Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 
Paul Crowther 
Introduction 
Kant's theory of art has been neglected to an extraordinary degree. In this discussion, I want to rectify the situation by arguing that Kant's theory 
reaches far beyond the constraints placed on his work by the familiar label of 
»formalist«. 
To show this, I will adopt the following strategy. In Part One, I will outline the 
salient features of Clive Bell's and Clement Greenberg's approaches to art, as 
examples of both formalism's strategies and its problems. I will then indicate 
the basis of Kant's general aesthetic theory, arguing that it suggests a way 
beyond the limitations of formalism. In Part Two I shall explore this possibility 
in depth, by means of a detailed exposition of Kant's theory of art. In Part 
Three I will make a few critical revisions to the theory; and shall conclude 
that, unlike the formalist approaches of Bell and Fry, Kant's theory defines art 
without severing its connections to life. 
Part one 
The basis of Clive Bell's aesthetic formalism is his attempt to define art in 
terms of »significant form« - which he defines as »relations and arrangements 
of lines and colours«.1 This, it should be noted, does not of itself disqualify 
representational works from counting as art. As Bell remarks 
»...a realistic form may be as significant, in its place as part of the design, as 
an abstract. But if a representative form has value, it is as form, not as 
representation. The representative element in a work of art may or may not be 
harmful; always it is irrelevant. 
Bell goes on to claim that the only sort of knowledge required for the 
appreciation of art is a sense of form and colour, and, to a lesser degree, a 
knowledge of three-dimensional space. We must also, of course, be 
aesthetically sensitive. Again, in Bell's words 
This is an extended and revised version of a paper of the same title which was presented at the 
International Colloquium on Form, held in Ljubljana October llth-12th 1990. I am grateful to 
participants in that Colloquium for their useful comments. I am also grateful for comments 
received in discussion with my graduate students on the Art in the Context of Philosophy course, 
at the University of St. Andrews. 
1. Clive Bell, Art, Chatto and Windus, London, 1931, p. 68. 
2 . Ibid, p. 72. 
28 Paul Crowther 
»... to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no 
knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions. Art 
transports us from the world of man's activity to a world aesthetic exaltation. 
For a moment we are shut off from human interests; our anticipations and 
memories are arrested; we are lifted above the stream of life. <r® 
On these terms, then the experience of significant form provokes aesthetic 
emotion - an emotion wherein we are distanced from the concerns of practical 
existence. A work only counts as art to the degree that it can arouse such an 
emotion in us. 
Now the apparent strength of Bell's theory is its seeming capacity to establish 
art's distinctness form all other human activities and experiences. It is, indeed, 
this affirmation of the autonomy of art which is responsible for aesthetic 
formalism's profound influence on twentieth-century theory and practice in 
the arts. Bell's approach, however, is seriously flawed in a number of respects. 
One area of difficulty is as follows. Every visual object qua visual object has a 
formal aspect i.e. it can be viewed as a configuration of line, shape, and 
colour. But why is it that we do not view every such object in these terms? 
Why is it that some configurations of form arouse aesthetic emotion, but 
others do not? One presumes that Bell would say »because only some objects 
(i.e. artworks) have significant form«. But again we must ask what is it that 
makes such forms significant? Bell's only answer would be »because they have 
the capacity to arouse aesthetic emotion«. This, of course, makes the argument 
into a logically vicious circle. Bell cannot, in other words, provide us with 
adequate criteria for distinguishing significant artistic form from insignificant 
non-artistic form. 
At the heart of Bell's problem here is the fact that he argues art's autonomy at 
the price of a far too rigid distinction between art and life. With the formalist 
theory of Clement Greenberg somewhat different considerations come into 
play. Greenberg argues that 
»Quality, aesthetic value, originates in inspiration, vision, 'content', not in 
form. Yet form not only opens the way to inspiration; it can also act as a 
means to it; and technical preoccupations when searching enough and 
compelling enough, can generate or discover 'content'.«4. 
