bell's aesthetic, tradition & significant form

8/13/2019 Bell's Aesthetic, Tradition & Significant Form

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Clive Bell's Aesthetic: Tradition and Significant Form

Author(s): Thomas M. McLaughlinSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Summer, 1977), pp. 433-443Published by: Wileyon behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/430609.

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THOMAS M. McLAUGHLIN

C l i v e B e l l s AestheticTradition n d ignificant F o r m

I. IntroductionCLIVEBELLhas often been dismissed by aes-theticians and art critics who demand rigor-ous logic in their disciplines. They pointpersuasively to his circular reasoning, in-consistencies, and even overt contradictions.No one, though, has denied his sensibility,especially since he championed the artistsof his time who have survived to be recog-nized universally as masters. But Bellclaimed for himself more than sensibility.At the outset of his career, in Art (1913), hedesignated the qualities that aesthetic think-ing demands: artistic sensibility and aturn for clear thinking. 1 Obviously heconsidered himself so qualified, but manyof his critics have since questioned his clearthinking. His reputation has suffered notonly because of his own weaknesses, but be-cause he is so often invidiously comparedto Roger Fry, whose superiority need notbe secured at Bell's expense. In addition,Bell has unfortunately, if inevitably, beenidentified almost completely with the phrasesignificant form, and has suffered the fatecommon to any critic whose impact relieson one memorable phrase: the rest of hiscareer has been neglected, and the settingin which the phrase first appeared has beenforgotten. Bell's thinking, then, can be dis-torted either by arbitrarily translating hisTHOMASM. MCLAUGIILINs visiting assistant pro-fessor in the department of English at TempleUniversity.

explanations into more limited formulas orby ignoring all of his works but his mostfamous, Art. For example, if his conceptionof form is reduced to outline, as it was byone reviewer of Art, then an antagonisticcritic can easily dismiss Bell's theory as rigidand narrow.2Similarly, Bell is often attackedfor failing to provide an adequate defini-tion of significant form by critics whohave apparently considered only his firstattempt to do so.3 When Bell's entire careeris considered, a more fully developed aes-thetic system than his detractors have beenwilling to recognize is apparent. The systemdepends on Bell's formulation of a theoryof tradition which provides a coherent ex-planation of the process by which form isimposed on the world, and which antici-pates at least in part many of the objectionsraised against him. This is not to overlookthe weaknesses in Bell's theory; his systemcan legitimately be questioned on severalimportant issues. However, simply to dis-miss Bell (as some critics have done) be-cause of the apparent circularity of oneof his arguments - the definition of signifi-cant form - is to overlook his considerableachievement both as a critic and as a theo-retician. In fact, that a critic whose methoddepended so much on the articulation ofhis direct emotional responses to variousworks of art should also construct a consist-ent aesthetic theory is itself an achievementthat deserves our attention.Bell's system attains its theoretical con-

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MC LAUGHLINsistency in spite of local faults; indeed, eventhe faults deserve close critical attention be-cause of the revelations they provide aboutthe very habits of thought that producedthe system. For example, the definition ofsignificant form has often been sharply criti-cized as circular, but this flaw results morefrom the imprecise language of Bell's firstattempt at a definition than from inherentconceptual weaknesses in his fully developedexposition of the problem.4 Bell's criticsusually formulate his circular thinking inthis way: he begins his analysis by assertingthe existence of a purely aesthetic emotion,and then argues that all art must possesssome quality to which this emotion responds,that is, significant form, which he then de-fines as form capable of stirring aestheticemotion. Such an argument is obviouslycircular, but it is only a reduced version ofBell's actual argument. A closer look atThe Aesthetic Hypothesis shows that thecircularity is more apparent than real, andan examination of Bell's later explanationsclarifiessome of the confusions actually pres-ent in the early definition.Bell does begin by arguing for the exist-ence of a particular kind of emotion pro-voked by works of visual art (Art, p. 17),and strongly distinguishes this aestheticemotion from those which respond to life.To appreciate a work of art, Bell argues,we need bring with us nothing from life,no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, nofamiliarity with its emotions . . . for a mo-ment we are shut off from human inter-ests . . . (Art, p. 27). This emotion is pecul-iar to the experience of art; the vast majority,at least, cannot respond aesthetically to theworld outside of art. They cannot do so be-cause the events that they witness in thatworld demand from them a moral response;in art they are free to be merely spectators,to respond as uninvolved, detached sensi-bilities. There is, therefore, an amoral allureto this emotion; the spectator observes ascene or a pattern which does not in anydirect sense concern him, and so his normalinstincts and ideals can be set aside duringthis isolated experience. What differentiatesthis aesthetic emotion, then, is its detached,almost impersonal quality. While Bell ad-

