Art and Literature II James Bell Q 3. Evaluate Bells and Greenberg’s claim that “form” is the most important feature of any work of art. “True appreciation of art is not something which has to be learned, it is something which has to be remembered ” Bell and Greenberg have, I think, in their works “The Aesthetic hypothesis” and “Modernist Painting” tried somewhat successfully to point out what is really important in the understanding of art. Bell dwells on the emotions that come from true understanding of art, what he calls “aesthetic ecstasy” in the viewer. Whereas Greenberg tries to pin point the change in artistic values for the artist towards a more empirical idea of form. It is then that we should look at Greenbergs work first to get the historical context. Greenberg looks at the world of art from the view point of Modernism, looking first at its roots in impressionism and post renaissance works (both 2d and 3d), and then attempts to show that Modernist paintings are not so aesthetically different from these older styles. While at the same time are a more pure form of painting. Greenberg says that modernism was the first time that the art world had questioned its own foundations. This self-critical beginning is attributed to the German philosopher, Kant. Kant was one of the first philosophers to take an introspective look at the scope of human knowledge. He used logic to find a purer way of thinking logically. In other words he broke down logical thought until all that he had left was a trimmed but better functioning version of logic. Greenberg is therefore claiming that painting was forced to look at itself and ask, "what it is that painting has that no other art form has or can replicate? Is there something in painting that, for example is totally missing in sculpture?" Greenberg is showing that at this time everything had to ask itself such critical questions lest be swallowed into other subjects. Anything not being able to give itself what Greenberg calls “Kantian” criticism and justification was going to get swallowed. Such as what happened to religion which, Greenberg claims, was swallowed into “therapy”. It is from this that Modernism emerged. Painting had to narrow its area of competence but would survive as a viable medium. The task quickly became to eliminate from painting what could have possibly been borrowed from any other medium. This would lead to a purity of painting that would be distinct and independent from other types. Here, Greenberg is trying to find some foundation in history for justifying the way that modernist painting has evolved, however beyond that, he is coming around to showing how painting discovered what part of the medium is the purest, and therefore most important. Greenberg is saying that painting found that the only part of its medium that is separate from all others is its flatness. The physical limitations of using a flat medium gave painting a new direction, painters such a Cezanne found that what seemed important to appreciation of the painting came not from the realistic skill in which the painting is executed, but rather how the form of the paint is more aesthetically pleasing. Greenberg points out that until this time painting owed a lot to sculpture in its attempts to replicate shade and light and dark. However after the “kantian criticism” painters were forced to face the flatness of the medium, and work with it rather than owe anything to any other type. Later impressionists came to see that the challenge of painting came not from creating a perfect copy of the subject, but rather how one can give the viewer an optically pleasing experience. One can see the dawning of this knowledge in the radical changes of painters such as Picasso and Matisse. Matisse's changes in style seem very strange at first glance. Why would such an artist, who had flawless skill at realistically representing the subject, suddenly change to what looks like the work of a five-year-old? The same applies to Picasso, and Cezanne. Why did Picasso change to the cubist style of painting? Why did Cezanne bend lines and perspectives, so that one could almost see around the object of the painting? Greenberg shows that Cezanne, and Picasso were reacting against the sculptural and the impressionist, a reaction that was so extreme that Greenwood claims that the style became so flat that it contained no recognisable images. It appeared that to these artists representation of the subject was the last thing on their mind, but rather dealing with the flatness; the space; the form of the painting became everything. It is here that Bells essay should come in. Greenberg has shown that the apparent “over night” radicalism of modernists, was actually more of a “devolution”, and that the change of pre-modernist to modernist art is a smooth gradient. Only with a more pure style of expression which places the emphasis of a painting in its construction rather than its subject. Bell takes a different view. Where as Greenberg looked at how the minds of the artists see form, he looks at how the audience has had to come to grips with the effects of the form in art. His views are very personal, and this could be regarded as a weakness, but he justifies his writing style by saying: “Theories not based on broad and deep aesthetic experience are worthless” By this he means that only by the means of personal experience can anyone make any judgements about art works. He further argues that no matter how intellectually advance the person without experience of the sensations