Have you ever thought that art resides principally in imagination, the view R.G. Collingwood favored?
A work of art in the proper sense of that phrase is not an artifact, not a bodily or perceptible thing fabricated by an artist, but something existing solely in the artist’s head, a creature of his imagination; and not only a visual or auditory imagination, but a total imaginative experience. . . . A work of art need not be what we should call a real thing. It may be what we call an imaginary thing. A disturbance, or a nuisance, or a navy, or the like, is not created at all until it is created as a thing having its place in the real world. But a work of art may be completely created when it has been created as a thing whose only place is in the artist’s mind. . . . The work of art proper is not something seen or heard but something imagined.
(Quoted from page 130 of The Principles of Art, by R.G. Collingwood. Clarendon, 1938.)
For a brief biography of R.G. Collingwood, click here. For images of or relating to R.G. Collingwood, click here.
A work of art in the proper sense of that phrase is not an artifact, not a bodily or perceptible thing fabricated by an artist, but something existing solely in the artist’s head, a creature of his imagination; and not only a visual or auditory imagination, but a total imaginative experience. . . . A work of art need not be what we should call a real thing. It may be what we call an imaginary thing. A disturbance, or a nuisance, or a navy, or the like, is not created at all until it is created as a thing having its place in the real world. But a work of art may be completely created when it has been created as a thing whose only place is in the artist’s mind. . . . The work of art proper is not something seen or heard but something imagined.
(Quoted from page 130 of The Principles of Art, by R.G. Collingwood. Clarendon, 1938.)
For a brief biography of R.G. Collingwood, click here. For images of or relating to R.G. Collingwood, click here.
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