Response to Nicole's question on Clive Bell

I believe that this quote and Supporting quote before this one that "Art transports us from the worlds of man's activity to a world of Aesthetic exaltation" are to divorce the Aesthetic aspects of what he defines as art with most our of worldly contents, into a state unto itself.


His partial explanation seems to only capture a piece of the bigger idea about art in context with each individual life. In class we discussed the content and form relation and I think we can redefine his notions of our world and the world of Aesthetic Emotion where appreciation of art begins in order to capture his pure understanding of Aesthetic theory. This divorce is necessary to Bell because he overlooked forcibly or willingly the causal relationship between art as part of the physical world and Aesthetic experience as part of the cognitive world. I feel that if we modify his association of the quintessential aspects of content with the natural form which invokes in humans a peculiar emotion, then we can understand his perspective on art in an way that seems more accurate or insightful.


He is wrong only if we are ungenerous is our understanding of his claim, he seems to be in wholehearted belief that his conception is accurate and the stable foundation on which we can create a fruitful explanation of Aesthetic theory with, and when we modify it,  I think, we do find a usual approach to understanding an old but reexamined perspective of art.