Position
Expression Theory of Art
Art is essentially the imaginative expression of the artist's emotion, rather than the imitation of nature or the following of rules.
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.
Position on
Held by traditions
- Romanticism
Question scope: The Definition of Art
Incompatible positions
- Institutional Theory of Art
Question scope: The Definition of Art
- Aesthetic Formalism
Question scope: The Definition of Art
References
- 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
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Definition of Art, §2 (the institutional definition makes art status a relational social fact, denying that it consists in the expression of the artist's emotion)