Theories of Art
(As Analyzed by Ralf J. Long)

Theory

Main Thesis

Remarks

• Subordinates art to history and survey science.
• Works best for the visual arts. Literary works have representational potential; musical works almost none.
• Favors stylistic realism. Doesn't account for the appeal of impressionistic and expressionistic works.
• This function has been largely assumed by photography.

• Makes art an adjunct to other endeavors.
• Early works of art were created for primitive religious ceremonies; later works of art were commissioned to illustrate religious texts.

• Regards art as pedagogic tool and propaganda tool.
• Favors fables and moralistic dramas.
• Doesn't account for (instrumental) music.
• Was advanced by Plato.

• Favors harmony over dissonance in art.
• Favors uplifting themes over depressing or disconcerting ones and nobility over commonness or degradation.
• Disparages dissonant music and visual and literary works with unpleasant themes.

• Is based on a tension-resolution paradigm.
• Applies best to dramatic music and longer, dramatic and melodramatic literary, stage, and film works.

• Confuses a possible function of a work of art for an artist (the producer) with the function of a work of art for the perceiver (the consumer).
• Regards art as psychological therapy for artists.
• Makes art judgments dependent on knowledge about the artist.

• Is broader than the Catharsis Induction theory.
• Doesn't allow that art might appeal more to the intellect than emotions.

• The emotions expressed need not be evoked in the perceiver.
• Allows that works of art may resemble emotional outbursts.

• Asserts that the function of art is not to induce emotions or express them but to formulate them.
• Claims that works of art are for intellectual appreciation.
• Was proposed by Susanne K. Langer.

• A meaning-world is a special plexus of ideas.
• Regards art as contributing to a rich mental life.
• Is a recent theory proposed by Ralf J. Long.

• Builds on Long's Meaning-World theory.
• Is a response to the poverty of evaluative criteria of that theory.
• Emphasizes how art helps the individual attain fully-human stature.
• Is further discussed here.