mits that some art excites the emotions oflife, he still maintains that the function ofthe highest art is to produce this aestheticemotion. The validity of these claims willbe considered later, but their importancehere is in the task that they set for Bell.He will attempt to discover what it is inthe work of art that is the ground for thisparticular emotion.Bell's answer, significant form, must beseen over against its opposite to be fullyunderstood. Bell usually speaks of art interms of its purely visual qualities, that is,as line, color, mass, and volume. Significantform is these elements seen as visual pattern,rather than seen as representations of the ex-ternal world. In reaction to the nineteenth-century academic tradition, which Bell andall of Bloomsbury accused of reducing artto illustration, he insists on seeing each ele-ment of a work primarily as part of aninterrelating structure. What Bell callsdescriptive painting is that in which theartist has directed his spectators' attentionto forms as illustrations, and has thusdenied that which is peculiar to art; in suchworks, Bell says, forms are used not asobjects of emotion, but as means of sug-gesting emotion or conveying information(Art, p. 22). R. Meager has noted that, toBell, the potential for aesthetic emotion isdeeply human, but has been blurred in histime by the constant enshrinement in offi-cially sanctioned art of the common emo-tions of everyday life.5 Bell demands thatthis historical movement be reversed, thatartists force their audience to see forms asforms, and that critics foster attention toform, so that spectators may experience theaesthetic emotion. Since this emotion isabsolutely distinct from those which re-spond to life, it follows that forms seen asillustrations of life cannot cause it. Onlyforms seen as ends in themselves can achievewhat Bell defines as the purpose of art, totransport the viewer into a purely artisticworld, cut off from life. When Bell definessignificant form, then, as that which pro-vokes aesthetic emotion, the emphasis mustfall on the word aesthetic as opposed to

life emotions, and the distinction be-tween form as an end in itself and form as

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Clive Bell's Aesthetican illustration must be remembered. Inter-preted in this way, Bell can be seen as mak-ing necessary distinctions rather than asconstructing a mere tautology. At the sametime, however, it must be admitted that Belldoes not often presshimself to explain awaythe circularity. He seems to have assumedthat no further argument was necessary,that any person of taste and refinement hadexperienced and could identify an aestheticemotion, and knows instinctively the qualitythat causes it. His arguments are, therefore,often more vitriolic than rational, becausehe aims at revealing his opponents as phi-listine fools rather than at developing acoherent argument for what seems to himself-evident. Nevertheless, Bell does avoidsimple circularity, despite the admittedflaws in his presentation.II. The Aesthetic Emotion

More damaging than the charge of circu-larity is the controversy over the very exist-ence of a purely aesthetic emotion. I. A.Richards first clashed with Bell on thisissue, but their interchange provides littleintentional illumination. Richards simplydenies the existence of an aesthetic emotion,asserting that psychology has no place forsuch an entity. 6 Although Richards's solu-tion to the problem, that art produces afiner organization of emotions which oc-cur elsewhere, may seem more satisfying,and has been more influential, in this argu-ment he gives no compelling reasons forrejecting Bell's position. Similarly, Bell an-swers Richards's criticism only by suggestingthat Richards was incapable of an aestheticexperience, and so could not encompass itin his psychology. Bell's ad hominem argu-ment can be seen as a justifiably angry andrhetorically effective response to Richards'sscientific absolutism, but it in fact revealsmuch more about Bell's position on thisissue. His argument assumes not only thatthe aesthetic emotion should be immedi-ately accepted by any cultivated man, butthat its existence is self-evident, known bywhat G. E. Moore calls an intuition, andthat therefore no argument is possible.7 ButBell's certainty has not been shared by re-

cent commentators, and indeed the asser-tion that the emotional response to art isabsolutely distinct from life-emotions seemsextreme and rigid rather than obvious. Itcould be argued, for example, that even inthe midst of an aesthetic experience theresponses of the spectator are influenced ingreat part by his normal emotional patterns.Certainly his emotions are altered underthe pressure of the artist's vision, but thespectator must bring with him into the ex-perience his own sensibility, one which hasbeen shaped not only by other aestheticexperiences but by his daily interactionwith the world. Bell's vision of aestheticemotion is almost apocalyptic; the man whoviews art divests himself of all prior emo-tional tendencies in order to experience thisnew and higher emotion. What Bell missesis the dialectical pressure between the workof art and the normal emotional patternsof the spectator. An interchange occurs inthat moment in which the powerful workof art reveals the limitations of the spec-tator's vision, and forces him to grow, toaccommodate this new perspective. ThusBell's image of a morally detached, dis-tanced spectator is illusory. Whether theaudience wills it or not, its strongest emo-tions are brought directly into play, underthe control of the artist's technique. Bell'stheory of aesthetic emotion in fact revealsa spectator so willing to receive the momen-tary salvation of art that he cannot play hispart in the real imaginative exchange. Heis looking for a defense against emotion,not growth.Further, much of Bell's occasional criti-cism suggests the practical impossibility ofexperiencing a purely aesthetic emotion.For example, Bell's approach to Africansculpture reveals the inevitable intermixingof life emotions in the response to art.These works were crucial to his develop-ment of the concept of significant form, be-cause at the time their historical contextwas unknown, and so their formal qualitieswere foregrounded.8 Bell praises thebeauty, taste, quality, and skill of theworks, but denies them full artistic statusbecause they are not the products of indi-viduals, 'at least in his terms, but rather

