A Problem for Clive Bell
I. Introduction
There exists within the art world today an undeniably high strain of formalist ideas which influence both the creation of art and the criticism art receives. Most artists who study or have studied some form of composition, whether it be music or dance composition, playwriting, creative writing, etc., have had experience with an emphasis on the form of their work. The classes in which these creative endeavors are taught, themselves are mostly teaching tools to create art, such as juxtaposition, line, color, shading, shape, space, counterpoint, etc. These tools and how well they are used seem to be what formalism praises.
Formalism probably presents itself in the most direct and influential way in the work of Clive Bell. Clive Bell’s essay, “Art”, appears in most anthologies today relating to the general study of aesthetics, and is undoubtedly a very compelling essay. I wish to attempt a criticism of formalism through a criticism of this essay, and though there may be some question as to the justification of such an overgeneralization, it seems as if Clive Bell’s work epitomizes the formalist underlying assumptions about art and what art ought to be.
II. What is Bell’s Formalism Exactly?
Bell’s theory, as espoused in “Art”, has several different vital components. I shall try to differentiate them to make clearer his position. The three main components are: formalism, aesthetic empiricism, and an affect-oriented approach to characterizing aesthetic experience. This third component, the affect-oriented approach, is Bell’s main goal within his essay. He attempts to establish aesthetic experience based upon some kind of effect or emotion a viewer feels. Formalism is what Bell believes causes this effect or emotion on the viewer, so formalism is vital only instrumentally, as a way to have aesthetic experience. Aesthetic empiricism is not something explicit within Bell’s work, but is implicit. Bell believes that aesthetic appreciation is a matter of a way of seeing, a state of mind. I shall expand upon each of these three parts of Bell’s aesthetic theory in the following passages.
Formalism. In order to expand and explain Bell’s formalism, I need to first explain what exactly he means by “form”. Bell states, “...lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms... These relations and combinations of lines and colours, these aesthetically moving forms, I call ‘Significant Form’” (Bell 1914) So form, at least in the visual arts (as the visual arts is mostly what his essay is directed towards), is just simply the arrangement and patterns of colors and lines. Form in music, it can be inferred, would be various patterns and orders of notes, rhythms, harmonies, etc. Form in poetry would be the use of poetic devices such as metaphor, alliteration, rhythm, etc. So, for Bell, arrangements of these individual and groups of entities are called the form of the piece, and the ones that evoke aesthetic emotion, are the ones which deserve the title of “a work of art”. Bell also states within the essay, “The representative element in a work of art may or may not be harmful; always it is irrelevant.” (Bell 1914) This highlights another characteristic of formalism, that it is primarily the form, and in Bell’s case, only the form, which allows for the desired aesthetic emotion.
Affect-Oriented Approach. Bell uses throughout his essay an affect-oriented approach to characterize aesthetic experience. An affect-oriented approach is one which “[aesthetic experience is]...marked by a certain experiential quale, or pulsation, or peculiar feeling tone.” (Carroll 2006) Bell terms this aesthetic emotion. So what exactly is aesthetic emotion? Bell speaks about this throughout his essay. “Art transports us from the world of man’s activity to a world of aesthetic exaltation. For a moment we are shut off from human interests, our anticipations and memories are arrested; we are lifted above the stream of life.” (Bell 1914) So a major part of Bell’s aesthetic emotion is that it is an isolated experience; it transcends the day-to-day actions and interactions of mankind. This also means that Bell’s aesthetic emotion is also distinct from everyday existence.
Aesthetic Empiricism. Empiricism within aesthetics goes all the way back to the enigmatic Immanuel Kant. This states that aesthetic appreciation is resultant of a particular state of mind, a different way of seeing art. Now, as stated earlier, this is an assumption which is implicit within Bell’s work. Bell belonged to a tradition in art which presupposed the truth of aesthetic empiricism.