Now as I interpret him, Greenberg's approach here holds that the aesthetic 
value of a work resides not simply in the formal configuration as such, but in 
the way in which the configuration exemplifies the artist's having had some 
original ideas about the employment of his or her medium. However, in a 
recent symposium Greenberg has also emphasised the central role of »taste« in 
the experience of art. By taste he means »unanalysable« acts of »aesthetic 
intuition«. Yet, at the same time he also holds that »Value judgements 
3. /fai/, p. 72. 
4. Clement Greenberg, »Necessity of Formalism«, Art International, October 1972, p. 106. 
Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 29 
constitute the substance of aesthetic experienceand that »taste at its best, in 
its fullest sense, likes whatever is good.*? 
On the one hand, then, Greenberg wants to link aesthetic value to a complex 
appraisal of the formal configuration's relation to broader developments 
within the medium, and on the other hand he wants to say that judgement's 
aesthetic value are unanalysable acts of intuition. These two claims are clearly 
in conflict. Greenberg does, indeed, go one step behind Bell in allowing that 
aesthetic judgements are logically complex - involving historical factors; but 
like Bell he is bewitched by the psychology of such judgements. He sees them 
as private experiences, wholly disconnected from the continuum of life. This is 
the great problem of all aesthetic formalism in its attempt to comprehend art. 
To explain why form is aesthetically significant we must account for the 
aesthetic judgement as a logical complex involving the interplay of perceptual 
and, in the broadest sense, socio-historical factors. But at the same time we 
must be able to relate this to the psychology of the experience i.e. its capacity 
to distance us from the demands of everyday practical existence. Aesthetic 
formalists such as Bell at one extreme, and Greenberg at the other, fail to 
make this connection in any adequate way. They dramatically overemphasise 
the gap between art and life. Kant's theory of art offers a way of bridging this 
gap. Before addressing it, however, I must first say something about his own 
version of aesthetic formalism. 
The very essence of Kant's position can be grasped in terms of a few basic 
points (which I shall outline in a different order from that adopted in the 
Critique of Judgement). The first centres on the claim that pure aesthetic 
judgements have the »form of finality« but are »apart« from any definite 
»end« or concept.6 By this Kant means that the aesthetic judgement is simply 
and solely directed to the relation between parts and whole in phenomenal 
configurations i.e. ones which are immediately present to the senses. Now an 
object's relation to the senses can also give rise to pleasure in two other ways. 
First, when the pleasure is determined by what kind of thing the object is. We 
might enjoy the look of an object or animal, for example, because they seem to 
be perfect specimens of their kind; we might enjoy the look of a tool because 
it promises an efficient performance. In these cases our pleasure arises from 
the conformity of a particular item to some external »end« or standard. Kant 
describes this as our pleasure in the »good«. In other cases, our pleasure in the 
way an item relates to the senses is determined by a purely causal relation. For 
example, our enjoyment of one particular colour or flavour rather than 
another is based solely on personal preference - on what one's eyes or taste 
buds happen to like coming in contact with. 
5. Clement Greenberg, »Art Criticism«, Partisan Review, vol. XLVII no. 1,1981, p. 36. 
6 . Kant's main discussions of this are in the First, Second and Third Movements of the Analytic 
of the Beautiful, in The Critique of Judgement. All further citations from Kant in this paper 
refer to The Critique of Judgement trans. J.C. Meredith, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973. 
30 Paul Crowther 
The pure aesthetic judgement, in contrast, is determined neither by conformity 
to a concept or end, nor by mere causal impact on the senses. We may, for 
example, simply enjoy the relation of balancing shapes and colours in some 
formal configuration for its own sake. This means that in order to enjoy an 
object's formal relations, it is not presupposed that we know what kind of 
thing the object is, nor even whether it is real or not. Kant thus describes the 
pure aesthetic judgement as being »apart from any concept« and 
»disinterested« - in a way that judgements of the good and the agreeable are 
not. But if this is so, how is it possible for us to enjoy the disinterested play of 
the cognitive faculties upon the aesthetic object? Kant's answer is that our 
perceptual interaction with such an object is one that brings the understanding 
and imagination - broadly speaking our capacities to comprehend and to 
attend and recall - into a harmonious, mutually complementary relationship. 
