Art Contains Nothing Due to Intellect; So What Does It Contain & Why That Matters

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As per R.G. Collingwood’s, The Principles of Art, art contains nothing that is due to intellect. As a college educated woman who thrives off learning and increasing knowledge I am at first offended by said remark. As an ENTJ I am intrigued. Let’s talk about that because I think we can learn something. Especially those of us who like to think we are intellectual and pride ourselves in doing intellectual things. We use our minds and develop them and now someone is saying art, something some of us love, is not intellectual. So what is it? Dumb.

Collingwood’s premise is that art proper contains nothing due to intellect. It is an activity in which we become conscious of our emotions. These emotions existed in our psyche. The activity of art is the means by which we discover what they are. Artistic activities discover something in the psyche and the activity pulls it out and provides a conclusion to it. The activity provides a tool by which the artist participating in it will discover what they didn’t know was there and will come to a conclusion about it through the activity. Art, therefore, is an activity by which we discover emotions.

Art is not due to intellect, yet certain works do contain intellectual emotions. Intellect is used to comprehend a situation and the artist expresses…