1960
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Untitled, Agnes Martin, 1997
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MODERNISM AND AESTHETIC VALUE

• 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 may or may not lead to good results.

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THE NATURE OF MODERNISMS SELF-CRITICISM

• Modernisms self-criticism is carried on in a
  spontaneous and subliminal way. This recommends
  an avoidance of technique that is similar to
  Collingwoods 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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MODERNISM AND ART HISTORY

• 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.