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INTRODUCTION
Meaning of Aesthetics
I. NOTION OF ART
Art and nature
Art and science.
Art and prudence.
Art as an intellectual virtue.
Art and aesthetics
II. KINDS OF ART
Liberal arts
Fine art.
Another division of art is:
Analysis of fine art
III. FINALITY OF ART
Art and contemplation.
IV. THEORIES OF ART: REFERENTIALISM, EXPRESSIONISM, FORMALISM
1. Referentialism / Imitation.
2. Expressionism.
3. Formalism
V. BEAUTY
VI. CONCEPT OF THE AESTHETIC
VII. AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT
VIII. AESTHETICS AND RELIGION

INTRODUCTION
Meaning of Aesthetics
The term aesthetics was first used by H.G Baumgarten in 1753. The term as used in this
course will be what can be termed philosophical aesthetics, which is the study of the nature
of art, of beauty and of aesthetic value. Thus, aesthetics will be taken to mean the philosophy
of art. In the narrowest sense, aesthetics can be said to refer more specifically to the
philosophy of fine art, emphasising the association of art with beauty and the study of beauty.

I. NOTION OF ART
The term art derives from the Greek techne which is normally translated into the Latin ars.
Art is sometimes used in a narrower sense to mean only the visual arts and sometimes in a

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 sense so broad that it is difficult to find a common definition.
In its original meaning, art meant skill in making. The ancient Greeks use the term to refer
firstly to the crafts that satisfy basic human needs. From this, the notion was refined to mean
"the capacity to make in accordance with sound reason" (Nic. Ethics 1140a20). It was then
extended from making products immediately necessary for living to make things ordered to
knowledge and enjoyment ic to what we now call liberal and fine art.
Art is regarded as an intellectual virtue, more specifically a virtue of practical intellect. The
virtues can be divided into intellectual and moral virtues. The intellectual virtues can be
divided into the virtues of the speculative intellect i.e. intelligence (understanding), wisdom,
science and the virtues of the practical intellect i.e. art and prudence.

But, in the strict sense i.e. mechanical art, is an intellectual virtue that directs the actions
which pass into exterior matter e.g. the actions of building. We may define art therefore as a
habit of the practical intellect whereby it has the "right reason about things to be made" (recta
ratio factibilium) of ST 1-11, 57, 3-5; NE Bk6, c. 4, 1140. Art is a habit of the intellect, for it
is an objectively stable quality of intellect, for art is said to be about singular and contingent
objects on the part of the application to work, but not on the part of the rules whereby it
directs, for they are fixed and determinant and in universal. Therefore art is numbered among
the intellectual virtues. But art is a habit of the practical intellect, for art is a right ordering of
things to be made, and thus it is an operative habit.
Art may be considered in two ways: 1) as applied to operation: 2) as setting forth the rules of
operation in the universal and in the abstract (John of St Thomas, Cur. Theo III, p.350a). Art,
considered as setting forth the rules of operation, has the mode of speculation and in a wide
sense may be called science, but it is not science in the strict sense. For art, as set forth the
rules for operation in the universal and abstract, is not a habit distinct from art applied to
operation.

Art and nature

The man noticed the strong resemblances between the way he produces something and the
way in which nature works. Plato's Timaeus seeks to render the patterns of the universe
intelligible by comparing it with man's own making, and by seeing nature as a work of divine
art. In Physics, Aristotle compares the making of a statue or a bed (accidental changes) to
help understand how natural changes (for example substantial changes) take place. It is in
this context of making as resembling natural processes that Aristotle's dictum "Art imitates
nature" is first to be understood.

Art and science.

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 The notion of art as a skill also distinguishes art from science. Both art and science are
knowledge, but arti is ordered to something apart from knowledge itself, that is, the work
produced. In art, therefore, knowledge is for the sake of producing. In science, we seek to
understand that something is so or why it is so. However, some disciplines can be both art
and science.

Art and prudence.

Art is akin to prudence. Although both involve reason, they are concerned with distinct kinds
of activity Prudence uses knowledge to act well (recta ratio agibilium), whereas art uses
knowledge to produce objects well (recta ratio factibilium). Prudence, therefore, involves the
moral order in a way art does not. Thus prudence is a moral as well as an intellectual virtue in
man.

Art as an intellectual virtue.

Art is before all else intellectual and its activity consists in impressing an idea upon a matter.
Therefore it resides in the mind of the artificer. It is a certain quality of that mind ie a habit or
virtue, a stable and permanent condition perfecting the subject it informs. It is an operative
habit and a habit of the practical intellect. Such a habit is a virtue. It confers a certain
perfection and operative efficiency to the faculty of the practical intellect. The presence of
such a virtue in the artificer is necessary for the goodness of the work, for the manner of the
action follows the disposition of the agent and as a man is so are his works. For a work to
turn out well, there must correspond to it in the intellect of the workmen a disposition as will
produce an intimate proportion.

Art as such (and not the artist whose actions often run contrary to his art) never makes a
mistake and involves an infallible correctness Otherwise it would not be a habit, stable by its
very nature. The truth of the practical intellect consists in directing, in conformity with what
ought to be, according to the rule and the proper disposition of a thing to be done. There can
be infallible truth in direction, there can be art, as there is prudence, where contingencies are
concerned. But this infallibility of art concerns only the formal element in the operation ie the
regulation of the work by the mind. A defect in the way the artist executes the work of art in
no way affects the art itself considered as a virtue. On the material side art involves
contingency and fallibility, but in itself and on the formal side art is firmly fixed in certitude.

