Abstract

"Significant form" usually tends to be considered as a famous version of formalist idea, that propounded by Clive Bell and Fry. But there seems to be some difference between them. I think that Fry's art theory was formed under his contemporary thoughts, exactly to say Russell's. Both these theories have the analytic method and their central idea is "form". In Russell's logical propositions as well as Fry's art-works, "form" is not a metaphysical idea, but a real object described as the so-and-so; it is the way the constituents are put together. In this essay, however, my emphasis is not only that the originality of Fry's theory can be derived from an analogy with Russell's Logic. Because the object of art criticism has the aesthetic aspect that cannot be apprehended in such a logical way. Fry proposed "aesthetic vision" as looking at the real art-works. This vision belongs to the critic with a higher refined sense, and can distinguish "significant form". Fry's "significant form" must be the plastic relations that an artist makes out on his canvas, where also lies an aesthetic reality