The bringing of these capacities into such a relation is of extreme significance. 
For according to Kant, it is the understanding and imagination whose joint 
function makes all communication possible. Hence, when the formal richness 
of a perceived configuration, stimulates these capacities into heightened 
co-operation, it is, thereby, enhancing our general cognitive hold upon the 
world. It furthers our »sense of life«. This is why, the formal configuration 
appears to have structure and purposiveness over and above that which is 
determined by the kind of thing it is. 
Now I have discussed the merits and demerits of Kant's general theory of the 
aesthetic at length elsewhere.7 Putting it concisely, he is right in the essentials 
if not in the details of his theory. However, for present purposes it is crucial to 
say something now about the theory's scope. First, what Kant is describing are 
the logical and phenomenological outlines of a very fundamental experience. 
But he is describing the experience in its simplest and purest state - giving us, 
as it were, the prototype. This is, in part, why his account gives so much 
emphasis to nature. Artifacts, and human and animal forms, are things which 
appeal directly to our practical and instinctual needs, whereas purely natural 
forms tend not to. It is nature, therefore, which is most amenable to the pure 
aesthetic judgement. Given this, however, we must not suppose that aesthetic 
experience arises exclusively from our intercourse with nature. In this respect, 
Kant offers examples of artifacts of a decorative kind - such as wallpaper -
whose function is such that their artifactual status is entirely overlooked. We 
engage with them as purely formal configurations. 
And this at last brings us to the work of art. Kant's treatment of this topic is 
kept separate from his main aesthetic theory because the demands which art 
makes upon us cannot be reduced to those of the pure aesthetic judgement. 
Kant is aware of this, and after the main exposition of his Analytics of the 
7. In my The Kantian Subleme; From Morality to Art, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. See 
especially chapters Three and Six. 
Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 31 
Beautiful and the Sublime, he gives systematic treatment in a way that brings 
out both the kinship and difference between the pure aesthetic judgement and 
the aesthetic experience of art. 
Before addressing that, however, I shall conclude this section with a brief 
comparison between Bell and Greenberg on the one hand, and Kant on the 
other. First, Kant does, I think, do justice to the pervasiveness of the aesthetic 
by tracing its root to the enjoyment of formal configurations as such, and most 
notably, those of nature. Greenberg in contrast, has nothing to say about 
nature; and Bell's dismissive remarks concerning it, seem to unwarrantably 
reduce all enjoyment of nature to that which Kant terms the »agreeable«. It 
should also be noted that not only is Kant's theory more comprehensive in 
scope, it is also more comprehensive in structure. By linking pure aesthetic 
judgements to the harmony of understanding and imagination, Kant is able to 
explain both why we find such judgements pleasurable and why this pleasure is 
of such existential significance. This latter point is precisely what highlights 
the common weakness which I noted earlier in relation to Bell and Greenberg. 
The latter thinkers fail to tie the cognitive complexity of the aesthetic 
judgement to its elevating psychological effects. But why should the enjoyment 
of form »transport« us from everyday life (Bell); why should it be felt as 
»intuitive« and »unanalysable« (Greenberg)? Kant's answer is that as the 
outcome of an achieved harmony between the two capacities which are the 
basis of all cognition and communication, aesthetic pleasure further stimulates 
these functions; it enhances our sense of life. Ironically, enough, through its 
distance from the pleasures of everyday existence, the aesthetic both lifts us 
above and relates us back to that life. Let us now investigate the special 
conditions which, for Kant, govern art's role in this process. 
Part two 
I shall expound Kant's theory of art by presenting his arguments in 
substantially the same order as they appear in § 43-50 in the Critique of 
Judgement. 
