“Art is the objectification of feeling.”

—  Susanne K. Langer

Mind, An Essay on Human Feeling, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 4 (1967)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Art is the objectification of feeling." by Susanne K. Langer?
Susanne K. Langer photo
Susanne K. Langer16
American philosopher 1895–1985

Related quotes

“Basically I hate categorical labels. As a young artist I already was very clear about this — that 'objectification' is not the final aim of art. For there are greater things than the object. The greatest thing is the human mind.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

As quoted in The Artist's Voice : Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists (1962) by Katharine Kuh, p. 118
1960s

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Art consists in making others feel what we feel.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 231
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A arte consiste em fazer os outros sentir o que nós sentimos.

“The arts objectify subjective reality, and subjectify outward experience of nature. Art education is the education of feeling, and a society that neglects it gives itself up to formless emotion. Bad art is corruption of feeling.”

Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985) American philosopher

Source: Philosophical Sketches (1962), Ch. 5, p. 94

Samuel Butler photo

“Feeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired by taking pains.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Feeling
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter

“Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.”

Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985) American philosopher

Source: Feeling and Form (1953), Ch. 3, p. 40

Mark Rothko photo

“The aesthetic is the sine qua none for art: if a work is not aesthetic, it is not art by definition... We feel through the senses, and everyone knows that the content of art is feeling; it is the creation of an object for sensing that is the artist’s task; and it is the qualities of this object that constitute its felt content.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

Source: 1940's, Beyond the Aesthetics (1946), p. 38

“The aesthetic is the sine qua none for art: if a work is not aesthetic, it is not art by definition... We feel through the senses, and everyone knows that the content of art is feeling; it is the creation of an object for sensing that is the artist's task; and it is the qualities of this object that constitute its felt content.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Source: 1940s, Beyond the Aesthetics' (1946), pp. 36-37

Theo van Doesburg photo

“.. a demand which will never be fulfilled as long as artists use individualistic means. 'Unity can only result from disciplining the means, for it is this discipline which produces more generalized means'. The objectification of the means will lead towards elementary, monumental plastic expression. It would be ridiculous to maintain that none of this relates to creative activity. If that were true, art would not be subject to logical discipline.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from Van Doesburg's text 'Towards elementary plastic expression', as cited in Material zur elementaren Gestaltung, G-1, July 1923; as quoted in 'Theo van Doesburg', Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 141
1920 – 1926

Related topics