Sunday, February 26, 2012

Why does Bell separate beauty and aesthetically pleasing art, and for what reasons?

"Clearly the word 'beauty' is used to connote the objects of quite distinguishable emotions, and that is a reason for not employing a term which would land me inevitably in confusions and misunderstandings with my readers" (Bell, 264).

Bell distinguishes beauty from aesthetic emotion and significant form, simply because of his views on the use of beauty in today's society.  While Bell clearly sees art and the emotion and forms involved as transcendent, we often use beauty to describe flowers, certain people, and the like.  All of which, by the way, are objects and people that we encounter in everyday life, in our everyday experiences.

While this is definitely a Dewey-esque view on beauty, it would make sense that Bell would see it the other way. Bell sees the significance of beauty as stipulated to be intertwined in nature and human beings, so it makes perfect sense that he distances himself from the use of the word, as it would be contradictory, for his views at least.

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