Kant's first major claim is that fine art is a distinctive and privileged mode of 
artifice which is intrinsically »final« - an end in itself. It is to be contrasted 
with handicraft which (although there are ambiguous cases - such as 
watchmaking) is only attractive »by means of what it results in (e.g. the 
pay)«.8 Fine art must also be contrasted with two modes of artifice which are 
commonly regarded as art. The first of these is »mechanical art« which seeks 
»to actualize a possible object to the cognition of which it is adequate«.9 What 
Kant probably has in mind here are representations which are created solely 
with a view to conveying factual information, and which make no demands on 
8. Kant, p. 164. 
9 . Kant, p. 165. 
32 Paul Crowther 
us beyond that. The other mode of artifice commonly regarded as art is rather 
more difficult to comprehend. Kant suggests that when art is intended to 
arouse pleasure it is called »aesthetic«. Fine art is the major example of this 
but there is also another mode - which Kant terms »agreeable art«. This 
applies 
»... where the end of the art is that the pleasure should accompany the 
representations considered as mere sensations... «-10 
As examples of this, Kant cites such things as the »entertaining narrative« and 
»... play of every kind which is attended with no further interest than that of 
making the time pass by unheeded.«1* 
Kant's characterization of this as »agreeable art« is rather unhelpful since he 
has earlier made it clear that the agreeable is linked to the causal impact of 
stimuli upon the subject's sensibilities. Clearly such a relation is not involved 
here. However, Kant's point is that some representations, in effect, function 
like this. All we ask of them is that they amuse or entertain. We are dealing 
with, in other words, kitsch - though Kant himself, of course, does not use 
this term. 
In § 45 Kant takes his first major step in the definition of fine art proper. We 
are told that 
»A product of fine art must be recognized to be art and not nature. 
Nevertheless the finality in its form must appear just as free from the 
constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were a product of mere nature. <r12 
Kant's point here is not that art must represent nature, but rather that artistic 
representation must appear free from contrivance and »laboured effect«. It 
must have the quality of - let us call it - naturalness. On these terms, the 
work of fine art is recognized as the product of artifice, but, insofar as it 
conceals the rules and techniques which governed its production and thence 
appears natural, it will be more amenable to aesthetic appreciation. 
This first major point is of extreme significance in terms of defining art qua 
object. For the naturalness of the fine art object means that it will appear 
different from products of mechanical and agreeable art. One presumes 
(though Kant does not remark upon it) that works in these latter categories 
are produced, by and large, according to familiar rules and formulae, and that 
these rules will be manifest in their appearance. 
Having defined, then, what is distinctive about fine art at the level of 
reception - our engagement with the artwork qua phenomenal object - Kant 
procedes in § 46 to trace the origins of this, at the level of the artist's creative 
10. Kant, p. 165. 
11. Kant, p. 166. 
12. Kant, pp. 166-167. 
Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 33 
subjectivity. Fine art, we are told, is the product of »genius«. By »genius« 
Kant does not mean something ineffable and extraordinary, but rather natural 
talent i.e. that element in the creative process which cannot be acquired by 
simply learning the technical rules of artistic production, and which, 
conversely, cannot be adequately explained by the artist to others in terms of 
such rules. Indeed, it is originality which is genius' »primary property« - in the 
sense of being a necessary condition. It cannot, however, be a sufficient 
condition, since, as Kant rightly points out, there can also be »original 
nonsense«. The originality of the fine artwork, therefore, must be 
»exemplary«. It must serve as a model to stimulate the creativity of other 
artists. 
In § 47, Kant clarifies and deepens several of the points made above. First, 
genius is the province of fine art alone. This is shown by means of a contrast. 
In Kant's words 
»... all the steps that Newton had to take from the first elements of geometry 
to his greatest and most profound discoveries were such as he could make 
intuitively evident and plain to follow, not only for himself but for everyone 
else. On the other hand no Homer or Weiland can show how his ideas, so rich 
at once in fancy and in thought, enter and assemble themselves in his brain, 
for the good reason that he does not know himself, and so cannot teach 
others<r.13 
Hence the conclusion that 
»In matters of science, therefore, the greatest inventor differs only in degree 
from the most laborious imitator and apprentice, whereas he differs 
specifically from one endowed by nature for fine art«}* 
Kant's point, then, is that since all the steps in the formulation of a scientific 
theory can be sufficiently explained, whereas those in the creation of a work 
of fine art cannot, we must infer, accordingly that scientific creativity is of a 
different order from that of art. 
