In Plato’s mind, art was the impersonation of nature. Yet in the nineteenth century, photography assumed control over that capacity, and in the twentieth century, abstract art toppled the entire thought that art was about the portrayal, in another word, representation. Moreover, in spite of the fact that art implied ability and skill at an opportune time, the conceptual artist had brought their thoughts to a higher level of execution. Hence, what is art?
Art has been identified by various philosophers and critics in different ways. The following content is going to take photography as an example of art to argue that Clive Bell’s theory of art is ill-considered. Clive Bell was a British philosopher and art critic who brought up the aesthetic theory that focused on the aesthetic experience. Bell deemed that the beginning stage for all frameworks of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a special emotion. (AT, 113; accentuation included.) To say it in another word, he starts with the hypothesis that aesthetic experience is basically private and individual, and the objects that help to bring out this emotion we regard them as artworks. However, these are based on a precondition: the audience must be sensitive people. On the basis of what mentioned above, the next step is to figure out what are the objects or elements in common in artworks that create the so-called aesthetic emotion. From Bell’s point of view, he believes that Art has an essence. Nevertheless, it still