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MC LAUGHLINhave been produced unself-consciously,much as birds produce their nests. Here,where a detached analysis of pure form isrhetorically necessary, Bell's cultural pre-conceptions dictate his response. He cannotremain morally neutral to works whichquestion his beliefs. Further, the real limita-tion of his approach is revealed by the factthat, in the end, his beliefs cannot be al-tered by these new works of art. The criticwho most firmly denies the role of normalemotional patterns in his response is mostliable to their subtle influence. Such a fail-ure on Bell's part must bring his entireargument on the nature of aesthetic emo-tion into question.9F. A. Whiting, in an early review ofEnjoying Pictures, suggested that the under-lying cause of Bell's belief in a purely aes-thetic emotion was his fear of life, whichrequired that he separate the art that he sovalued from the world that he feared.10Although it is difficult to reconstruct Bell'smental state, there are numerous referencesin his criticism to the unsatisfying, dis-ordered state of the external world. ThereBell sees only clatter and tumult, and

incoherent facts. It is the very functionof art to raise man above this grey andtrivial affair, to release him from normalperceptions and daily emotions.11 The aes-thetic emotion, then, would need to be helddistinct, since the origin of the emotionsof life is of such dubious value. Bell's con-tinuous reference to the high spiritual valueof art indicates the importance that he at-taches to the aesthetic emotion, and to thedistance that it provides from life.Although the existence of a purely aes-thetic emotion is at least questionable, itprovides the starting point for Bell's moresuccessful theoretical work and for his prac-tical criticism. His system is frankly sub-jective; one commentator has accurately de-scribed Bell's work as an elucidation ofthe aesthetic thrill. 12 Bell himself an-nounces his subjective base in Art: thestarting point for all systems of aestheticsmust be the personal experience of a pecul-iar emotion (pp. 16-17). The ways inwhich this subjectivity shapes Bell's criticalpractice are not always beneficial, but at its

best, his criticism communicates his emo-tion forcefully enough to lead his reader toa sympathetic experience of the work, evenif he does not share Bell's assumptions. AsBell said, I have no right to consider any-thing a work of art to which I cannot reactemotionally (Art, p. 18). Many of hiscritics have asserted that no true criticaljudgments are possible if they spring fromsubjective experience.'3 But criticizing Bellon these grounds raises two distinct diffi-culties. First, he is neither the first nor themost influential thinker to claim that artcan only be recognized through the exist-ence of a particular mental state. Kant, forexample, contends that we recognize beautyonly through our experience of the equilib-rium of certain internal powers. Bell, then,participates in a much larger historical phe-nomenon, and cannot be criticized in isola-tion, especially since the more generalnotion that all criticism and aestheticsshould retain the integrity of the originalexperience of the work is shared by a widerange of critics. Secondly, those who criticizeBell's subjectivity often ignore the objectivephase of his theory. Once an aesthetic emo-tion has been experienced, the spectatorcan then point to the work to show thegrounds for his emotion. The forms towhich the spectator responds do exist objec-tively. In fact, Bell's entire career can beseen as an attempt to educate the visualsensibilities of the public so that they couldsee those forms more clearly. Certainly asubjective experience is the clue that agiven set of forms should be seen in thisway, but Bell maintains that the experienceleads us to objectively existing forms.14Oneindication of Bell's objective phase is hisadmonition, expressed in Since Cezanne,that the existence of a good response is notan infallible sign of great art, since other,purely subjective causes may account forthe response (p. 164). Strong emotion isnecessary for an assertion that significantform exists, but it is not a sufficient reasonfor such an assertion.Since Bell's system is so subjective, somecritics have charged that he simply ex-tended his personal tastes into a theory ofart. Lawrence Buermayer, for example,

