green numbers give full details.     |    back to list of philosophers     |     expand these ideas

Ideas of Clive Bell, by Text

[British, fl. 1914, Writer on aesthetics, and prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group.]

1913 Art
p.615 Only artists can discern significant form; other people must look to art to find it [Gardner]
I.I p.5 Our feeling for natural beauty is different from the aesthetic emotion of art
I.I p.6 The word 'beauty' leads to confusion, because it denotes distinct emotions
I.I p.11 Visual form can create a sublime mental state
I.III p.20 Maybe significant form gives us a feeling for ultimate reality
I.III p.22 Mere copies of pictures are not significant - unless the copies are very exact
I.III p.23 Art is distinguished by its aesthetic emotion, which produces appropriate form
I.III p.24 Aestheticism invites artist to create beauty, but with no indication of how to do it
I.III p.25 Good art produces exaltation and detachment
II.I p.29 We only see landscapes as artistic if we ignore their instrumental value
II.I p.31 Religion sees infinite value in some things, and irrelevance in the rest
II.II p.36 Significant form is the essence of art, which I believe expresses an emotion about reality
II.II p.37 Art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality
II.III p.41 Aesthetic contemplation is the best and most intense mental state
II.III p.43 Only artistic qualities matter in art, because they also have the highest moral value
III.I p.48 The only expression art could have is the emotion resulting from pure form
IV.III p.88 Aesthetic experience is an exaltation which increases the possibilities of life
p.17 p.119 'Form' is visual relations, and it is 'significant' if it moves us aesthetically; art needs both [Feagin]