of the paintings form, one can never have any valid opinion about the aesthetic quality of any works. Works of art for Bell have the ability to arise particular emotions in us, but that all painting must necessarily produce different emotions. However of these emotions there will be some similarities that draw us to the conclusion that they are all of the same type. Here Bell is talking of any art form at all, including music (And therefore in my opinion film is and art as well). Bell asks the question, what is this quality that “good” art has to enable these emotions in those who view it? Bell says that such qualities cannot be objective, that is to say true whether or not the art form is before the senses (including memory), but rather all aesthetics are subjective; based totally in experience alone. Bell says that despite the varied and huge number of different paintings and sculptures there is in each a sense of “significant form”. By this he is referring not to the works content or subject, but rather to way in which certain relations of colour or lines cause the emotions inside the person who view it. Bell then steps aside from a very important question. That is: “Why are we so profoundly moved by forms related in a particular way?” Bell claims that this question is irrelevant to aesthetics, but I disagree. With knowledge of where the “pleasing” forms come from one can refine art even further, discover its roots, and thereby create greater works of art. The roots of forms are of paramount impotence to the artist, and so should be too for the viewer of art works. I think it is strange for someone to experience an emotion when looking at art and yet not wonder where that emotion stems from. Bell says that this would be prying behind the work into the mind of the artist, and that is not the idea of aesthetics. However I think to wonder about my own emotions goes far beyond the artist who painted the picture that aroused those emotions in me. They are my emotions after all, and nothing to do with what the artist, despite what forms he is trying to display. For example I might be receiving a different emotion than the artist intends. Bell admits that he is not trying to construct any argument beyond the fact that such culmination’s of colours, etc. do move us in a mysterious way and that it is therefore the job of the “good” artist to create such culmination’s, which Bell calls “significant form”. Bell does make plane, however, that this “significant form” is not identical to beauty. He says to those who may be surprised at that statement, that since the use of the word “beautiful” has ties in with sexuality, that it may be often too confusing to use that word. On this I agree, many of the detailed representations of women in paint, such as “Venus Verticordia” or in statue, such as “The Greek Slave” are indeed in my opinion, beautiful. However they do not arise the same emotions in me that I experience when viewing a Cezanne. The Cezanne I appreciate for the “significant form” (as Bell puts it), whereas I find the much more detailed nudes to be beautiful representations of women. A much more different, but just as primitive reaction. Bell calls this class of painting “descriptive”, and although they are admirable in many ways they do not move us aesthetically. On this too I agree, and for me the era which has the least aesthetically pleasing paintings and works of art is the Victorian paintings from the 1830’s through to the 1880’s. Many works of art from this period (as Bell points out) are not concerned with aesthetics and “significant form”; rather they are examples of artists being influenced by the turbulent politics of that time. Bell considers these paintings as documents, and would agree as I have used many examples of Victorian art in the study of that time. One cannot really study Aix-en-Provence of the 1830’s by looking at all Cezanne’s works. One can only see Cezannes use of form. This leads Bell into his concluding idea, which ties in with Greenbergs, and indeed my quote at the top of this essay. Bell considers that the art that moves people the most is primitive. “Old” art, such as that of the ancient Greeks, or the Ancient Japanese. These works he considers to be free of “descriptive” properties. Here, he says you will find no accurate representation, only the “significant form”. I would like to take the finest example, the art of the Australian Aborigine. His work of vibrant colour, flowing lines, and no sense, sits very well before my eyes. As Bell puts it, it has: “Absence of representation, absence of swagger, sublimely impressive form” These primitives for Bell, have either neglected their skill at representation, or known not to use it. Their art is for him: “the finest works of art that we possess”. Descriptive works seem to be irrelevant to Bell. As he says: “representation is a sign of weakness in the artist”. These early works of the ancient man were a pure form of art, clean and uncluttered. And it seems that ancient man knew not to draw too well or throw a pot too finely. This pure form is I think what Greenberg’s Modernists were trying to recreate. They were trying to use the “old” forms, ideas that just move us emotionally, give us a feeling of “significant form”. It seems to me that Greenberg’s Modernists had “forgotten” true appreciation of art, and it was only when they had stripped it of all the borrowed or just plane useless values that they came to a full appreciation of form. Mr Flower. Head of Art, Plume School Maldon.