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Clive Bell's Aestheticargues that Bell's theory is inevitably nar-row and exclusive, since it dismisses worksvalued by more flexible tastes which wouldresult in a more inclusive theory.15 Buer-mayer apparently objects not so much tothe practice of basing an aesthetic on one'spersonal tastes, but rather to the restrictionsof Bell's own taste. If Art is taken as anexample, Bell certainly does display limitedtaste. In that work only primitive art,especially of the Byzantine period, and post-Impressionism are sanctioned, while the en-tire Renaissance is depicted as decadent.However, it should be noted that Bell'stastes become more catholic as he realizedthat significant form could coexist witheven a strong representational element. InArt, for example, Raphael plays the roleof the darling of the corrupt Academy(p. 120), while in Enjoying Pictures (1934),Bell lavishes on Raphael perhaps the high-est praise expressed in his criticism. Simi-larly, in Since Cezanne, Bell discards hisearlier view of the history of painting,which had elevated Byzantine art andCezanne into lonely achievements on oppo-site ends of a period of great decline. Henow constructs a continuing tradition ofgreat artists, including many he had deni-grated in Art, of which Cezanne, for all hisexperimentation, is a reaffirmation.16Bell'stastes, it is clear, became increasingly inclu-sive, but more significantly, it is doubtfulthat his theoretical system was ever limitedabsolutely to the range of his sensibility.Even in Art Bell says, we may all agreeabout aesthetics, and yet differ about par-ticular works of art (p. 19). That is, Belladmits that he might not see significantform in a work, and yet have no quarrel intheory with a critic who did, so long as bothagreed on the quality being discussed.It is more accurate to depict Bell, as somecritics have done, as accepting a new andchallenging artistic style, and then creatinga theory to account for the qualities he hadperceived there. Bell believed that the emo-tion he experienced in the presence ofmodern art differed in quality from thatwhich purely representational art elicited.As Morris Weitz has pointed out, Bell issimply attempting to construct a theory to

account for paintings which the acceptedtheory of his time would not allow him tounderstand.17 When Cezanne, for example,was judged by the dominant canon of veri-similitude, he was declared a botcher. 18Bell's system was intended to reduce theobvious gap between practice and theory,to widen the definition of art to include thevigorous creative artists of his time. Hisbooks, particularly Art, are polemical; theyare aimed at an audience which had beeneducated under the old theories, and whichBell rightly assumed would be hostile tothese new artists. In this context, it is notsurprising that the rhetoric of the attemptto widen the definition of art at times de-manded a rejection of the preeminentmodels that Bell's opponents upheld. Hisgrowth as a critic, though, is indicated byhis later recognition that the fault lay withtraditional critics, not with traditional art-ists, who were capable of creating significantform even in the midst of a representationalintention. He realized, for example, thatthe academy had misunderstood Raphael,and that his own appreciation of Raphaelhad been perverted by his overreaction tothe false use to which his works had beenput. Undeniably, then, Bell's system isthoroughly subjective at its outset, but itdoes not necessarily limit him to expressinghis own responses, or to canons of taste de-rived from a narrow sensibility. The defini-tion of the aesthetic emotion, questionableas it is, retains the virtue of consistency; therest of Bell's system derives from it directly.It is the definition of significant form thatcauses extensive questions regarding the in-ternal coherence of Bell's aesthetics.

III. Tradition and Significant FormThe development apparent in Bell's rangeof taste perhaps accounts for the increas-ingly confident tone of his theoretical specu-lations. The definition of significant form,especially, develops from a tentative specula-tion in Art to a fully developed governingprinciple in later works. This movement is

typical of Bell's thought; hypotheses whichare never adequately tested or defended

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MC LAUGHLINseem later to be taken for granted. Theyare so thoroughly assumed that they are nolonger the subject of speculations but ratherthe basis for new investigations. As R. K.Elliott and Solomon Fishman have shown,underlying the definition of significance isthe assumption that the artist's and thespectator's experiences are identical.19 Justas the work's form appeals to the spectator,so the artist is susceptible to form in theexternal world. Therefore, when Bell an-nounces that created form moves us soprofoundly because it expresses the emotionof its creator (Art, p. 43), he is not simplyequating significance and self-expression.He suggests that true art recreates and givesartistic form to the artist's own aestheticresponse to the world. The artist, Bell says,is uniquely capable of seeing the externalworld as form, and thus of responding to itin a way which will eventually induce theaesthetic emotion in his spectators. Thechaotic, fragmented world in which Bellhabitually lives and from which he hopesart can deliver him seems to be suspendedfor the artist, who sees about him a morehospitable, more orderly world. Explana-tions for this inconsistency have varied: ithas plausibly been dismissed as one of Bell'scareless contradictions, or it can be seen asone more instance of his uncritical venera-tion of artists. In fact, throughout his ca-reer, but especially in Since Cezanne, heoffers an implicit answer to these objections,slowly extricating himself from the paradox.To see objects as ordered and significant,the artist must somehow see them not asmeans shrouded in associations, but as pureforms (Art, p. 45). Thus for the artist,life emotions are as irrelevant as theyare to the spectator. They lead him awayfrom an object's shape and texture into thelearned emotional associations that objectsused throughout man's life accrue. It isin this sense that the artist reveals theultimate reality (Art, p. 45) of the ex-ternal world; he sees objects as things inthemselves, in Bell's terms, as forms tobe admired rather than as matter to bemanipulated.