Prudence operates for the good of the worker (ad bonum operantis), art operates for the good
of the work (ad bonum operis). Art confers only the power of making well (facultas boni
operis) and not the habitual practice of making well.

Art proceeds according to certain definite ways. This possession of ascertained rules is an
essential characteristic of art as such. For example, the proper end of the art of clockmaking

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 is an invariable end determined by reason i.e. to tell time. And for that, there are fixed rules,
also determined by reason, as suitable to the end and to a certain set of conditions. Art
derives its steadfastness from its rational and universal rules.

Art and aesthetics

The narrowing of the meaning of art to fine art and the resolution of the theory of art to
aesthetics is a relatively modern attribution. A Baumgarten in the 18 century is generally
regarded as the first to try to construct systematic aesthetics in the modern sense Earlier
philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and writers in the Middle Ages did make contributions
to the philosophy of fine art, but more recently fine arts have emphasized an association of
art with beauty and stressing the autonomy of fine art In such a view there is a distinct world
of fine art and aesthetic experience.

II. KINDS OF ART

On the basis of work or product, art is divided into liberal and servile art. Servile arts are
those arts in which the product is something outside the soul e.g. bridges, paintings, statues,
ships etc. Thus building. engineering, sculpture, painting are servile arts. Servile art makes an
object from external physical matter and is the result of bodily effort on the part of the maker.
Such matter is able to receive an artificial. accidental form e.g. wood can be shaped into a
table, chair or bed. The action involved is transitive it is an action that originates in the agent
but terminates outside the agent in some product that comes to exist in physical matter. The
name art can be said to refer primarily to servile art. This is a priority of naming. not a
priority of perfection.

Liberal arts
Liberal arts are those arts in which the product remains within the soul. Such products are for
example syllogisms, propositions etc. Thus logic is such an art. A liberal art is an art in a less
obvious sense. The traditional division of the liberal arts is into the trivium (logic, grammar,
rhetoric) and the quodrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). Liberal art is less
evidently art because the making involved is not a transitive action but imminent i.e. it is an
activity that both originates and terminates within the t forming the agent and not some
external physical object. The object of liberal art is immaterial, found mainly in the mind or
imagination of the artist. This object does not involve making in the original sense, yet
proportionally there is an indetermination in mind acquiring that it be set in order e.g order is
brought into a man's thinking when he establishes how we reason in a valid way, such as by
the use of a syllogism. Such constructions have existence in the mind and imagination. We,
therefore, see the reason for calling such arts "liberal', since the subjects and purposes of

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 these arts relate to the mind of man whereby he is liberated or set three from lack of order.
Although the name 'art' first signifies manual craft, nevertheless when considering the work
produced, liberal art is primary.

Fine art.
Fine art can have characteristics of both servile and liberal art. Some fine arts are liberal.
Poetry and music would be liberal, for the poet and the composer produce their works
primarily by imminent action and their works exist chiefly in the imagination. Other fine arts
are servile in that the objects made require external physical matter and labour for their
existence. For example, a painting is embodied on canvas and paint or a statue in stone.
To appreciate the distinctive character of fine art we need to consider another division. From
the standpoint of purpose, art can be further divided into useful and fine. The useful arts of
those whose product is ordered towards the utility or usefulness of man eg such products are
engines, computers, tables etc. Therefore examples of useful arts are engineering, carpentry
and shipbuilding. Fine arts are those whose product is ordered towards the expression of the
beautiful. Such products are statues, paintings, poems, music etc. Examples of fine arts are
therefore sculpture, painting, poetry, music etc. This division into useful and fine arts is an
accidental division because it is taken not from the nature of the art, but from the end towards
which its product is ordered. Further, it should be noted that the same art can be at the same
time something useful and something beautiful e.g. architecture.
The productions of fine arts are contemplated and enjoyed primarily for their own sake.
However, this does not preclude their also being ordered to some other extrinsic end. In the
case of the painting, for example, it has a kind of significance which incites enjoyment of
form wholly lacking to a merely useful product, such as a hammer. The painting is viewed
primarily for itself, any functional value it has a secondary.

Also, there is a distinctive and unique type of enjoyment that arises in the viewing or
hearing of a work of fine art which follows from the equally distinctive type of
contemplation realized in appreciating the work. It could be said that the end sought in the
work of fine art is the contemplation and enjoyment of beauty.

It should be noted that man's preoccupation with beauty, pleasing form, design etc also
carries over into useful products of art, and therefore the division of art into useful and fine
should not be taken too rigidly. A shoe is a product of useful art, yet we find it desirable that
a shoe also looks good. We tend to project. our desire for the beauty of form into objects
around us as much as possible, such that very few products of human art, even very utilitarian
products, escape our desire for artistic enjoyment.

Another division of art is:

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 Visual arts: architecture, ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture,
Literary Arts; Performing arts; music, theatre, dance,

Analysis of fine art

According to Aristotle, what distinguishes fine art from either liberal or servile art is
imitation. All art in a sense imitates nature, sometimes in appearance, sometimes in
operation. What is peculiar to fine art is that imitation and delight in imitation is the
immediate end sought in fine art, whereas imitation serves only as a means in liberal or
servile art.

