1. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
From R.G. Collingwood. The Principles of Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938.
Biographical notes
Robin George Collingwood - English,
Professor at Oxford,
Collingwood's version of the Expressionist Theory - slide 1

2. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Art is the expression of emotions.
Anticipations of this theory may be found in Benedetto Croce (Italian, ).
Clarifications of the above formula
Art is about the realm of emotions
Expression is a process
Moves from the hidden, vague to the explicit & clear (112)
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3. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
It is a process of exploring emotions. The artist does not know the outcome beforehand.
Cf. crafts
Expression in art is not directed in a calculating, deliberate way at arousing emotions (113).
Cf. politician, advertiser
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4. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Expression in art is not directed in a calculating, deliberate way at arousing emotions (113).
Cf. The politician & advertiser know beforehand what emotion they are attempting to evoke.
Is there a specific aesthetic emotion (à la Clive Bell)? No - such a position assumes that the artist knows the emotion before creating the work of art.
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5. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
The process of creating a work of art also moves from a sense of “oppression” to “alleviation or easment” (116).
This is the only sense in which there is an aesthetic emotion.
And this is not a specific emotion
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6. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Expressing emotions is not “betraying emotions” ( )
The sense of betraying here -- displaying emotions (Mick Nolte in Woody Allen’s New York Stories)
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7. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
How does the audience fit into this theory?
The audience should imaginatively re-experience the emotion of the artist.
Cf. Collingwood’s philosophy of history
The sameness issue.
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8. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Where is the work of art? (The 3rd side of the experience of art.)
The work of art “proper” is in the mind of the artist, “a creation of his imagination” (305).
The art object is not the work of art proper, but a necessary accessory to art proper (305).
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9. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Critique of Collingwood’s theory of art
Weaknesses
The theory fails to take account of the vast numbers of works of art that were created on commission, under duress, or as production.
- I use the word “production” here because much of art before the Romantic era was produced in workshops and it was produced like other products were produced--similar to manufacture.
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10. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Historically, much of art was produced not by individuals to express personal emotions, but by an assemblage of artists. How can an assemblage (e.g., workshop) express emotions?
- I use the word “production” here because much of art before the Romantic era was produced in workshops and it was produced like other products were produced--similar to manufacture.
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11. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
The sameness problem
Strengths
Corresponds closely to the intuitions of many contemporary artists
Van Gogh in a letter to Theo, 8 September 1888: “I have tried [in The Night Café] to express the terrible passions of humanity by mean of red and green.”
- I use the word “production” here because much of art before the Romantic era was produced in workshops and it was produced like other products were produced--similar to manufacture.
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12. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
In another letter to Theo ca. September 1888: “In my picture of the Night Café, I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil’s furnace, of pale sulphur. And all this with an appearance of Japanese gaiety, and the good nature of Tartarin.”
- I use the word “production” here because much of art before the Romantic era was produced in workshops and it was produced like other products were produced--similar to manufacture.
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13. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Henri Matisse (“Exactitude is Not Truth,” 1947, from Henri Matisse, Retrospective of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Organized in Collaboration with the Artist (Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, 3 April - 9 May, 1948): ): “These drawings seem to be to sum up observations that I have been making for many years on the characteristics of a drawing, characteristics that do not depend on the exact copying of natural forms, nor on the patient assembling of exact details, but on the profound feeling of the artist before the objects which he has chosen, on which his attention is focused, and the spirit of which he has penetrated.”
- I use the word “production” here because much of art before the Romantic era was produced in workshops and it was produced like other products were produced--similar to manufacture.
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14. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Robert Motherwell: “The emergence of abstract art is one sign that there are still men able to assert feeling in the world. Men who know how to respect and follow their feelings, no matter how irrational or absurd they may first appear.”
(All the above quotes are from Herschel Chipp, ed. Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. Berkeley: U of California P, 1968.)
- The fact that so many contemporary artists express this view may be due to that fact that expressionism has been in the air for the past 200 years. Emerged during the Romantic era, but Romanticism is very much alive.
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15. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
The Expressionist theory neatly sets off art from science
Art
- expression of emotions
- concerned with the inner life of humans
- the expression of the unique, the individual
Science
- explanation of the natural world
- concerned with exterior of the world
- concerned with universals, the general
- The fact that so many contemporary artists express this view may be due to that fact that expressionism has been in the air for the past 200 years. Emerged during the Romantic era, but Romanticism is very much alive.
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16. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
The theory is, in some versions comprehensive
Includes a theory about
what art is
the artistic process, the process of creation
the relationship between the artist, the work of art, and the audience
- The fact that so many contemporary artists express this view may be due to that fact that expressionism has been in the air for the past 200 years. Emerged during the Romantic era, but Romanticism is very much alive.
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17. The Expressionist Theory: Collingwood
Does it include a tacit theory of evaluation?
- The fact that so many contemporary artists express this view may be due to that fact that expressionism has been in the air for the past 200 years. Emerged during the Romantic era, but Romanticism is very much alive.
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