By Since Cezanne (1922), the expressivenature of art has become an underlying

principle. Here Bell asserts that the artistcreates forms that shall correspond withhis intimate sense of the significance ofthings (p. 101), and defines the properend of art as externalizing in form anaesthetic experience (p. 30). The tone inthese passages is confident and dogmatic,far from hesitant. In Art Bell's theoryamounts to a statement of his faith in thesuperior ordering powers of artists; in SinceCezanne his faith has been confirmed. Hiscontinued devotion to Cezanne seems tohave been the catalyst for his developingconfidence. Cezanne was the breakthrough;he removed all unnecessary barriers be-tween what [artists] felt and its realizationin form (Since Cezanne, p. 15). Not onlyhad Bell proved to be right and Cezanne'scritical detractors come reluctantly to accepthim, but the new masters of the modernFrench movement also followed in his direc-tion. The metaphysical hypothesis becamemore acceptable to Bell as his successfulmodels reinforced for him its plausibility,and as he realized that it applied to artistswhom he had previously rejected.Although Bell became increasingly con-vinced of the truth of his hypothesis, twoserious difficulties still arise with regard tohis explanation of significance. As R. K.Elliott has pointed out in his brilliant essayon Bell, if the artist can discover significantform in the external world, then the distinc-tion between art and that world cannot beso complete as Bell claims, since significancecan only be encountered in an ordered ob-ject, certainly not in the collection of in-coherent facts that Bell more typically seesin the world.20 In some way the artist mustbe able to see as form what others - includ-ing Bell - see as chaos. Otherwise, the claimthat art begins in the artist's own aestheticexperience of the world is impossible. Bellwas aware of the confusion provoked by hisdefinition, and in 1919 suggested this ex-planation of the difference between the sig-nificance of art and the mere beauty ofnature: in a work of art an artist expressesan emotion, whereas the flower and the gemexpress nothing and are, in that sense, in-significant. 21 This attempt at simplifyingthe issue unfortunately adds to the con-

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Clive Bell's Aestheticfusion, since, as we have seen, the meta-physical hypothesis states that the emotionexpressed by art is precisely the artist'ssense of the significance of things. Bell evensuggests in another context that, to the art-ist, objects are somehow themselves expres-sive. This provokes the second major ob-jection to the theory; if significance andexpression are related, and if the artist seessignificance in the world, whose emotiondoes it express? Jerome Stolnitz has noticedthis problem, and C. J. Ducasse takes it anincongruous further step.22He imports intothe discussion a divine figure, which he ad-mits is foreign to Bell but nevertheless seemsto him to be implied by an expressiveexternal world, and then wonders what wasthe object of the artistic creator god's emo-tion, which his creation, the natural world,expresses. The tone of Ducasse'sessaymocksBell rather than controverting him, and hisintention here is simply to trivialize Bell'sargument. However, Bell's problems withthese issues have not been manufactured byhostile critics; they arise from his ownflawed formulation of the metaphysical hy-pothesis. He uses terms like expressivewith too little rigor, and his use of dis-cover to describe the creation of formcannot be taken literally as signifying hisbelief in a world in which order can befound. Although Bell's works do not pro-vide a direct, conscious answer to these ob-jections, an implicit answer does arise, al-though Bell never connected it to the meta-physical hypothesis. It is through Bell'stheory of tradition, indebted strongly toT. S. Eliot, and developed and applied inSince Cezanne, Landmarks in NineteenthCenturyPainting, and An Account of FrenchPainting, that the difficulties are dimin-ished. Bell's limitations as a theorist, how-ever, are suggested by the fact that so muchinterpretation and synthesis is requiredfrom a reader of his works to construct acoherent theory from his less systematicapproach. Bell never makes the connectionsthat I will suggest here, but the connec-tions can still legitimately be made withoutfalsifying the material that he could haveprovided in his own defense. Further, ifthese connections are ignored, his career

becomes truncated and distorted. If SinceCezanne does not take up the problems thatarose in Art, then we must posit in Bell alack of intellectual continuity and integritymore massive than any of his most virulentcritics suggest.Bell's theory of tradition provides thesolution to the apparent contradiction thatElliott points out. In Since Cezanne Bellsees the artist as living within a world ofart. Through his training and his naturalinterest in the works of other artists, hisperception of the world becomes condi-tioned by the artistic orders which he hasencountered. The works of the past pro-vide him with structures which at onceorder and ennoble the visible world. Un-consciously these works exclude from hisvision the trivial, mundane facts that en-trap Bell. Because these past works arethemselves ordered and significant, the artistlives in a world which, for him, has alreadybeen transformed when he turns his con-scious mind to the task of creation.23 Thosewho are not artists can only recognize sig-nificant form in art, where it has beenordered for [their] apprehension. 24 Theartist himself, of course, benefits more subtlyfrom the same ordering power of art; itsresults remain with him whenever his crea-tive vision is in play. The gap betweenBell's experience and that which he imputesto artists may explain at once the tentative-ness of the original metaphysical hypothesis,since he was then ascribing to artists anemotion foreign to his experience, and alsohis respect for artists, as beings capable ofexperiences higher than his own.Bell's theory of composition explainshow these higher experiences can occur. Hedivides the creative process into two parts,sensibility and the artistic problem(Since Cezanne, pp. 41-43). Sensibility isthat openness to ecstasy which occurs whenthe significance of external objects becomesapparent. The artistic problem is thatwhich focuses the artist's powers so that anew aesthetic order can be imposed. Bellmost directly connects the tradition to theartistic problem, seeing it as the source ofeach artist's solution to his problem (p. 76),or as an indispensible means to self-