💡 The work of art imitates the nature according to Aristotle.

Imitation or representation here does not have to be identified with more or less literal
copying of nature. In the visual arts, such as painting, imitation can be associated with a
natural or photographic likeness. But artistic imitation does not rest upon a complete
dependence of the image upon some original in nature from which it proceeds. It always
involves some degree of abstraction. Further, there is equal if not more dependence of the
image upon man's creative imagination and understanding. It should therefore be understood
as a creative imitation. It is imitation in that a work of art represents something other than
itself, being a type of sign or symbol. As such it has some reference to some aspect of reality
as we experience it. However, it is also creative, in that the mind and imagination of the artist
is also a source and indeed a more significant one. Therefore no artist merely reproduces
some aspect of reality, while no abstract work of art can wholly escape reference to the
human experience of reality.
Artistic imitation, therefore, ranges from one extreme of approaching a somewhat literal
representation of reality to the opposite extreme of retaining only a slight but still significant
representation of some quality detected in reality.

In the poetic arts, the object of imitation is the action and passion of man as reflected
variously in the poem, novel or drama. It could be said that the common object of all fine art
is human action and passion, the differences among the fine arts deriving from the manner
and means of imitation. Music, although often regarded as non-imitative art, does represent
the flow of passion by means of tonal and properly musical progressions. The use of music to
accompany drama film manifests this. The music bears witness to such primal
representational principles as tension and release, the expected and unexpected, arousal and
resolution.

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 III. FINALITY OF ART
Finality refers to the end or purpose of art. This can be both the purpose of the artist and of
the work of art itself. The two may coincide, but the artist can also order his work of art to
something extrinsic to the work itself, such as propaganda or some other foreign end. This is
one way art and morality may be related. Over and above the good of art itself, the artist may
be working for a morally good or bad cause.
Morality of art. Art and morality may be related also within the work itself. Such a work of
art images human nature in its various manifestations and chiefly in its moral character. The
artistic image can thus express man in some way acting as a moral agent. This is especially so
in poetic art and proportionately so in other arts.

An intrinsic relation between art and morality is evident in the following way. Whenever a
work of art creatively expresses something of human action and passion, the moral order
enters into the work of art as a formal constituent, because human action and passion are
voluntary and such acts are moral acts. Further, the moral order contributes to the delight,
intelligibility and beauty of art. When a moral dimension enters into the construction of an
artwork, the artist has an obligation to represent what is morally good as good and what is
morally bad as bad. However the intrinsic end of art should not be overtly moral. Art then
suffers when used only to promote morality.

Thus we can say that the finality of art is twofold. One is the arousal and release of the
emotions wherein lies arts great appeal for man. Aristotle's notion of catharsis manifests this
in relation to tragedy. This cathartic end however is instrumental, since it disposes us for the
ulterior end, which is artistic contemplation and delight.

The different judgements of the moralist and of the art critic. The art critic judges a product
eg. a statue, a painting, insofar as they are things made and therefore if they are a good
product, he will praise or approve them. But the moralist judges them as they are doings or
actions, and therefore if they are suitable for man, he will praise and approve them, but he
will disprove them if they are unsuitable. Thus some actions which are praised by the art
critic may be disapproved by the moralist and vice versa. For example, if some painter paints
a beautiful picture, which nevertheless will be an occasion of sin for many. But in the
concrete case, the verdict of the moralist should always prevail. For the art critic judges only
from the goodness c.g. beauty, of the product, which is an inferior value. But the moralist
judges from the suitability to the good of man, which is concerned about the supreme value ie
happiness, which is realized in God.

Art and contemplation.

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 Artistic contemplation is a distinct kind of knowing, accompanied by a distinct type of
delight, realised proportionately in different parts. It is a knowledge appropriate to the human
mode of knowing; a union of sense and intellect, image and concept, imagination and
understanding. In this lies the source of the special delight that accompanies this
contemplation, which is at once both an action of sense and intellectual appetite. There is the
mutual sense delight and there is the intellectual delight attending upon the grasp of order,
such as the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic construction of a piece of music, or the order of
elements in a work of sculpture. Such delight arises from seeing in a work of creative
representation an object that is more expressly formed and more intelligible than the original
thing that is referred. Contemplation with its ensuring delight constitutes the primary worth
of art.

IV. THEORIES OF ART: REFERENTIALISM,

EXPRESSIONISM, FORMALISM
The concept of the fine arts as a special class (comprising both major arts such as painting,
sculpture, architecture, music, literature, as well as many minor arts) is a modern
development. One of the most fundamental aesthetic problems of the modern way is: what is
the common and central character of works fine art? There are three main theories of art.
Within each category there are many diverging views and individual philosophers may
straddle two theories: representationalism/imitation, expressionism and formalism. Most of
what follows is an analysis from Sheppard."

1. Referentialism / Imitation.
Many works of art appear to imitate or represent things in the real world. For example, a
painting may represent a landscape or a person. This has led to the theory that art is
essentially imitative or representational, though with something left out or added (abstraction
or distortion). This is one of the earliest theories of art.

