Empathy applied, recognizes what is universal to humans and what is a
more
personal deviation from it. I would consider 'significant form" a
subjective
universal.
mando
On Jul 15, 2009, at 2:59 PM, William Conger wrote:
If it is the case then viewer can project "masterpiece" to be
contained in the
piece of junk. Artist projects subjectivity in the creation. Viewers
projection does not change the immanent value of artwork.
For me artwork does contain independent set of valuable 'information'
for human brain, which Clive Bell called 'Significant Form'. His
description
of it was not broad enough to cover all art forms from the point of
global
theory.
Boris Shoshensky
It is indeed the case,just as, apparently, you decide that
something is a piece of junk.
i like the significant form concept myself but it's so convenient
and easy. All you need to do is proclaim that the object has
significant form and that is just as subjective as saying it's all
a matter of empathy. But of course, as Worringer points outs, our
sense of significant form is really inherited from our canon based
on the Greco-Roman past and thus is too limited. The one thing we
can say for sure is that inert objects do not possess aesthetic
qualities. They may have qualities of form: line shape and
texture, etc., that we call aesthetic and thus mirror back to the
objects but as objects they are just so much material and in
themselves, meaningless. The immanent value of an artwork is also
assigned to it.
wc
