The Project Gutenberg eBook, Art, by Clive Bell

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Title: Art

Author: Clive Bell

Release Date: October 21, 2005 [eBook #16917]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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ART

by

CLIVE BELL

1913

[Illustration: WEI FIGURE, FIFTH CENTURY
_In M. Vignier's Collection_]

New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers

Printed in Great Britain

All rights reserved

PREFACE

In this little book I have tried to develop a complete theory of visual
art. I have put forward an hypothesis by reference to which the
respectability, though not the validity, of all aesthetic judgments can
be tested, in the light of which the history of art from palaeolithic
days to the present becomes intelligible, by adopting which we give
intellectual backing to an almost universal and immemorial conviction.
Everyone in his heart believes that there is a real distinction between
works of art and all other objects; this belief my hypothesis justifies.
We all feel that art is immensely important; my hypothesis affords
reason for thinking it so. In fact, the great merit of this hypothesis
of mine is that it seems to explain what we know to be true. Anyone who
is curious to discover why we call a Persian carpet or a fresco by Piero
della Francesca a work of art, and a portrait-bust of Hadrian or a
popular problem-picture rubbish, will here find satisfaction. He will
find, too, that to the familiar counters of criticism--_e.g._ "good
drawing," "magnificent design," "mechanical," "unfelt," "ill-organised,"
"sensitive,"--is given, what such terms sometimes lack, a definite
meaning. In a word, my hypothesis works; that is un