Expression Theory of Art

Classification

Position level

specific

Domains

Aesthetics

Overview

On the Romantic expressive theory — Abrams's "lamp" against the older "mirror" — an artwork gives outward form to the artist's inner emotional life rather than copying an external world. This is distinct from metaethical expressivism, a separate position about moral language.

Collingwood sharpens the claim by separating expressing an emotion from arousing one. Expressing an emotion means coming to know what one feels by giving it definite form; arousing an emotion in an audience is craft — he calls it amusement or magic — rather than art proper.

Position on

• The Definition of Art

Held by traditions

• Romanticism

  Question scope: The Definition of Art

Rival positions

• Institutional Theory of Art

  Question scope: The Definition of Art

• Aesthetic Formalism

  Question scope: The Definition of Art

References

• R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (1938), Book I ch. VI, 'Art Proper: (1) As Expression'
• R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (1938), Book II
• M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1953)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Definition of Art, §2 (expressive definitions, one of the classical kinds, hold that artworks are characterized by their expressive properties)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Definition of Art, §§4.1-4.2 (the institutional definition makes art status a relational social fact, denying that it consists in the expression of the artist's emotion)