Beautiful in Political

Clive Bell argues that art goes beyond morals, thus immune to any political critique (Bell, 1989, p. 335). I disagree with that statement and believe that art is open to morality and, therefore, is a subject of political critique. To show that I will, first, explain Bell’s view towards formal art and how it provokes aesthetic emotions through its significant form, making the art ‘higher’ than morals and politics. This will give readers some insights into Bell’s terminology so that they can understand the overall discussion and allow me to provide objections. Then, to object to his point, I will argue that Bell, instead must recognize two distinct forms of aesthetic experience, a descriptive-based form and a form that is based entirely on ‘Significant Form’. We will find, though, that Bell can argue that aesthetic experiences based entirely on Significant Form are still aesthetically privileged because they are shared by all, an aesthetic value that cannot be claimed for the kind of aesthetic experience based on descriptive features. This, in turn, improves the argument of Bell, because it still allows him to support the superiority of aesthetic emotions, yet recognizes the existence of non-aesthetic emotions in art.

For Bell, aesthetic emotions arise when a person experiences art, feeling as if going beyond human nature, comparable to ecstasy. Such a feeling comes from the way lines, colours, and forms are combined in the art, which he generalizes and calls ‘Significant Form’. This form allows Bell to separate between randomly drawn lines and true art that gives aesthetic emotions like ecstasy. Such a comparison of aesthetic emotions with ecstasy is important for his argumentation because it allows him to distinguish between aesthetic and non-aesthetic emotions. While aesthetic emotions go beyond the ‘human’ characteristics, non-aesthetic emotions intrinsically have such characteristics. The latter may include human feelings like joy, sadness, anger, etc. This differentiation of emotions gives ground for Bell to argue further that true art shall not try to provoke anything sentimental, except for aesthetic emotions. If there shall be nothing but aesthetic emotions in art, then anything of human interest shall be excluded, including morality and politics, because they are a part of human interests. Overall, Bell connects sentiments, morality, and politics to the non-aesthetic (human) part to exclude it from the ‘true art’ that gives aesthetic emotions. As he considers the aesthetic emotion to be transcending the human, it is necessary for him to disconnect anything that can be considered close to the human characteristics from the true art. Therefore, we can see him trying to detach the notion of politics and morality in art.

Even though Bell did not mention either representational or formal properties directly in his paper, a mark of them can still be found, but given in other words. As representational properties represent some object or a person, Bell, most probably, would say that they are purely a part of the descriptive painting because the latter tries to give some information or meaning through the objects in the painting. Art with representational properties cannot be considered as an art as it represents some kind of an object which is akin to descriptive painting’s attempts to give us information, which is the case for art based on the descriptive form. As for formal properties, Bell may say that from such properties true art can be made, because they use only various lines, forms, and colours, and do not try to convey meaning by that. If they are not trying to convey a meaning by that, then there are no representational properties to be found. If that is true, then art that uses formal properties can be open for a person to feel aesthetic emotions, which is the case for art based on the significant form.

The point of Bell was to show that true art does not meddle the aesthetic and non-aesthetic emotions as art has the characteristics of only the former, thus only significant form can lead a person to have a true aesthetic experience, while descriptive form cannot do the same. I disagree with his statement and think that the aesthetic experience in art can be achieved in two forms: in a descriptive-based form and in a form that is based entirely on ‘Significant Form’. First may come in the form of political propaganda. For example, a person sympathizing with Nazi ideas will probably get the aesthetic ecstasy from war propaganda posters that show the Nazis on a morally good side, while the enemies (i.e. Soviets and other Allies) are on the wrong side.