Plato holds that art is mimesis or imitation. He held, in his theory of Forms, that there exist
ideal Forms of things, of which things in the world are only copies or imitations. In Republic
X he speaks of a Form of a thing. In the case of a bed, there are three levels of making and
imitating. First there is the perfect Form of the bed in the Ideal world of Forms, then there is
the bed made by the carpenter and finally there is the copy of the bed produced by the
painter. The carpenter's bed is inferior to the form of a bed, but the painted bed is still more
inferior and less real since it is an imitation of an imitation. He holds that literature is
imitative in the same way. Thus on this view, art is seen as imitation and hence as inferior to
the Forms.

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 A modification of this theory is to say that the artist imitates directly not the real thing, such
as a bed, but the Form itself (stronger version). In this version of the theory, the painting of
equal in value to the carpenter's bed, or it could be said that the Form is not in an ideal world
of Forms but in the mind of the artist (weaker version). Both the weaker and stronger
versions of this modified theory of imitation have exerted significant influence on the
practice of the arts. Many Renaissance artists thought of themselves as reproducing ideals in
the visual form of paint or marble.

There are two major difficulties with this theory according to Sheppard: 1) The theory not
only claims that imitation is what all works of art have in common but also makes this the
criterion of their value. Plato relegates all art to an inferior value simply because it is
imitative. The modified theory, according to which art imitates the Forms directly, or imitates
an idea in the artist's mind, regards the art which most successfully imitates the ideal as most
valuable. In this theory, the more successful the imitation, the better the art. It would take the
art of trompe-l'oeil or hyper realistic art as most successful. However, it could be argued that
we not only value works of art simply because they are imitative. Imitation does not fully
explain why we value works of art. For example, we may value a painting because of the use
of colour, composition of its subject matter etc even if not an exact representation of
something in reality.
2) Secondly, it may be doubted whether it is true that all works of art are imitative or
represent reality. Certainly landscape painting, portrait sculpture, realistic literature and
drama can be thought of as imitative, but not all painting, sculpture, literature and drama are
like this. For example, abstract painting, lyric poetry and music. Very litte music is imitative
in the same sense as landscape painting.

First difficulty. We can consider what role imitation or representation plays in the value of
works of art. One view is that representation in art aims at illusion i.e. in producing
something which so resembles its original that the spectator, reader or audience take it to be
indeed the original. The other extreme of this view is that representation is entirely a matter
of convention. For example, in western European art there is a convention that figures with
golden circles around their heads represent saints. While the view that representation aims at
illusion favours the analogy of the mirror i.e. art as reflecting reality, the view that
representation is conventional tends to adopt an analogy between art and language or art and
a system of signs.

Both the extreme views of the nature of representation are open to objection since both fail to
explain what is peculiar to artistic representation. The view of representation as illusion: 1)
suggest that the artist's aim is deception. 2) The fact that we can distinguish between hyper
realistic art and other kinds of art indicates that no simple version of the illusion view is
correct. 3) Further, our appreciation of a painting, for example, depends on seeing it both as a

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 representation of something and as a set of shapes and colours. We are always conscience
that it is paint on canvas we are viewing. In the case of drama, when we appreciate the play
we relate events in it to events in the real world but we do not take the world of the stage to
be indeed the real world, Rather we know all the time it is not.
To say that artistic representation is a matter of convention risks assimilating the conventions
of art to other kinds of convention. This theory also fails to distinguish within the sphere of
art between the representational and non-representational e.g, we would not say that a
landscape painting in which all the trees were red and sea yellow represented the colours of
trees and the sea, even if we are told this artist was painting according to a set of colour
conventions.

However, understanding a work of representational art involves both a recognition of

resemblance and an appreciation of convention. Wittgenstein claimed that 'seeing as' was a
distinct kind of perception, different from regular 'seeing. This understanding forces us to
consider not the nature of the work of art but the nature of our response to it. We could also
use the expression 'seeing in'. When we see A as a

representation of B, first we perceive some kind of resemblance between A and B although

we do not mistake A for B, being aware of respects in which A differs from B. We also are
assisted in this perception by conventions governing artistic representation e.g. that the
painting is two-dimensional and flat and has a frame.

What distinguishes the work of art is that certain shapes and colours have been deliberately
made to be perceived as a representation. When we see a landscape painting with its shapes
and colours we recognise an intention on the part of the artist that we should recognise the
shapes and colours in this way. There is more involved in recognising the conventions that
make the canvas a picture. We recognise the deliberate exploitation of those conventions.

When we respond to A as a representation of B, we are not only deciphering a code or

recognising a resemblance. Our imagination links A and B, guided by the cues the artist has
included in the work. We value representative art which gives scope and capacity to the
imagination. The art of ultra realism is not highly valued because it leaves little room for
imagination; it is too much like reality. Therefore it is not simply copying that we value but
the balance but it struck between copying and convention. This balance is valued because of
the imaginative effort they demand of us.

