The Principles of Art

The Principles of Art by R.G. Collingwood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


'If the Arts should perish
The world that lacked them would be like a woman
That, looking on the cloven lips of a hare,
Brings forth a hare-lipped child.'
- W.B. Yeats

Or as Collingwood has it, ‘art is not a luxury and bad art is not a thing we can afford to tolerate.’

Art is language; language emerged from imagination, the second stage of consciousness, not intellect, the third stage; but unlike everyday language, art don’t tolerate cliches.

To know good art requires an uncorrupt consciousness.

’But no one can know this except a person who possesses one. An insincere mind, so far as it is insincere, has no conception of sincerity.’

No artist is an island, and Collingwood thinks copyright laws are bad. Memes, the most vital form of contemporary art (not saying much), bear this out.

Collingwood thinks the relationship between artist and audience vital, and forms that separates them too much, e.g. cinema as opposed to live theatre, he thinks incapable of creating a truly great art (this is contestable).

Future art should be prophetic, telling the audience the secrets of their own hearts.

‘Art is the community’s medicine for the worst disease of mind, the corruption of consciousness.’

The true artist is in constant warfare against this corruption.



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