Now Kant is, I think right in his conclusion, but somewhat misguided in his 
argument - which pushes in a different direction. For the fact that the 
construction of a scientific theory is sufficiently explicable in terms of the 
following of logico-mathematic rules whereas for art there are no analogical 
rules, simply indicates that scientific theories and artworks are different kinds 
of artifacts. To posit a difference at the level of subjective creativity as well 
requires a supplementary argument - which I shall provide in Part Three of 
this discussion. 
Kant's other main point in § 47 is an elaboration of his previous claim that the 
originality of the fine artwork must enable it to serve as a model for others. 
13. Kant, p. 170. 
14. Kant, p. 170 
34 Paul Crowther 
This is not simply a case of such works being imitated. Rather they are 
»followed« - in a kind of creative dialogue. 
As Kant puts it 
»The artist's ideas rouse like ideas on the part of his pupil, presuming nature to 
have visited him with a like proportion of the mental powers«.'15 
However, this being said, Kant insists again that originality is not a sufficient 
condition of fine art. Again in his words 
»there is ... no fine art in which something mechanical, capable of being at 
once comprehended and followed in obedience to rules, and consequently 
something academic does not constitute the essential condition of art«.16 
Now it might be thought that in making this stipulation Kant is simply 
asserting the prevailing late eighteenth-century ideology of neo-classicism, 
against the wilder innovations of the Sturm und Drang tendency. That this 
may be a part of Kant's meaning is shown by the fact that in the course of the 
earlier contrast between scientific and artistic creativity, he notes that, despite 
not being grounded in genius, science admits of continuing progress, whereas 
»genius reaches a point at which art must make a halt, as there is a limit 
imposed on it which it cannot transcend. This limit has in all probability been 
long since attained«.17 
In these remarks, Kant is possibly exemplifying the neo-classicist view that the 
highest standards of creativity were attained in classical antiquity. However, 
even if in his discussion of originality Kant is indeed giving neo-classicism its 
due, there is certainly more to his position than just that. For if an original 
work is, as Kant holds, to be exemplary, and able to stimulate creativity in 
others, then it will only do so insofar as there is some common ground between 
artist and pupil. Technical issues and the academic system of rules provide 
such a shared starting point for dialogue. 