Second difficulty. The second difficulty or objection is that it is not true that all works of art
are imitative or representational. It is the second objection which is ultimately fatal to the
theory that art as imitation. If we take the theory that art is imitation to mean that art is
representation and that we respond to art by 'seeing in or other forms of imaginative
projection, then the theory appears to be false. For example, we may see something in the

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 shapes of an abstract painting, but unless we either have some evidence that the artist meant
us to see them, or our seeing is based on established convention of representation, or both,
this is like seeing pictures in the clouds. Further, most music is not imitative or
representational. This does not stop us using our imagination and hearing what we please in a
piece of music, but this is not sufficient to show the piece is representation.
It could be argued that what is represented is an emotion or state of mind and maintain that an
abstract painting in bright red represents anger. There are two oddities about seeing anger in
abstract painting, First, anger cannot be seen like a countryside can be seen. Secondly that the
anger lacks an object and context. To argue that emotions or states of mind can be
represented is to extend the notion of representation too far.
It should be recognised that although much art is representation, not all of it is, and it would
be an exaggeration to argue that art is simply to be understood in terms of representation and
imitation. Representation requires some degree of resemblance between the work of art and
something in the world which can be sensed, and that the best way to understand it lies in the
study of how we respond to representational art. Such response involves both recognition of
the resemblance and recognition of the conventions governing the art form; more specifically
it involves recognition of the deliberate exploitation of such conventions by the artist. Not all
art is representational and therefore this theory cannot explain the value of all art. Even in
cases of representative art, we value works which demand some imaginative effort more than
ultra realist copies. To answer why we respond to non-representational art requires us to
consider art from other points of view.
Novelty and imitation in fine art.

The fine arts are, as already said, ordered towards expression of the beautiful. For a full
understanding of what follows, refer to the section on beauty which will follow later

The beautiful pertains to the transcendental order. For this reason no type of work can
exhaust the beautiful. Therefore in an infinity of ways can the artist express in some
determinate matter the splendour of some form, Therefore it falls within the formal object of
art not merely to reprint, reproduce or imitate the beauty or splendour of form which nature
itself produces, and also to produce works having a beauty which is different from the beauty
found in the products of nature and to express the splendour or triumph of form in ways that
are not expressed by nature.

Therefore the adage that “art imitates nature" is not to be understood in the sense that art
imitate nature by reproducing it, but rather in the sense that art imitates nature by operating
like nature. For this reason St Thomas states that art imitates nature in its operation" (I,
117,1), not in its product. This is a response to some of the difficulties Sheppard raises above
who does not understand imitation in this way.

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 Therefore we can say that artistic "creation" is itself, as it were, a type of continuation and
expansion of divine creation, and artistic "creation” is a certain participation of divine
creation: "for thus does the knowledge of God have itself towards all created things, as a
knowledge of the artificer has itself towards artefacts” (1,14,8).

It therefore follows from the intelligible nature of beauty that such imitation as is practised in
art ought not to be a material copying of sensible things but it ought to be a symbolic
representation of them ie things should be used as a means or medium whereby the splendour
of some form is displayed.
Further notes from Ecos.

St Thomas defined art as recta ratio factibilium ie a perfect knowledge of the rules of
manufacture. This understanding of art has two elements: the cognitive (ratio) and the
productive (factibilium). Art is knowledge of the rules by which things can be produced.

Art is regarded as an imitation of nature. But this does not mean a mere copying. Art imitates
nature "in its manner of operation” (ars imitator naturam in sua operatione) ST I, 117, 1c. Art
is a constructive ability or operation which operates upon the things provided by nature,
giving them new forins (artificial or accidental forms), in a way which copies the operative
laws of nature (which gives rise to substantial forms).

As God has the exemplary ideas of the things He creates in nature, the artist has also
exemplary ideas of the things he produces. He then translates or transfers that exemplary
form into the thing made, resulting in matter taking on an accidental or artificial form.

All creatures are in the divine mind, just as a piece of furniture is in the mind of its maker.
But a piece of furniture is in its maker's mind because of its idea and its likeness. (Omnes
creaturae sunt in mente divina sicut arca in mente artificis. Sed arca in mente artificis est
per suam similitudinem et ideam.) De veritate, III, I, 7.
an exemplary form in imitation of which something is made ... For we say that the form
of art in the artist is the exemplar or idea of the artistic product. (forma exemplaris ad
eujus imitationem aliquid constituitur...Dicimus enim formam artis in artifice esse
exemplar vel ideam artificiati.) ibid, III, 1.

The operative intellect, when preconceiving the form of what is made, possesses as an
idea the very form of the thing imitated, precisely as the form of the thing made. (Et tunc
intellectus operativus, praeconcipiens formam operati, habet ut ideam ipsam formam rei
imitatae, prout est illius rei imitatae.) ibid III, 2.
The formation of something in accord with an exemplary form is therefore a formation by
way of imitation. It is imitation of the exemplary forms themselves.

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 The question can be asked, where the artist gets his exemplary form from? For example,
where does an architect get the idea of the house he wants to build? The answer is to be
found in imagination, which is one of the four internal senses. St Thomas describes it as: "a
kind of store house of forms received by sense” (ST I, 78, 4c). However imagination is not a
purely receptive faculty. It is also able to modify and combine images to form new ones.
Thus the idea of a house can be conceived by way of this process of rearranging. The
architect can conceive of something not given in nature, which can be realised in the use of
natural objects and through constructional operations similar to those in nature, for art
imitates nature in its operation.
But St Thomas states that art is inferior to nature because it confers only accidental forms:
Art is deficient when compared with the operations of nature. For nature bestows
substantial form, which art cannot do. Rather, all artificial forms are accidental. (Ars
autem deficit ab operatione naturae; quia natura dat formam substantialem, quod ars
facere non potest; sed omnes formae artificiales sunt accidentales.) ST III, 66, 4c.
The accidental form which an artist places in matter, such as the form of a bed in wood or the
form of a statue in marble, can be called its figure or shape, which is one of the accidents of
quality. This quality can be perceived as something which has proportion and gives pleasure
and may be defined as beautiful.
Artistic form and the aesthetic. Artistic/accidental form possesses an aesthetic value. It is
endowed with proportion and integrity and clarity. This form conforms with the exemplary
form in the mind of the artist. It also conforms with the requirements of the substantial form
of the subject. The external shape given to a material subject must not exceed the possibility
inherent in the material.