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440expression (p. 125). On this level, the art-ists of the past merely provide technicalpossibilities which the artist can utilize whennecessary. However, if as Bell says, seeingartists as traditional places them in a worldof pure art (p. 75), then the influence oftradition must extend to sensibility. Thereis evidence that Bell employed such an as-sumption in his practical criticism. He saysof Turner, for example, that the subject isseen purely in terms of art (Landmarks,p. 137-emphasis added), and it is clearthat the tradition operates directly onTurner's actual visual experience, since Bellalso asserts that Turner simply reports whathe sees without producing mere illustra-tions. Turner's immersion in the world ofart alters his perception so that the worldappears as already formed with a signifi-cance of its own. Similarly, Bell notes theinfluence of Japanese art on the visual ex-perience of Degas (Landmarks, p. 191).When Bell uses a term like discover, then,suggesting that order exists in the world tobe found by the artist, the verbal contextthat his entire critical canon establishes de-mands that we read the word as shorthandfor apparent discovery by means of an un-conscious imposition of forms derived fromthe tradition of art.The contradiction that Elliott sees inBell's work results, again, from a difficultyin articulation rather than in conception.Interpreted in the way that I have sug-gested, Bell implies that significance existsin the external world only to artists. Thework of art retains its unique quality. Any-one can perceive the significance of artworks, without needing to transform themin any way. The work of art is visibly sig-nificant because it expresses the emotionsof the artist. The world is significant tothe artist because of his superior powers ofself-assertion ; he sees in the world onlythe structures that he has unconsciously im-posed on it. In this case, Bell's entire aes-thetic system explains the dilemma posedby Art. He seems to have lacked the sus-tained intellectual rigor to forge some ofthese connections within material writtenover a twenty year period, but his mind re-

MC LAUGHLINturns fruitfully to the same problem, offer-ing compelling new solutions.Similarly, the extended theory of tradi-tion answers Ducasse's and Stolnitz's objec-tion to Bell's argument that significanceexists in the world. That is, if the objectsin the world are significant, whose emotionsdo they express? Within Bell's system, ofcourse, there is no need to invent a creatorgod expressing himself in natural form. Infact, if significance is imposed by the artistthrough the tradition, then it is the art-ists of the past themselves, as imaginationsinterrelated in the new artist's mind, whoare the composite god that creates expres-sive emotion in the world. When a givenartist looks at the world, then, in effect hecomes into direct contact with the emotionsof other artists. His struggle, then, is toexpress his own unique sensibility and jointhe tradition. The individual psychologicalstructures of each artist interact with thetradition so that new visions are always en-riching it.25 No work of the tradition willembody the new artist's personality andmode of perception perfectly. All worksare, therefore, imperfect frames for theartist; he must fashion with their aid anddirection an object which embodies hisvision more precisely, which corresponds tohis own psychological makeup more pro-foundly. The determining interaction inthe creative act, then, occurs between theindividual artist and the artists of the past;at no time is there an unmediated vision ofthe external world.Bell's sense of tradition is closely alliedwith his use of the term primitive to de-scribe authentic art.26 Although the termis available to Bell because of the renewedpopularity in his time of early African art,he does not intend the word to carrya sim-ple historical meaning. Bell associates theprimitive not only with the earliest originsof art, but with any artist who returns toits fundamental task, the creation of signifi-cant form. In Art he contrasts the primitivewith art which displays representationalskill, and provides a general historicalexplanation for the difference. In Bell'svision, the earliest primitive artists, out of



