Concept
Significant form
Overview
Significant form refers to an aesthetic theory developed by English art critic Clive Bell which specified a set of criteria for what qualified as a work of art. In his 1914 book, Art, Bell postulated that for an object to be deemed a work of art it required potential to provoke aesthetic emotion in its viewer, a quality he termed "significant form." Bell's definition explicitly separated significant form from beauty; in order to possess significant form, an object need not be attractive as long as it elicits an emotional response.
As Bell put it succinctly: "The important thing about a picture, however, is not how it is painted, but whether it provokes aesthetic emotion."
Semir Zeki, the neurobiologist, has written that the term "significant configuration" may be a better choice since, by Bell's definition, "significant form" is restricted to lines and colours whereas "significant configuration" is broader and may include features such as faces or bodies which must have a significant configuration to be recognized as such.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Out of this results character, through which an important relation may be established among separate works; and, in like manner, when a work is put together, its parts may hold an analogous relation to each other. The subject may be-- _At rest, or in motion._ A work, or its parts, may either be self-centred, simply showing its character in a state of rest, or it may be exhibited in movement, activity, or fullness of…
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's literary essays
States what Significant form is.
But if these very objects whose significant forms invite us to pure contemplation, have a hostile relation to the human will in general, as it exhibits itself in its objectivity, the human body, if they are opposed to it, so that it is menaced by the irresistible predominance of their power, or sinks into insignificance before their immeasurable greatness; if, nevertheless, the beholder does not direct his attention…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
States what Significant form is; names Significant form.
Quality, moreover, is completely a category only of the finite, and for that reason too it has its proper place in Nature, not in the world of Mind. Thus, for example, in Nature what are styled the elementary bodies, oxygen, nitrogen, &c, should be regarded as existing qualities. But in the sphere of mind, Quality appears in a subordinate way only, and not as if its qualitativeness could exhaust any specific aspect…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Significant form is.
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.