For this week's session of 7 Ways of Thinking About Art we focussed on R.G.Collingwood's theory of art as set out in his book The Principles of Art (1938).
For Collingwood, the artist tells his or her audience 'the secrets of their own hearts' (p.336). The artist expresses an emotion, that is takes it from the stage of inchoate feeling to expressed and clarified emotion. The process of designing while making makes the nature of the emotion more precise:
'Until a man has expressed his emotion, he does not yet know what it is.'
and the artist proper is
' ...a person who, graplling with the problem of expressing a certain emotion, says 'I want to get this clear'. (p.114)
The audience in appreciating the work of art comes to express their own emotion in reaction to the work in a kind of recapitulation of the process the artist has gone through.
For Collingwood there aren't blueprints in art, nor is art simply a matter of technique (though he acknowledges that you need some technique to create anything). Art isn't a matter of knowing what you want to create then finding the best means to achieve that end; rather it is a process of dicscovery, of self-discovery that ultimately aids the viewer's self-discovery. In part this may be achieved by an appreciation of tactile values - the imaginative physical engagement through small body movements with the brushstrokes, or carving marks, or shapes in a picture of sculpture (an idea that Collingwood borrowed from Bernard Berenson).
In contrast various kinds of 'art so-called' such as magical art are means/ends directed. Magical art evokes emotions that have a practical use in life. Examples include propaganda art , religious art or patriotic art. None of these count as genuine art for Collingwood. Nor is Amusement Art. This is skilfully constructed to evoke a particular kind of emotion, a preconceived effect. Again, this is a craft. Think of Hitchcock's film Psycho (not Collingwood's example) and the ways in which Hitchcock skilfully and knowingly evokes fear in his audience through a range of techniques surrounding the famous shower scene. This is a real end-directed craft.
Real art, art proper, turns the audience into artists in that they engage in the same imaginative activity of making their emotions precise. Collingwood cites Coleridge approvingly:
'we know a man for a poet by the fact that he makes us poets'
In discussion it became apparent that some people thought this a hopelessly outmoded and romantic approach to art; others acknowledged that this is close to how many gallery goers understand art.
Further Reading
R.G.Collingwood The Principles of Art
Nigel Warburton, The Art Question, chapter 2.
Aaron Ridley R.G. Collingwood
In the galleries we looked at works by Giacometti and Rothko (in Material Gestures, level 3 of Tate Modern) from Collignwood's perspective. These works lend themselves to this sort of treatment. Other works, such as the conceptual art we looked at last week, certainly would not.
If you want to learn more about Rothko's Seagram Murals there is a fascinating article about the works in the Rothko Room by Jonathan Jones here and another by the novelist John Banville here Also an mp3 on Rothko's painting techniques.
Next week, art as original...Don't forget we are meeting in the East Room of Tate Modern...
You can read Miranda's blog post on the session on art as intentional here.
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