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Clive Bell's Aestheticritualistic requirements and religious fervor,created a spiritual art which aimed at sim-plicity and purity. This art excluded allreference to irrelevant detail and called itsspectators into contact with the world ofthe spirit. But, as civilization develops, richpatrons begin to finance art, and their tastesmust be flattered (p. 113). Such patrons are,in Bell's view, necessarily vulgar, and de-mand representations of the objects thatthey gain pleasure in possessing. Concur-rently, the role of the artist becomes spe-cialized, and artists must compete for pa-trons by developing meticulous skill atimitation. The result, says Bell, is thatformal significance loses itself in preoccu-pation with exact representation and osten-tatious cunning (p. 26). Ages which losetouch with the primitive create obsequiousart . . . descriptive, official, eclectic, histori-cal, plutocratic, palatial, and vulgar (p. 97).Bell's original paradigm for this conflictwas the gradual change from Byzantine toRenaissance art, but he later realized thatthe conflict was perpetual. In each age, By-zantine significance and Renaissance repre-sentation conflict. The post-Impressionists,for example, are primitives in their concernfor formal significance, and oppose the aca-demic artists of their time (personified bythe Royal Academy) who value only exactimitation of nature. Artist's like Cezannealso share the primitive emphasis on spiritu-ality. They include nothing in their workthat does not contribute to its design, andthus to the spectator's spiritual exaltation.They avoid all reference to the brute, un-transformedworld that man wishes to escapethrough art. In Since Cezanne Bell identifiesthe tradition as including all artists whochoose to create significant form (p. 75),thus suggesting that it is a tradition of primi-tives. That is, the true artist instinctivelyrecognizes the genuine purpose of art andthen immerses himself in the works of otherartists who have achieved this purpose. Butthis effort, especially since the Renaissance,has always been resisted by those who havegained power through representational skill.Thus, in effect all true art has become revo-lutionary; especially in Bell's time, when

representation has become to the establish-ment the sole criterion of quality, the genu-ine artist must outrage the tastes of hisspectators and contemporary judges, inorder to gain a permanent importance andto provide the highest possible spiritualbenefit to his true audience. Thus the art-ist must return to the tradition to fulfillhis purpose, but he must bring to the taskhis own perceptual experience and imagina-tion. For this reason, he cannot merelyimitate his predecessors, since he wouldthen not express his own responses andcould not create the truly expressive formthat makes artists a part of the continuingtradition.27

There is a darker side to the artist's rela-tionship with the tradition, and Bell is fullyaware of its possible consequences. He seesthat the artist can at times face a dangermore powerful than the corrupt and suc-cessful figures of his time; the tradition it-self, whose function is to enable the artist'screation, may instead overpower him witha sense of what Harold Bloom would callhis belatedness, his need to create thenew in the face of the monuments of thepast. This is especially critical for artistswho live in highly civilized ages, which wor-ship the art of the past. French painting,in Bell's view, has not produced as manyoriginal personalities as the English, pre-cisely because it has not needed to rebelagainst a corrupt authority. French paintersare the direct descendants of a tradition toonoble to be rejected, and so unique sensi-bilities give way to a rich, but predictablestore of works (Civilization, p. 91). Bell'sCivilization, which seems to be a hymn toman's civilized achievement, in fact at-tempts to define the limits of civilization'svalues. Such a society may venerate itsartistic past and thus intimidate its ownartists into repeating past successes. As Bellsays, savages create furiously, and eachartist must retain that primitive energy ifthe past is to act as his partner rather thanhis adversary. Tradition must remain forhim that indispensible means of self-expression, or it can become a sacred andunalterable edifice. Either he uses the tradi-

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MC LAUGHLINtion in his own struggle against complacenttaste, or it stifles his belief in his creativepowers.

IV. ConclusionIn his explanation of the artist's inter-action with the tradition, Bell's definitionof significant form becomes less mysterious.What the spectator sees in a genuine workof art is a creative mind's struggle to expressits own vision of the world, by means of itsmemory of earlier works of art, which atonce make the expression possible andproblematic. Without the contribution thatother creators have unconsciously given,the artist would be trapped in a world inwhich order is impossible. But other worksof art assert the priority of their own vision,and so tempt the later artist into submissiveimitation. The genuine artist, however,negotiates these difficulties through twocomplementary desires: the need for orderand for self-expression. The order he revealsis imposed on the visible world by the inter-action of his personality and the tradition

that lives in him. It is, therefore, an orderwhich externalizes in a satisfying way theartist's creative self, yet filtered through aprocess so subtle as to allow the artist him-self to believe absolutely and his spectatorsto believe momentarily that such an orderpre-existed him in the natural world.Thus the twofold function of art for Bell.Primarily, art provides man an escape froma greyand trivial world. For the momentof his aesthetic exaltation he sees that worldas the echo of some ultimate harmony(Art, p. 55); the painting presents a visionof a more perfect world, ordered and serene.However, the moment is elusive, and canonly be followed by a more sober discovery,that any order which man can encounter isthe result of human creative energy. Thespectator comes to recognize the act of self-expression responsible for this ideal world.Significant form, then, leads the spectatorinevitably to the artist who produced it,and to the imaginative power in the artistand potentially in himself. For Bell, a lifecommitted to the experience of art is spent

