Bell's theory relied on the notion that with significant form you see the whole before the parts. The model for that is classical Greek sculpture. It involved a flattening of form to enable one to sense a more or less uninterrupted outer contour of the figure. To see the opposite contrast a classical piece with a later Hellenistic piece. The the later work the parts dominate the whole to evoke a sense of action, even twirling action. Bell was really trying to ratify the prevailing affection for all things classical and apply it at modernism.
wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, August 29, 2011 6:10:50 PM Subject: Re: Fiction It is also possible that there are so many sorts f significant form that we can't collect them all anyway except for a few obvious ones. I don't believe in significant form either but if there is such a thing it might very well lie beyond our capacities to find all of it,leading to a feeling of freedom. Bell restricted himself to a few forms and came up with a contradictory theory of aesthetics inasmuch as there were a lot of exceptions to the theory. Kate Sullivan -----Original Message----- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 6:42 pm Subject: Re: Fiction William wrote: > Alas, Michael has fallen for the Significant Form Theory of Clive Bell (1914) > Bell argued, just as Michael does, that form is superior to subject and it's > form, visual form (or literary form) that is the core of aesthetic value and > meaning. Not so. Bell claimed that "For a discussion of aesthetics, it need be agreed only that forms arranged and combined according to certain unknown and mysterious laws do move us in a particular way, and that it is the business of an artist so to combine and arrange them that they shall move us. These moving combinations and arrangements I have called, for the sake of convenience and for a reason that will appear later, 'Significant Form.' As I read it, he asserted that *certain* forms and combinations of forms evoked an aesthetic emotion, and it was those combinations that he called "Significant Form." I say that all of the devices, forms, shapes, and other components of paintings and sculptures are freely adjustable and arbitrary, which means that the artist can (and does) value those discrete formal components for their own sakes, as shapes and colors, etc., and it is that entire arbitrariness of representations that gives works of art their aesthetic power. Even the extrinsic matters, the story, the referred subjects, the scenes and sitters are subordinated to the completely free direction of the artist. You greatly admire Goya's "Third of May": Every detail of that picture was chosen, shaped, and disposed by Goya arbitrarily, including the subject matter itself. A nude figure, a subject that easily commands great attention, shares the viewer's attention with the artist's manner of depiction, as we can see from our reactions to Titian, Rubens, Schiele, Modigliani, Pearstein, Neal, and all the others. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