I am arguing, then, that in making originality and academic rule following into 
necessary conditions of fine art, Kant is both making obeisance to 
contemporary values and setting forth a position with claim to more general 
validity. The awkward relation of these two strategies reaches a crisis point in 
§ 48 - which is entitled »The relation of genius to taste«. Here Kant makes 
the crucial claim that 
»A beauty of nature is a beautiful thing; beauty of art is a beautiful 
representation of a thing. «1S 
In order to enjoy the beauty of nature we do not have to know what kind of 
thing the object which sustains the beautiful form is. The enjoyment of artistic 
15. Kant, p. 171. 
16. Kant, p. 171. 
17. Kant, p. 170. 
18. Kant, p. 172. 
Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 35 
beauty, however, is rather different. Here there are two mediating factors. The 
first is as follows 
»If, ..., the object is presented as a product of art, and is as such to be declared 
beautiful, then, ..., a concept of what the thing is intended to be must first of 
all be laid at its basis«.19 
Kant's point here is that if we are to judge a work of art to be beautiful qua 
art, then we must be able to recognise it as, say, a picture of a landscape, or a 
poem about love, or a sonata in a minor key, or whatever. However, as well as 
being able to recognize the work's format and subject-matter, Kant stipulates 
the mediation of a further condition as follows 
»... since the agreement of the manifold in a thing with an inner-character 
belonging to it as its end constitutes the perfection of the thing, it follows that 
in estimating the beauty of art the perfection of the thing must also be taken 
into account... «.zo 
Kant's argument here is ambiguous. By »perfection of the thing« he could 
mean either that of the kind of subject-matter being represented, e.g. the 
perfection of the landscape itself, or ideal love itself, or he could mean the 
perfect or ideal standard of achievement for artworks addressing that kind of 
subject-matter e.g. such works as Claude Lorraine's landscapes or 
Shakespeare's Sonnets. Actually, there is evidence that he means both. For in 
an important passage Kant now formally defines what he means by the 
»beautiful representation of an object«. It is 
»the form of the presentation of a concept, and the means by which the latter 
is universally communicated. To give this form, however, to the product of 
fine art, taste merely is required. By this the artist having practised and 
corrected his taste by a variety of examples from nature or art, controls his 
work and, after many, and often laborious, attempts to satisfy taste, finds the 
form which commends itself to him«.2* 
This is a strange passage. For in it Kant stresses how the artist must draw 
selectively upon examples from both nature and art. But surely this is not a 
question of taste - as Kant explicitly suggests. It is rather the striving for 
perfection, a feature which enables art to transform what is ugly in nature. 
Significantly, Kant goes on to describe the process involved here in the 
following terms. The achievement of the beautiful artistic form - the artistic 
function of taste 
»... is not, as it were, a matter of inspiration, or of a free swing of the mental 
powers, but rather of a slow and even painful process of improvement, 
19. Kant, p. 173. 
20. Kant, p. 173. 
21 . Kant, p. 174. 
36 Paul Crowther 
directed to making the form adequate to his thought without prejudice to the 
freedom in the play of those powers«.22 
This yields an apparent contradiction. In § 46 Kant traces the achievement of 
naturalness in art to the effect of genius. Yet here he ascribes it to the effect 
of patient and systematic study. It may, of course, be that Kant is simply 
wanting to give the neo-classicist aesthetic of perfection its due, but again, 
there is a case for saying that he is also trying to make a more universal claim. 
In this respect, we must remember that, for Kant, naturalness is a property of 
the art object, and genius is a property of the creative subject. To get from the 
latter to the former in such a way that the art object will be exemplary, 
demands that the artist has not only assimilated the most perfect products of 
nature and tradition, but is also able to embody these in original artifacts. 
Taste in art, in other words, is the process whereby genius is refined by 
mastery of perfection. It is the ability to achieve the quality of naturalness in 
an artifact. 
What 'Kant has been doing so far, then, is moving from the naturalness of the 
aHtt'drks' appearance, to a detailed analysis of the demands which this imposes 
oh the creator. What he has not yet done is to show in any depth what enables 
the reception of the work of art to be regarded as aesthetic. He addresses this 
task in earnest in § 49. 
The key concept here is that of the »aesthetic idea«. Kant formally defines it 
as 
»... that representation of the imagination which induces much thought, yet 
without the possibility of any definite thought whatever, i.e. concept, being 
adequate to it...«?3' 
Further on he offers a much richer description -
»the aesthetic idea is a representation of the imagination, annexed to a given 
concept, with which, in the free employment of the imagination, such a 
multiplicity of partial representations are bound up, that no expression 
indicating a definite concept can be found for it - one which on that account 
allows a concept to be supplemented in thought by much that is indefinable in 
works, and the feeling of which quickens the cognitive faculties, 4 
On these terms then an aesthetic idea is a concept whose embodiment in an 
image or sensible form, serves to energize that concept by allowing it to be 
taken up and imaginatively developed by the receiver. This does not simply 
mean that the aesthetic idea evokes a trivial play of associations. In its highest 
function, imagination can »remodel experience« in two ways. First, by 
22. Kant, p. 174. 
23. Kant, pp. 175-176. 
24. Kant, p. 179. 
Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 37 
addressing fictional subjects, or, in the case of material which does occur in 
experience, to make that material present to the senses »with a completeness 
of which nature affords no parallel«.25 The upshot of this re-modelling is that 
we are no longer tied to familiar empirical laws of association. Artistic form 
does not simply present the world, it re-presents it, so that it is known and 
responded to in a new way. 