Further, the aesthetic character of artificial form is made possible by the objective existence
of beauty in nature. Since art imitates nature in its operation, the process which produces
artistic form imitates the processes in nature and the ontological structure of artistic form
copies that of natural forms.
The work of the artist confers actuality upon the exemplary form in his mind when he joins
this form with matter. The principle goal is that of actualising something. The aesthetic
quality in an artistic form

follows upon its ontological reality. If an artist endeavours to make something beautiful it is
because he first seeks to make it perfect. Ontological perfection means formal perfection
which is for this reason beautiful.
The inost important proportion of the work of art is the proportion of form to its end. Its
various parts should come together in a whole which is adequate to the end which determines
what kind of whole it was to be:

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 Every craftsman intends to give his work the best possible constitution, not indeed absolutely
speaking, but in relation to its purpose. (Quilibet autem artifex intendit suo operi
dispositionem optimam inducere, non simpliciter, sed per comparationem ad finem.) ST I, 91,
3c.
For example, an artist will make a saw out of metal rather than out of soft wood, since only
when made of metal can it achieve its purpose of cutting.

2. Expressionism.
The source of the artist's creative impulse was considered in earliest times, as for example by
Homer and Hesiod, as ascribed to divine inspiration. Plato referred to the "madness" or
"frenzy" of the poet (cf Phaedrus 245A, Ion 533E, 536B; Meno 99C) and emphasised the
artist's irrationality and lack of genuine wisdom. In this light a work of art can be understood
as a manifestation or objectification of the artist's feelings.
We saw above that there are difficulties about extending the notion of representation
including emotions and states of mind. If we consider our reactions to art we find that many
of them depend on two assumptions: first, that artists express their emotions, and second that
expression is one of the sources of aesthetic value. With music we readily assume that the
composer is expressing emotions which he feels.

The assumption that visual arts are expressive is less pervasive. In considering expression we
are concerned not only with the relationship between a work of art and its creator, but also
with the relationship between a work and its audience.
It was especially in 18th and 19th century Romantics who made expression of emotion all
important. Wordsworth in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads declared that: "All good poetry is
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." We can consider two variants of the theory
that art is expression: the views of Tolstoy and those of Croce and Collingwood.
Tolstoy in What is Art? presents a simple theory that art is the contagion of feeling. The artist
both expresses and evokes emotion. By means of art he infects the audience with the feelings
he himself experiences. The quality of art is to be measured by the quality of feelings with
which it succeeds in infecting the audience.
Tolstoy stresses art as communication between artist and his audience and he also wishes to
divorce the appreciation of art from a knowledge and intellectual activity. Because of the
second feature no special training is required to understand what is good art.
Tolstoy lays down in advance which feelings are worthily conveyed by art. Communicating
feelings of pride, sexual desire and discontent with life is regarded as less valuable than
communicating brotherly love and simple feelings of common life. Much of his
condemnation of art derives from his moral outlook and he fails or refuses to make any

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 distinction between the moral and the aesthetic. The claim that a characteristic feature of
aesthetic experience is a certain emotional detachment and contemplative appreciation has no
place in Tolstoy's theory.
Tolstoy's talk of art as infection both over- emphasises and over-simplifies the irrational
aspects of one's response to art. Sometimes we can be deeply moved by experience of art, but
not all our experience of art is like this. Further, having described our response as an
infection, Tolstoy makes no attempt to analyse it further. The metaphor of infection is even
less adequate as a description of what the artist does.
A much more sophisticated theory of art as expression was put forward by Croce in his
Aesthetic and developed and amended in a later work, the Breviary of Aesthetics. In Britain
R.G. Collingwood put forward a theory very similar to Croce's in The Principles of Art.

Both make a fundamental distinction between conceptual thought and what Croce calls
“intuition" and Collingwood called "imagination". For Croce intuition means grasping the
uniqueness of an object without classifying it as an object of some particular kind, while
thought uses concepts to classify and generalise. Mental activity is divided into stages:
sensations and perception, then our awareness of these with intuition/imagination, then
formulating concepts,

At the first stage, we feel emotions but are somehow not fully conscious of them. We give
these emotions (psychical expression' when we exhibit bodily reactions which are their
symptoms. Imaginative expression is expression properly so called; which is called
intuition/imagination when we give voice to our emotions. It is at this level that art makes its
appearance. For example, I may be happy and smile as psychical expression, but then sit and
dance as imaginative expression. Imaginative expression communicates in a way which
requires the conscious attention of a hearer or spectator. Others must attend to what I am
doing and use their imaginations to recreate my experience for themselves.

Croce regards intuition and expression as equivalent and states that either art is intuition or
art is expression. For Collingwood art is expression at the level of imagination. Both then
proceed to treat expression as providing a criterion by which works of art may be evaluated.
What is not expression is not art.

