Arthur Schopenhauer's Theory Of Abstract Art

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British art critic and philosopher, Clive Bell, defended abstract art. Abstract art is art without a recognizable subject, it does not relate to anything external or try to look like something. Bell’s aesthetic theory concentrated on aesthetic experience. In his book titled, “Art”, his main claim states that there is a certain uniquely aesthetic emotion that are evoked and there are certain qualities that a work of art contain that evoke aesthetic emotion. In the visual arts, what evokes this emotion are certain forms and relations of forms which include line and color. Bell called this “significant form”. Aesthetic response to significant form is not to be identified with other emotional responses. German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, developed a metaphysical and ethical system that has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism. Schopenhauer’s writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology would exert important influence on thinkers and artists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory of aesthetics explains that is is a state of mind. When you are in this state of mind, you are free from misery …show more content…

Schopenhauer explains his philosophy of the aesthetic experience as one which is metaphysical. For Schopenhauer, the aesthetic experience is divided into two categories, the beautiful and the sublime. Both of these categories can be experienced through the perception of nature and art. According to Schopenhauer, the aesthetic experience is a universally held experience. The subjective aspect of the aesthetic experience characterizes the subject as one who has an aesthetic experience “pure of subject of cognition”. It is pure, because the subject’s intellect is not operating in terms of the will to life during the aesthetic experience. When the subject is participating in the aesthetic experience, they are using their senses and the freedom from the

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