Aesthetics – Clive Bell (1881-1964)

“Clive Bell (1881-1964)
 was a British art critic and philosopher of art who defended abstract art. Bell’s aesthetic theory was focused on aesthetic experience. He claimed (in his book
 Art, 1914) that there is a certain uniquely aesthetic emotion, and that
 aesthetic qualites are the qualities in an object that evoke this emotion. In
 the visual arts, what arouses this emotion is certain “forms and relations
 of forms” (including line and color), which Bell called “significant
 form”. Aesthetic response to significant form is not to be identified,
 according to Bell, with other emotional responses. For example, a photograph
 of a loved one might evoke fond memories and feelings of love; the statue of
 the planting of the flag at Iwo Jima might arouse feelings of patriotism; the
 Vietnam War Memorial might evoke feelings of grief or lament (my examples).
 While these are all perfectly appropriate responses, they are not aesthetic
 responses. Rather the aesthetic response is a response to the forms and relations
 of forms themselves, regardless of what other meanings, associations or uses
 they may have. It is a strong emotion, often a kind of ecstasy, akin to the
 ecstasy felt in religious contemplation. The emotion, and the kinds of significant
 form that evoke it, are the same for cave art, Polynesian carvings, a Vermeer
 painting or a Cezanne.”

…