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ART
BY CLIVE BELL
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Printed in Great Britain
All rights reserved
WEI FIGURE, FIFTH CENTURY
In M. Vignier's Collection
PREFACE
In this little book I have tried to develop a complete theory of visualart. I have put forward an hypothesis by reference to which therespectability, though not the validity, of all aesthetic judgments canbe tested, in the light of which the history of art from palaeolithicdays to the present becomes intelligible, by adopting which we giveintellectual backing to an almost universal and immemorial conviction.Everyone in his heart believes that there is a real distinction betweenworks of art and all other objects; this belief my hypothesis justifies.We all feel that art is immensely important; my hypothesis affordsreason for thinking it so. In fact, the great merit of this hypothesisof mine is that it seems to explain what we know to be true. Anyone whois curious to discover why we call a Persian carpet or a fresco by Pierodella Francesca a work of art, and a portrait-bust of Hadrian or apopular problem-picture rubbish, will here find satisfaction. He willfind, too, that to the familiar counters of criticism—e.g. "gooddrawing," "magnificent design," "mechanical," "unfelt," "ill-organised,""sensitive,"—is given, what such terms sometimes lack, a definitemeaning. In a word, my hypothesis works; that is unusual: to some it hasseemed not only workable but true; that is miraculous almost.
In fifty or sixty thousand words, though one may develop a theoryadequately, one cannot pretend to develop it exhaustively. My book is asimplification. I have tried to make a generalisation about the natureof art that shall be at once true, coherent, and comprehensible. I havesought a theory which should explain the whole of my aestheticexperience and suggest a solution of every problem, but I have notattempted to answer in detail all the questions that proposedthemselves, or to follow any one of them along its slenderestramifications. The science of aesthetics is a complex business and so isthe history of art; my hope has been to write about them somethingsimple and true. For instance, though I have indicated very clearly, andeven repetitiously, what I take to be essential in a work of art, Ihave not discussed as fully as I might have done the relation of theessential to the unessential. There is a great deal more to be saidabout the mind of the artist and the nature of the artistic problem. Itremains for someone who is an artist, a psychologist, and an expert inhuman limitations to tell us how far the unessential is a necessarymeans to the essential—to tell us whether it is easy or difficult orimpossible for the artist to destroy every rung in the ladder by whichhe has climbed to the stars.