Now it is artistic form's capacity to take familiar material and to overwhelm 
our customary understanding of it that is, as I read Kant, the basis of its 
aesthetic character. The pure aesthetic judgement - addressed to nature -
places understanding and imagination in a generally harmonious relation. The 
diversity of a formal configuration - its imaginative richness offers different 
ways of perceptually exploring i.e. unifying it. In the work of art, a particular 
way of unifying - the artist's presentation of his or her material - opens up a 
diverse play of imagination. Art, in other words invites a more focused form 
of aesthetic judgement. It's narrower scope, however, is, as we have seen, by 
no means a disadvantage. 
To summarize, then, Kant argues that fine art consists of artifacts which have 
the quality of naturalness - a quality which is both a function of a unique 
mode of creativity - namely genius, and the capacity to refine such talent 
through the mastery of artistic and natural perfection i.e. taste. The artifacts 
which embody this relation are sources of aesthetic ideas. They instantiate 
concepts in a way which stimulates the imagination in creative directions. 
Given the theory, I shall now offer a critical review of it. 
Part three 
A first point to note is the usefulness of Kant's general outline of fine art. He 
clearly identifies it as a mode of artifice in whose exercise and in whose 
finished product, both producer and consumer find enjoyment for its own 
sake. Kant is, therefore identifying art with unalienated labour i.e. a mode of 
artifice wherein the creator achieves self-recognition, and through which his 
or her audience can share the artist's view of things. Kant is also right to 
separate this from mechanical and »agreeable« art, which simply relate 
information, or provide mere distractions from everyday life. 
These distinctions are given their force by Kant's detailed analysis of fine art. 
His notion of naturalness is central here, but requires very careful appraisal. 
Clearly there are works wherein the artist has mastered tradition, but whose 
work does not declare itself as derivative or academic. However, this »absence 
of laboured effect« cannot have quite the fundamental role which Kant assigns 
to it. Within the category of fine art itself we need criteria of both good and 
bad works. Naturalness is one such criterion. To insist that all works qua fine 
25. Kant, p. 177. 
38 Paul Crowther 
art must have this quality, would be to restrict the class of fine art works to an 
unacceptable degree. For surely we need to be able to talk of good art, bad art, 
and non-art. Kant's approach, however, would leave us with the distinction 
between art and non-art as such. 
Given this, we should look for the real basis for distinguishing fine artworks 
from other artifacts, in the direction of Kant's other key notions starting with 
genius. The »primary property« of genius, we will recall, is originality. We 
must, however, also remember that Kant does not mean originality perse, for, 
as he puts it, there can be original nonsense. Hence the quality of originality in 
art, essentially involves the mastery of perfection in terms of both natural 
form and the tradition of the medium. Originality, in other words, must be 
tasteful. Now Kant's claims here cannot be accepted quite as they stand. For 
one thing, the concept of originality is itself complex. It has two opposite poles. 
On the one hand, there is its use in the sense of innovation, literally the 
invention of new things; on other hand there is the case where, an item refines 
some existing genre to an exceptional degree of sophistication. A single work 
can, of course, combine elements of both these. Delacroix's Death of 
Sardanapolus, for example, is radically innovative in one sense vis-a-vis its 
handling of violent subject-matter, yet in another sense it can be seen as a 
sophisticated refinement of Rubeniste painterliness. Kant's failure to define 
originality in terms of both innovation and refinement and the overlaps 
between the two, is again symptomatic of the tension between proposing a 
general theory of art, and ratifying a particular neo-classical ideology. In 
particular, his stress on originality's link to taste means that, he is in effect 
privileging originality in the sense of refinement, at the expense of originality 
in the sense of innovation. This affirmation of the neo-classical ideology is 
unacceptable; for there can clearly be art which is original in the innovatory 
sense, but without being either original nonsense or, a mere refinement of 
tradition. The greatest achievements of Sturm und Drang such as Goethe's 
early novels are excellent examples of this. 
