Second Question on Bell

Does Bell’s overall pompousness and usage of the rhetorical hinder his argument to the point of null and void?


I'm not sure that it renders Bell's point void, but I do believe it hinders his argument.  His circular logic in regards to aesthetic emotion and significant form, to which his only defense for that argument is that people should be sensible to agree with him, is nothing more than Bell being pious.  He tries to drive home his points by being passive aggressive, and that is not a good means of defense whatsoever.  If Bell cannot defend his points through legitimate reason and evidence, then he cannot make a good argument.


This being said, it does not mean that his argument should not be tossed aside completely.  Quite the contrary, it is something that should be considered thoughtfully, and while I do not agree with Bell, I feel that his argument is an interesting one.  If nothing more, it is an example of how not to form an argument and how  not to view art.  While Bell may be a well known art critic and well known for being married to Virginia Woolf's sister and for being a part of the Bloomsbury Group (by which, incidentally, he was hated by the rest of the members), he seems, to me, be ignorant in what true art really is and what aesthetic pleasure really is.

First Question on Bell

Clive Bell does not mention theater when he brings up his argument considering visual art, so do you believe that theater would fall within the confines of his argument?


In regards to Bell's argument, I think that theater would probably follow under what he does not consider to be art.  Theater consists of live people to represent certain emotions and other things through acting.  Since the players are merely imitating and representing things from real life, then it would not be art to Bell.  It would be focused more on content rather than form, although in theater what a player looks like and what props are used are very important, however, they are also used in a representative way, and therefore will probably not fall under Bell's definition of art.


While I do not agree with the premise that I just laid out in terms of whether this makes theater "real" visual art, I do believe this is how Bell would put it, or at least somewhere along these lines.  It does not seem that art follows significant form as the combination of lines, shape, and color, or at least not how Bell would like them too.  And especially since theater is not presented in an abstract way, at least to the eye, then it only falls further from Bell's definition.

Nicole's Question on Bell

I don't really believe that Bell explains his idea that emotions in life have no place in the aesthetic world.  Not only do I believe he doesn't explain it fully, I also don't believe that he is correct in this claim.  I feel that Bell is simply trying to narrow art to something much less than it actually is, and that his view of art is a flawed one.

If we derive a feeling or emotion from a piece of art, even as Bell defines it, and even if it is the "aesthetic emotion" that he so desperately clings to, in all actuality, since we ourselves would be feeling said emotion, it would be an emotion that is felt in life, for we are alive, and we are feeling it, therefore it exists here.  As far as I am concerned, emotions in the aesthetic world and our world are one and the same, and more importantly, the aesthetic world and our world are one and the same.

Art is much more ambiguous that Bell believes, and his aesthetic emotion is not the only important that can be derived from art.  Emotions in life make up the emotions that are in art, and the emotions that we derive from art are once that we experience here, for we experience an emotion from art from our past experiences.  Without our experiences from life and emotions derived from said experiences, what we feel from art does not exist and does not matter.  Life and art are tied together and knit so closely that they cannot be separated by any means.