Croce and Collingwood concentrate largely on the activity of the artist and what goes on in
his mind. Their theory leads to the view that the real world of art is expression in the artist's
mind and that the physical object is only its externalisation. The spectator of visual art, the
listener to music and the reader of literature recreate the artist expression for themselves.
Beethoven's symphony as performed is the externalisation of his intuitions; in appreciating it
I come to grasp again the intuition that Beethoven grasped. I reproduce his expression in
myself.

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 Difficulties:
1) There is no good reason to accept that the real work of art is in the artist's mind and the
account of the audience's response has its own difficulties. The artist's mind may contain
elements of which he is unconscious. The diversity of interpretations and reactions creates a
difficulty. There is no way of checking what the artist's intuition was other than by listening
to it or seeing it. But if we cannot know the artist's expression except through the work, it is
misleading to maintain that what was in the artist's mind is more real or valuable than the
object produced.
2) Another difficulty is the neglect of the differences between the arts. Such a denial follows
from their view that the true work of art is in the artist's mind and its externalisation is
secondary. But this runs counter to aesthetic experience. Poems, paintings and pieces of
music are very different sorts of thing.
3) The results of applying their theory and practice are alarming. Collingwood regards only a
limited range of work as 'art proper,' But what are the criteria for determining whether what
purports to be art is expression and art proper? They are: the work must not do anything so
vulgar as to arouse emotions directly or have any ulterior purpose. After that we have to fall
back on a judgement of what was going on in the artist's mind and what goes on in the minds
of an audience. Yet since we do not have access to the artist's mind, it is impossible to tell
whether we have grasped his expression successfully.
Collingwood and Croce attempt to explain how the production of art and the response to it
differ both from a purely intellectual activity and from immediate emotional reactions. Both
fail because they concentrate too much on what they take be going on in the mind of the
artist and because they exaggerate the importance of the notion of expression. They do little
justice to the intellectual elements in art and to the fact that art can arouse some emotions
directly.

Expression is one aspect of art, but not the only aspect. But we should examine the emotions
expressed in the work without trying to infer what emotions are in the artist. Sad music, for
example, may make the listener feel sad, but it may not be composed by a sad person.
We may ask what is meant by talking about emotions in the work. Perhaps it makes us
imagine what it is like to feel sad, or makes us feel sad in some special, detached, aesthetic
way. One problem with this is whether there are certain qualities in works of art which can be
objectively defined and which are always describable in terms of certain emotions. The other
problem is what is meant by imagining what it is like to feel a particular emotion in a
detached aesthetic way.
Some have suggested that our fundamental model for attributing expressive properties to
things is the way the human body and face look and behave. Sad music, for example, iş music

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 that sounds like sad people, who move slowly and speak in low voices. However this is
unlikely to account all the expressive qualities we find in art. In part the question why we
associate particular expressive properties with particular works of art is a psychological
question. Green, for example, is a colour people find restful, and thus green in a painting may
be described as calm and restful.
For a proper study of emotion, we could proceed as follows. First, in trying to describe our
experience of an emotion we often fall back on metaphor or on appeals to the way others feel
in comparable situations and that such descriptions require our hearers to use their
imaginations. Secondly, the very nature of emotional response to art drives us away from
general theory and back to a study of particular works.

However there is a problem with abstract arts such as music which seem to express emotions
but do not present us with a situation in which to imagine how we would feel. In music we
are presented with a stimulus to the emotions and in imagining feeling the emotion we may
imagine a situation also. This stimulus may take different forins with different pieces of
music.
It is difficult to say how music, which for the most part is not representational but has purely
formal qualities, can express emotion. When we try to pick out features of the piece of music
which makes us happy, we draw attention to formal features of the work, such as rhythms and
musical intervals. It is the formal features of music which suggests the typical objects of an
emotion, remind us of behavior characteristics of someone who experiences the emotion, or
somehow corresponds with the way we ourselves feel when we experience the emotion.

3. Formalism
The self-containedness and self-sufficiency ie the high degree of unity and order, of works of
art were emphasised by St Augustine (cf Vera Relig. 23.59; 41.77; Musica 1.13.28; Ordine
2.15.42; Lib. Aeb 2.16.42). Drawing on Plato (Philebus 64 E, 66AB) and Plotinus (Enneads
1.6.2) he developed the connection between beauty, order and numerical proportion and
related art to the divine order. The same interest in the internal nature of the aesthetic object
is in St Thomas's conditions of beauty, namely integrity, proportion and clarity.

Of all the arts, music is the one in which formal qualities are most important and readily
perceived. But it is important in other forms of art. In visual arts, for example, Greek
sculpture of the classical period is often admired for its command of the proportions of the
human figure. Symmetry, proportion and a concern for formal balance can be seen also in
many Renaissance paintings. In literature we find certain formal qualities, such as metre used
for verse, ordering of words, structure of plot are all matters of form.

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 In each of these cases they have in common the relationships between features. For example
in visual arts, relationships between shapes and between colours; in music between notes or
between instruments; in literature between metrical units, words, parts of the plot. In each
case it is the ordering of formal features which matters.