The main opposing viewpoint of aesthetic empiricism is contextualism. Contextualism states that aesthetic appreciation is contingent upon knowledge of the cultural vantage point and historical events which caused the creation of a work of art. Contextualism is obviously not his position as when he states, “To appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space.” (Bell 1914) So his aesthetic state of mind relies upon knowledge previously ascertained, either through training or innate ability, but not on any kind of historical or cultural knowledge. It is just pure formal knowledge. I think it is safe to assume that Bell’s aesthetic state of mind could be loosely defined as, “A state of mind which allows one to grasp the form of a work of art most easily.” (See Susanne Langer’s Feeling and Form for an attempt to spell out this state of mind)
III. A Defense of Bell
I think it is important at this point, before I offer my problem for Bell, to offer a brief defense of Bell from the usual criticism given to his work. The problem with the usual criticism of Bell’s position, is that the criticism will usually be unconvincing to the formalist, in that the formalist attempts to claim an elite knowledge of art. As Bell himself states, “He who would elaborate a plausible theory of aesthetics must possess two qualities -- artistic sensibility and a turn for clear thinking.” (Bell 1914) Claiming that their critics lack “artistic sensibility” or have misguided “artistic sensibility”, is generally an easy default position to fall back upon, even if it does seem like a largely irrational, or ad hoc way of holding onto their beliefs and viewpoint. My purpose here is to attempt to pose a problem for formalism by presupposing the rightness of the affect-oriented approach to characterizing aesthetic experience. Because as stated earlier, for Bell, formalism is only an instrumental good within art. It is a way to obtain his aesthetic emotion. It seems as if aesthetic emotion is the highest and most intrinsic good within art for Bell. So if I can demonstrate a case in which aesthetic emotion is ascertained with content and not just form, then I should be effective in being convincing, enough at least for the formalist to comprehend the problem and give it serious thought.
IV. The Problem of the Sublime
Out of all the art forms, it is probably literature which challenges the formalist the most. Many have pointed out that the appreciation of literature needs to include content and not just form; they also tend to point to the fact that most literary critics will include content within their criticism. However, if the formalist is to be adamant, he or she will point out that the appreciation of content will not have anything to do with the deeper appreciation of a piece of art. Bell writes, “the appreciation of almost all great writers has been impure.” (Bell 1914) This shows Bell’s fierce determination to separate content from form and to claim that formal appreciation is the highest of all appreciation, even within the literary arts. But I think that Bell is mistaken, that form and content cannot be separated, at least not in the literary arts. Both form and content are necessary for ‘aesthetic emotion’.
I will focus on one specific brand of aesthetic emotion, that of the sublime, and it ought to be evident that the sublime falls into Bell’s definition of aesthetic emotion. However, it is necessary here to point out why the sublime is aesthetic emotion, just in case the formalist attempts to object to that notion. Philip Shaw states, “whenever experience slips out of conventional understanding, whenever the power of an object or event is such that words fail and points of comparison disappear, then we resort to the feeling of the sublime.” (Shaw 2006) If ‘words fail and points of comparison disappear’ or if ‘experience slips out of conventional understanding’, then Bell’s definition of aesthetic emotion ought to definitively encompass the sublime. If anything, the terms ‘aesthetic emotion’ and the ‘sublime’ could be seen as interchangeable; however, I will not attempt to assert that here.
