significant form

{{short description|Art theory developed by Clive Bell}}

File:Clive-bell-c-1913.jpg

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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/significant-form|title=Significant form – Art Term|last=Tate|website=Tate|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-03-02}} 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."{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clive-Bell|title=Clive Bell {{!}} British critic|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-03-04}} 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.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1dfeKSbQe3UC&q=significant+form&pg=PA62|title=Introducing Aesthetics|last=Fenner|first=David E. W.|date=2003|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780275979072|language=en}}

As Bell put it succinctly: "The important thing about a picture, however, is not how it is painted, but whether it provokes aesthetic emotion."[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16917 Text of Art, p. 17. Gutenberg Project]

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.{{Cite journal |last=Zeki |first=Semir |date=2013 |title=Clive Bell's "Significant Form" and the neurobiology of aesthetics |journal=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |volume=7 |page=730 |doi=10.3389/fnhum.2013.00730 |issn=1662-5161 |pmc=3824150 |pmid=24273502|doi-access=free }}