Clive Bell Quotes

Clive Bell — English Critic born on September 16, 1881, died on September 18, 1964

Arthur Clive Heward Bell was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. Bell died, aged 83, in London... (wikipedia)

We all agree now - by 'we' I mean intelligent people under sixty - that a work of art is like a rose. A rose is not beautiful because it is like something else. Neither is a work of art. Roses and works of art are beautiful in themselves.

Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.

The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy.

Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

Clive Bell Quotes

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