Now that I have established the sublime as aesthetic emotion, I will now examine where in literature the sublime appears and attempt to point to a case in which it is clear and obvious that the sublime relies upon the content of the work of art, and not just simply the form. It appears in many places, especially the work of the Romantic writers. However, I would like to hone in on the writings of Virginia Woolf (who was, ironically, Clive Bell’s sister-in-law) and more specifically, a short story of hers called, “The Lady in the Looking Glass: A Reflection.” This piece is in the public domain and is readily accessed with any ‘Google’ search. In this short story, Woolf spends almost the entire time convincing the audience of certain truths about the main character in the story. The story is told entirely from a 3rd person ‘omniscient’ narrator and there is no dialogue from the character. What causes the sublimity within this short story, is the author convincing the reader of certain truths of the character, and then at the end of the passage Woolf completely contradicts herself and says that in actuality they were all untrue. Woolf writes, “As for facts, it was a fact that she [Isabella, the main character] was a spinster; that she was rich,” (Woolf) and then later she writes, “For it was another fact...that Isabella had known many people, had had many friends; and thus if one had the audacity to open a drawer and read her letters, one would find the traces of many agitations, of appointments to meet, of up braidings for not having met, long letters of intimacy and affection...” (Woolf) These statements tell the reader rather directly, notice the use of the word “fact”, that Isabella is a very wealthy woman who has had a lot of friends and experiences. The reader will generally accept the truth of these claims made by the narrator of the world the writer creates, as what is implied in the nickname given to the 3rd person narrator, omniscient, is that the narrator knows all. And if the narrator knows all, then when they tell us “facts” we should accept them as true. Then at the end of the piece, Woolf writes, “She stood naked in that pitiless light. And there was nothing. Isabella was perfectly empty. She had no thoughts. She had no friends. She cared for nobody. As for her letters, they were all bills.” (Woolf) This paints a radically different picture of Isabella. The truths of what Woolf wrote before are actually lies. This is what causes the sublime aesthetic emotion of this short story. It is the complete contradiction of truths of what came before. Notice that when we are talking about truths, we are talking about content. The reader has an idea, something that relates to life, in their mind and that idea is undermined by the very same person who gave them that idea, that is what causes the sublime aesthetic emotion in Woolf’s short story, not form. At this point, the formalist might try and point out that there are other formal properties of Woolf’s short story which contribute or cause the sublime aesthetic emotion. However, this does not hold up well because even though form does contribute and help the sublime affect, the content is still key in causing the sublimity. This suggests that form cannot be the only cause of aesthetic emotion and that content plays a role in its causation.
V. Conclusion
I have intended to demonstrate a problem for the formalist which contradicts many of formalism’s held beliefs by giving an example of a piece of literature which requires content to produce their “world of aesthetic exaltation”, and does not rely completely on form to achieve this. One may object that this is just one example and is based largely upon my own experience and other’s experiences of this specific work of art; however, if I can find even one obvious example which contradicts the formalist’s principles, then it, from my perspective, gives some reason to doubt their theory of art. It suggests that there may be more examples out there which also contradict the formalist’s theory, as well as suggests that content also has something to do with aesthetic emotion even in cases where it is not so obvious.
This essay has been attempting to show that even in the case of one of the most rigid and dogmatic cases of formalism, there are examples out there which causes problems for the formalist. So where does this leave content? I would suggest that there is probably a continuum of form and content which provides for great aesthetic experiences. Sometimes, depending upon the artist, form is more integral to the work, and sometimes content is more integral. I find it rather doubtful that either content or form can exist upon its own, and even the distinction between content and form is rather vague, especially in literature. How exactly is a metaphor just form, and not content, when it is comprised of words which refer to real life situations? Perhaps the negotiation of form and content is not a question for philosophers, but a skill that an artist must learn and acquire. Perhaps that is part of what makes art, art; the perfection of art is actually a perfection of skills related to the creation of an artwork. Such as form vs. content, artist vs. audience, artist vs. performer, artist vs. society. Perhaps the great artists just simply acquired a great ability to negotiate and work with these opposing forces to create the gems of art which still inspire and move us today. Is this true? Or is this not true? Those are ruminations to be answered for another day. What one should realize is that there is not a simple, concrete way of saying, “This is art, and this is not art”, such as what Bell attempts in “Art”, but that there are many factors which help elevate a piece from just simply a creation to a creation of art.
References
Bell, Clive. “Art.” 1914. Ed. Aaron Meskin & Steven M. Cahn. Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. 261-69. Print
Carroll, Noel. “Aesthetic Experience: A Question of Content.” Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed, Matthew Kieran. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. 69-97. Print.
Shaw, Philip. The Sublime, London: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Woolf, Virginia. “Lady in the Looking-Glass.” University of Pennsylvania, Department of English. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2013. <http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/
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