E. Hanslick, in music, stressed formal qualities in his book which has become a classic of
musical aesthetics (The Beautiful in Music) arguing that the beauty of music was to be found
in its formal qualities.
In visual arts, Clive Bell and Roger Fry developed the theory that the essential quality of art
was what they called 'significant form' and had a concern with the formal qualities of art.
Any type of criticism which takes a work of art in itself, not the maker or audience, as
primary concern and studies the way the work of art is put together, will be concerned with
the formal features of a work. Although Aristotle's overall theory in the Poetics is a version
of the theory of art as imitation, when he discusses tragedy he deals mainly with their formal
features. In the 184 century Kant, in his Critique of Aesthetic Judgement made a distinction
between 'free' and 'dependent' beauty and claimed that free beauty is ascribed to an object in
virtue of its form alone without considering the end to which the object may be directed.
Kant's views have had a pervasive effect on subsequent aesthetic theory and it is Kant's
account of beauty as form which directly or indirectly lies behind a number of later formalist
accounts of art.
We shall consider in more detail the formalist use of music of Hanslick and of the visual arts
by Clive Bell and Roger Fry
Hanslick in his The Beautiful in Music argues that a proper aesthetic contemplation of music
involves only the music itself, considered for its own sake and without reference to any
further end. What is thus contemplated is the sounds of the music and the forms created by
their movement i.e. the melody, harmony, the rhythms and instrumentation. It is such
elements the composer has in mind when he composes; he thinks of his piece in purely
musical terms and his listener should do likewise. In listening to music we attend to the
formal pattern of the music.
However his view is limited in a number of ways. First, it is confined to music. This gives
strength to his position since music, of all art forms, is the one in which formal features are
most dominant. Secondly, his arguments are largely negative ones. He argues against the idea
that music can represent anything or can express specific emotions. He admits music may
arouse particular feelings in the hearer but he regards this as secondary and not a purely
aesthetic effect. He also allows that music can represent what he calls the dynamic properties
of feelings i.e. those properties associated with audible changes in strength, speed and
intervals between notes. It may reproduce phenomena such as whispering, stormy and

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 roaring, but the feelings of anger and love only have subjective existence. Definite feelings
and emotions are not susceptible of being embodied in music. He rather holds that we use
expressive language to describe music because there is some kind of correspondence between
the music and the way we feel when we experience a particular emotion. There is a
correspondence between the movement of the music and the movement of our feelings and
that is the only way music can express emotions. However he denies that the expressive
qualities contribute to the beauty of the music, for beauty in music is only due to the formal
features.
Hanslick's theory does not do full justice to the diversity of art, but even to music there are
deficiencies in lais theory. His exclusion of opera seems arbitrary. Also, it gives too little
consideration to the way in which formal structure and the expressive or representational
elements are related in the types of music he excludes.

C. Bell and R. Fry, Bell in his book Art introduced the phrase 'significant form and claimed
that this alone was the distinctive characteristic of great art which aroused a special aesthetic
emotion'. He disapproves of the interest in realistic imitation displayed in the classical period
of Greek art and in the Renaissance. He rejects the view that what matters in visual art is
accuracy or representation and stressed the importance of form and structural design.
Bell never really explains what sort of form counts as significant and both Bell and Fry talk
of a special aesthetic emotion aroused by perception of significant form but do not define or
analyse it.

Two difficulties arise. First, while it is not difficult to isolate the formal elements in music, it
is much less clear that the formal elements of visual art can be considered in isolation.
Secondly, regarding 'significant form, the question arises - significant of what?
Even if a painting, for example, can be described in purely formal terms, psychologically it is
almost impossible actually to see a painting only in that way. Our natural tendency is to see
representation where there may not be any, because we find it hard to consider visual forms
in total isolation. Further, even if we could so isolate the formal elements, these would not
hold much interest for us.
'Significant does not mean very much unless we are told what the form so described signifies.
When Bell attempts to explain this he resorts to a form of expressionism. He offers the
suggestion that "creative forin moves us so profoundly because it expresses the emotion of its
creator." The artist sees objects as pure
forms, distinct from any associations they may have or ends they may serve, and tries to
express the aesthetic emotion which he feels before such forms by recreating them in his art.
Fry speaks of a work which possesses significant form as "the outcome of an endeavour to

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 express an idea rather than to create a pleasing effect" and of the aesthetic emotion being felt
to have a particular quality of reality'.

The attempt to make sense of the 'significant in ‘significant form leads to a particular kind of
expressionism. Hanslick, Bell and Fry take it for granted that art can in some way express
emotion and turn their attention to the formal structures by means of which expression may
be achieved in particular arts,

When we pick out formal features in a work of art we are concerned with relationships
between features. For example in music, rhythm and intervals, melody and harmony are
constituted by relationships between notes. It also considers the coherence of those elements
into a unified whole. A comprehensive formalist theory which applied to all the arts will be
one which saw the essential characteristic of art in its presentation of elements in ordered and
unified relationships. It is concerned solely with the work of art itself and offers no account
of the relationship of the work to its maker or audience.
Since formalism is concerned with the relationship between elements in a work of art and
since such elements may be many different kinds, formalist criticism possesses considerable
flexibility.

However formalism cannot cope with the diversity of art. All works of art may be said to
have some form and all are a unity. They also exhibit coherence and order. But not all works
of art we would regard as successful because of the unified ordering of the elements. If
generalisations about unity, coherence and order are to be given content at a theoretical level,
formalism needs to be combined with another theory.

V. BEAUTY

VI. CONCEPT OF THE AESTHETIC

VII. AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

VIII. AESTHETICS AND RELIGION

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