“The Aesthetic Hypothesis,” by Clive Bell. A Short Response
“The Aesthetic Hypothesis,” by Clive Bell. A Short Response
“The starting point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion.” Significant Form becomes the main driver or the aesthetic experience. We feel the idea of easily categorized ‘objectivity’ fall away immediately when we start talking about aesthetics. Objectivity is not part of the discussion. This becomes the realm of feelings and reactions. The aesthetic experience is therefore not something to be conceptualized but rather something to be understood through sensual experience. This is a difficult concept to become accustomed to in our Westernized and Eurocentric society. Feelings are understood as weakness and we see individuals rebel against a force such as the arts which will disarm them and tear down the walls which they attempt to protect themselves with from the existential anguish inherent to reality and self-awareness.
As Bell tells us: a masterful painting is not necessarily a work of art, it can be a masterfully executed anecdotal image which elicits no emotional response and therefore falls short of being deemed a true work of art. True art must speak to our humanity, must elicit a deep response which we cannot turn away from, a response which envelops us in its reality and doesn’t let go of us until we have fully surrendered to the experience intended for us by the piece. We cannot stand in front of a great work of art and ignore it, it elicits a reaction from our most fundamental empathetic responses. We mirror it and it mirrors us. It is a piece which tells a story beyond verbal comprehension and articulation. It is an a priori happening which can only be experienced before grasping the impact which it has on us. It is only after it is fully experienced that we are able to begin fumbling for verbal descriptions, which almost always fall short of the true aesthetic value of such a piece.
“Great art remains stable and unobscured because the feelings that it awakens are independent of time and place...” It is through this great art that we are able to see our own deepest crevices of humanity as if through a mirror which only shows us our core and negates the shell which we so praise.