In his book "Art", he took art works as examples and put forward the following views on art: "All aesthetic methods must be based on aesthetic experience. In other words, they are all subjective Starting from the idea of ????", in Clive Bell's view, the only way for people to experience works of art is "feeling". In his aesthetic hypothesis, he mentioned that the unique attribute of works of art is meaningful form, that is, forms arranged and combined in a special and pure way according to some unknown and mysterious laws. Impress us. We thus develop aesthetic emotions.

1. Only in works of art can we feel emotions

He explained that aesthetic emotions can only be caused by works of art and are a special emotion.

The wings of butterflies are beautiful. This kind of material beauty can move us, but it cannot move us aesthetically. It cannot move us like works of art.

"Significant form" conveys to us a certain emotion felt by the creator, while material beauty does not. The emotions of life, which convey information and express ideas, are fundamentally different from the emotions of aesthetics, and Bell strictly distinguishes them. Life emotions are utilitarian, realistic, secular, and means-based emotions, while aesthetic emotions are non-utilitarian, pure, and otherworldly emotions.

2. What kind of painting cannot be called a work of art?

Bell's explanation of aesthetic emotions is also directly reflected in his understanding of descriptive painting. Descriptive painting does not use form to arouse people's aesthetic emotions, but uses form to convey information and ideas. For example, "Paddington Station" conveys a lot of information and concepts and uses a lot of superb colors, which can definitely be of extremely high value.

But in Bell's view, Frith did not regard form and formal relationships as objects of emotion, but as a means of conveying concepts that imply emotion. Therefore, no one would be surprised in front of this superb picture. To obtain aesthetic pleasure, the work can only be regarded as a "document" and cannot be called a work of art. The so-called "documentation" can be understood as an accurate reproduction of real life.

It’s not that reproduction is bad, but that when reproduction has artistic value, it will inevitably reflect artistic value as an art form. A high degree of representation can also be meaningful, but representation is often used as a disguise, which can eliminate the meaningful form of the work. Bell cited the example of so-called "original works". The art of ancient Greece, the Wei and Tang Dynasties, and Egypt often lacked the reproduction of reality and superb skills, but were full of meaningful forms.

From this Bell concluded that if too much emphasis is placed on showing off skills and reproducing reality, then the meaning of the art form will be lost. Descriptive works may move us in a hundred ways, but they will never move us aesthetically.

3. The essence of art: the pure form corresponding to the "ultimate reality" in philosophy.

Artists materialize their own indescribable feelings and express their emotional grasp of form in their works of art. When the artist creates works of art through aesthetic attention to the object, he removes various labels from the object and does not regard it as a means among various connections, but as a pure form. This pure form is what he calls the meaning of the object itself as an end, which corresponds to the "ultimate reality" in philosophy.

Therefore, in the meaningful form mentioned by Bell, the meaning expressed by meaning is not only the aesthetic emotion obtained by the appreciator, but also can be understood on a deeper level as the sense of reality that grasps the "ultimate existence". If the pure formal relationship of art embodies these two levels, it will have real artistic meaning.

4. Analyzing art from post-impressionist paintings, art also has the same ultimate thinking about life as literature, history and philosophy.

Clive Bell's aesthetic hypothesis, that art is meaningful form, is deeply consistent with the concept of post-impressionist painting. If we classify literary and artistic works, we can roughly divide them into two types: content-focused and form-focused. It can be said that most of the art before Post-Impressionism focused on content, that is, objective reproduction. Post-Impressionism raised the concept of beauty and pursued pure beauty, in other words, "form". This is not to say that content is no longer important, but that artists are more focused on expressing their inner emotions. In other words, art begins to show the value of human existence. From then on, art also had the same ultimate thinking about life as literature, history and philosophy.

In his view, post-Impressionist painting is nothing more than a return to artistic principles. There is a difference between Post-Impressionist painting and Impressionist painting.

Although Impressionist paintings are using their own subjective emotions, they ultimately depict objective things. Post-Impressionist paintings, on the other hand, have to express their own subjective emotions in the final result of the painting. Therefore, the original color of the objective object is no longer important. What is really important is to use the depicted object to express a subjective emotion in the artist's heart. If impressionism imitates the world, then post-impressionism expresses subjective feelings about the objective world. This is what Clive Bell advocated in artistic creation to remove all labels and pursue the meaning of the object itself as the purpose.

In its pursuit of expressing subjective emotions and inner world, Post-Impressionism used more subjective emotional factors and symbolic spiritual concepts than previous art, reiterating the primary requirement that art should be a creative form. . As Clive Bell said: "Post-Impressionism spans a long history, shaking hands with Byzantine primitive art and every dynamic art movement since the birth of art."

In the early 19th century, art The river of art is slow and stagnant. In some respects, the modern art movement is a refutation of Impressionism. In an active era, the river of art has become richer. Clive Bell's aesthetic defense of post-Impressionism is actually In defense of modernist art as a whole.

What exactly is art? Bell provides us with his own profound and unique insights. There are countless great estheticians like him in history. Whose view is correct? We can only answer: there is no better understanding, only different understanding. In contemporary aesthetics, there is no perfect artistic perspective.

Bell's view also has flaws such as mysticism, but various aestheticians have made indelible contributions to the interpretation of art and the development of art. For us humans, artistic thinking is still a process that requires constant exploration.