Now if we insist that originality be understood in this more complex sense, 
what is of general validity in Kant's theory of art beings to stand in clearer 
relief. The original artwork - the work of fine art - is one which breaks with 
traditional rules of production, or which refines them to an unexpected degree, 
or which combines elements of both these. Whichever case applies, the key 
point is that what defines art is not simply an artifact's possessing an 
appropriate form (a topic which I will address in a moment), but also the 
form's relation to other works - and that means, in effect, its historical 
situation. 
Now whilst being a necessary condition of fine art, originality cannot be a 
sufficient condition. For clearly other kinds of artifact can be original in the 
senses just described. We must, therefore look for further conditions which, in 
Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art 39 
conjunction with originality can serve to demarcate fine art from all other 
modes of artifice. The first of these is to be found in the notion of the 
»aesthetic idea«. This (we will recall) is a sensible or imaginative manifold 
which presents a concept or symbolic content in such a way as to engage the 
imagination in a non-arbitrary and explorative play. In such an engagement, 
the symbolic content is taken up in a way that »remodels« experience. This is 
where the link with originality proves crucial. For the »entertaining 
narratives« of »agreeable« art can also involve the sensible presentation of 
symbolic content, as is the case in T.V. »soap operas«. But here experience is 
not remodelled. We are simply lifted into a world that is an alternative to our 
own. It furnishes us with a route to voyeuristic escapism. If, however, the 
sensible or imaginative manifold generates its symbolic content in an original 
way, this arrests our normal relation to things. We view the content in a way 
opens out new ways of assimilating it, and indeed, which places us in a sharing 
and empathic relation to the creator. 
We thus reach a final fascinating point, which is a function of the relation 
between originality and the aesthetic idea. In this respect, it will be recalled 
that in Part Two I argued that Kant's attempt to separate art and science on 
the basis of genius is not wholly successful. The fact that all the steps in the 
creation of a scientific theory can be sufficiently explained, and taught, but 
those involved in the creation of fine art cannot, means only that we are 
dealing with different kinds of artifact - and not different kinds of creativity 
at the subjective level. To establish this latter claim requires an additional 
argument. One might provide it briefly as follows. Scientific theories are 
founded on principles of inference, deduction, and measurable quanta. This 
means that, in principle, a scientific theory could be devised by someone other 
than the person or persons who did in fact formulate it. The identity of the 
work of fine art qua original aesthetic idea in contrast, logically presupposes 
the existence of just that person or persons who is or who are responsible for 
its production. The creativity involved in art draws directly on the creator's 
personal orientation towards history (in the broadest sense) and upon what is 
distinctive about that person's view of the world, and his or her capacity to 
handle material. In science and other modes of technological production, the 
identity of the creator is contingent vis-a-vis the objective meaning of the 
end-product. In the work of art, in contrast the piece's objective meaning - its 
general human significance - flows decisively from the particularity of its 
origins and articulation. Kant, of course, did not explicitly propose this 
argument. It is, however, not only consistent with his position, but is, in effect, 
also pointed towards by his contrast between scientific and artistic creativity. 
40 Paul Crowther 
Conclusion 
In Part One of this study I argued that, in its most general terms, Kant's 
general aesthetic theory is more comprehensive in both scope and structure 
than those of Bell and Greenberg. Kant's theory of art consolidates this 
superiority to an extraordinary degree. He offers general criteria whereby fine 
art can be clearly distinguished from other modes of artifice and the aesthetics 
of nature. But much more than this, he clarifies and explains something of 
art's existential depth. This achievement is grounded on his analyses of genius 
and the aesthetic idea, which, with the modifications proposed in Part Three, 
do justice to fine art at the level of its object, the psychology of its reception, 
and the artist's creativity. Of especial significance is Kant's willingness to stress 
that what defines fine art is not just the possession of an appropriate kind of 
form, but the fact that this appropriateness is actively determined by the 
work's relation to rules and standards established by other works. This 
relational context is the very flesh of artistic form. It is through this emphasis 
that Kant's approach is able to overcome the tensions and restrictiveness of 
Bell and Greenberg's formalism. He overcomes the unwarranted gap between 
art and life by making social and psychological dimensions a part of art's full 
definition. We are thus led far beyond aesthetic formalism.