in the midst of a higher world, one whichasserts its difference from the real, and thusattests to the power of its human creator.Bell combined this commitment to aes-thetic experience with a desire to clarify theprocesses by which art is produced. Histheory of tradition has the advantage ofgrounding that explanation in a recog-nizable feature of any artist's life, his ownaesthetic experience. Bell's entire systemshows the ways in which an artist's training,his inevitable familiarity with the workswhich proceed and surround him, deter-mine his very vision of the world. That heleft to his readers the substantial task ofconnecting his earlier and later works doesnot diminish Bell's theoretical system, al-though it does call into question his rhe-torical abilities. Bell's theories argue forthe importance of art, the spiritual rewardsto be gained from aesthetic experience. Inthis endeavor, the rigors of logic are un-important to him if this central message iscommunicated. That a coherent systemshould still emerge from such an unsys-tematic thinker is remarkable, certainlymore so than his coining of one memorablephrase.

'Clive Bell, Art (1913; rpt. New York, 1958),p. 15. All subsequent references will be to thisedition.2 Charles Aitken, On Art and Aesthetics, ? Bur-

1lgton Mlagazine, 26 (1914-15), 194-95.3One example is Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics andPhilosophy of Art Criticism: An Introduction (Bos-ton, 1960), pp. 145-46.4Cf., for example, C. J. Ducasse, The Philosophyof Art (New York, 1929), p. 308; and Stolnitz, p.145.5R. Meager, Clive Bell and Aesthetic Emotion,British Journal of Aesthetics, 5 (1965), 124.

RI. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism(New York, 1925), pp. 15-16.7See G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1903; rpt.Cambridge, 1968), p. x.8Clive Bell, Since Cezanne (New York, 1922), pp.116-18. All subsequent references will be to thisedition.9A case in which the emotions of life are mixedinto an aesthetic response does not, of course, provethat a purely aesthetic response is impossible. How-ever, Bell, we must assume, would be extremelycareful to recount only the purest of emotions tosupport his positions. This example is only the

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Clive Bell's Aestheticmost blatant of many in which other emotions, notresponding to form, are present. Bell's entire out-put does not support his position, but rather re-veals that a spectator brings his values and beliefsto the experience, even in responding to the formalelements of art.10F. A. Whiting, rev. of Enjoying Pictures, byClive Bell, American Magazine of .4rt, 27 (1934),616-17.See Art, p. 55 and 59 and Enjoying Pictures(New York, 1934), p. 28n.

12Rev. of Enjoying Pictures, by Clive Bell, TheConnoisseur, 93 (1934), 400.13Cf., for example, Stolnitz, p. 148; and BernardC. Heyl, New Bearings in Aesthetics and Art Criti-cism (New Haven, 1943), p. 121.14Cf. Art, p. 18.15Lawrence Buermayer, Pattern and PlasticForm, (1926) in John Dewey, et al., Art and Edu-

cation (Merion, Pa., 1947), p. 124. See also BerylLake, A Study of the Irrefutability of Two Aes-thetic Theories, in W. Elton, ed., Aesthetics andLanguage (Oxford, 1959), pp. 112-13.16See Since Cezanne, p. 18 and 174.17Morris Weitz, Philosophy of the Arts (NewYork, 1950), p. 1.18Art, p. 11. Bell attributes this phrase toSargent.19 R. K. Elliott, Clive Bell's Aesthetic Theoryand Critical Practice, British Journal of Aesthetics,5 (1965), 112; and Solomon Fishman, The Inter-pretation of Art (Berkeley. 1963), p. 84.

20Elliott, p. 113. See also D. W. Gotshalk, Artand the Social Order (Chicago, 1947), p. 148.21Bell, Significant Form, The Burlington Maga-zine, 34 (1919), 257.22Cf. Stolnitz, p. 146 and Ducasse, p. 313.23Bell, Since Cezanne, pp. 75-79.24Landmarks in Nineteenth Century Painting(New York, 1927), pp. 175-83. All subsequent ref-erences will be to this edition.25See Bell's comments, for example, on the im-portance of individuality in artists in SinlceCezanne,p. 124 and in Civilization: ,4n Essay (New York,1928), p. 105.2 The only reference to Bell's primitivism thatI have found is in Fishman, p. 80. Bell's prefer-ence for primitive art is central to his criticaltheory, and it is surprising that it has gone un-noticed.27 The parallels between Bell's theory of tradition

and that outlined by T. S. Eliot in Tradition andthe Individual Talent are striking. In both cases,the artist is pictured before the works of the past,which assert their presence in every artist. In bothBell and Eliot the artist must create an originalwork by means of his relationship with the tradi-tion, so that the tradition can grow. Both see thetradition as dynamic, changing as new authenticworks enter it. A plausible case could be made forEliot's theory influencing Bell directly. Eliot'sessay falls between Art and Since Cezanne, theworks which exemplify the major shift in Bell'sposition on tradition.

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bell's aesthetic, tradition & significant form

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