Editing Clive Bell

{{Short description|English art critic, 1881–1964}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
[[File:Clive Bell.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Clive Bell by [[Roger Fry]] ({{circa}} 1924)]]
'''Arthur Clive Heward Bell''' (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964)<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/abstract/10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001/acref-9780199754694-e-179 |title=Bell, Arthur Clive Heward - Oxford Reference |chapter="'Identity', 'Logical connectives', 'Vagueness'" |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001 |access-date=2018-09-17|year=2006 |publisher=Continuum |hdl=11693/51028 |isbn=9780199754694 |editor1-last=Grayling |editor1-first=A.C |editor2-first=Naomi |editor2-last=Goulder |editor3-first=Andrew |editor3-last=Pyle}}</ref> was an English [[art critic]], associated with [[Formalism (art)|formalism]] and the [[Bloomsbury Group]]. He developed the art theory known as [[significant form]].

==Biography==
===Early life and education===
Bell was born in [[Great Shefford|East Shefford]], Berkshire, in 1881, the third of four children of William Heward Bell (1849–1927) and Hannah Taylor Cory (1850–1942). He had an elder brother ([[Cory Bell|Cory]]), an elder sister (Lorna, Mrs Acton), and a younger sister (Dorothy, Mrs Hony). His father was a civil engineer who built his fortune in the family coal mines at [[Merthyr Tydfil]] in Wales – "a family which drew its wealth from Welsh mines and expended it on the destruction of wild animals."<ref>{{cite book |last=Bell |first=Quentin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jLnV9C_zbzIC |title=Bloomsbury |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=1968 |isbn=978-0-297-76264-5 |page=23 |author-link=Quentin Bell |access-date=6 February 2023 |issue=v. 10}}</ref> They lived at Cleeve House, [[Seend]], near [[Devizes]], Wiltshire, where Squire Bell's many hunting trophies were displayed.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=History of Cleeve House |url=http://www.cleeve-house.com/history.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220120103137/http://www.cleeve-house.com/history.html |archive-date=20 January 2022 |website=Cleeve House |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

Bell was educated at [[Marlborough College]] and at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], studying history.<ref>{{acad|id=BL899AC|name=Bell <nowiki>[post Clive-Bell]</nowiki>, Arthur Clive Heward}}</ref> In 1902 he gained an Earl of Derby scholarship to study in Paris, where his interest in art began.

===Marriage and other liaisons===
On returning to London early in 1907, he met and married [[Vanessa Bell|Vanessa Stephen]], the artist sister of [[Virginia Woolf]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070427090745/http://www.infobritain.co.uk/Virginia_Woolf_Biography_And_Visits.htm Virginia Woolf biography and visits] Info Britain, accessed 2 October 2014.</ref><ref name=yomCB>{{Cite web |url=http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=Myg8XQLso2%2FEgA9%2FcYHFzA&scan=1 |title=Index entry: Bell Arthur Clive H. |access-date=24 May 2016 |work=Transcription of English and Welsh marriage registrations 1837–1983 |publisher=ONS}}</ref><ref name=yomVS>{{Cite web |url=http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=fuHZxw%2F0iO%2BQ1Jtk%2BoF00A&scan=1| title=Index entry: Stephen Vanessa |access-date=24 May 2016 |work=Transcription of English and Welsh marriage registrations 1837–1983 |publisher=ONS}}</ref> They had two sons, [[Julian Bell|Julian]] (1908–1937) and [[Quentin Bell|Quentin]] (1910–1996), who both became writers. Julian joined the [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Republican]] side in the [[Spanish Civil War]] as an ambulance driver and was killed by an enemy shell, aged 29.<ref name="HLee">Hermione Lee, ''Virginia Woolf'', London: Vintage, 1997, pp. 697–698.</ref>

By [[World War I]] their marriage was over. Vanessa had begun a lifelong relationship with [[Duncan Grant]], and Clive had a number of liaisons with other women including Mary Hutchinson, wife of [[St John Hutchinson]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Mary Hutchinson, née Barnes |url=https://tseliot.com/the-eliot-hale-letters/bio/mary-hutchinson |website=The Eliot–Hale Letters |access-date=22 October 2024}}</ref> However, Clive and Vanessa never officially separated or divorced. Not only did they visit each other regularly, they also sometimes spent holidays together and paid "family" visits to Clive's parents. Clive lived in London but often spent long periods at [[Charleston Farmhouse]], Sussex, where Vanessa lived with Duncan and her three children by Clive and Duncan. He supported her wish to have a child by Duncan and allowed his wife's only daughter, Angelica, to bear his surname.

Vanessa's daughter by Duncan, [[Angelica Garnett]] (1918–2012, née Bell), was raised as Clive's daughter until she married. She was informed by her mother, just prior to her marriage and shortly after her brother Julian's death, that Duncan Grant was her biological father.<ref name="HLee"/> This deception forms the central message of her memoir, ''Deceived with Kindness'' (1984).

According to historian Stanley Rosenbaum, "Bell may, indeed, be the least liked member of Bloomsbury.... Bell has been found wanting by biographers and critics of the Group – as a husband, a father, and especially a brother-in-law. It is undeniable that he was a wealthy snob, hedonist, and womaniser, a racist and an anti-Semite (but not a homophobe), who changed from a liberal socialist and pacifist into a reactionary appeaser. Bell's reputation has led to his being underestimated in the history of Bloomsbury...."<ref>{{Cite book |author=S.P. Rosenbaum |title=Georgian Bloomsbury: Volume 3: The Early Literary History of the Bloomsbury Group, 1910–1914 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pyl9DAAAQBAJ |year=2003 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-0-230-50512-4 |page=37}}</ref>

===Significant form===
{{Main|significant form}}
Soon after Bell met [[Roger Fry]], he developed his art theory [[significant form]]. The two shared a passion for contemporary French art. Bell's book ''Art'' (1914) was the first publication of his theory, which he describes as "lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms, and relations of forms, that stir our aesthetic emotions."<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HFFAQAAMAAJ |title=Art |last=Bell |first=Clive |publisher=Chatto & Windus |year=1916 |page=8}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zeki |first=Semir |date=2013 |title=Clive Bell's "Significant Form" and the neurobiology of aesthetics |journal=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |language=English |volume=7|page=730 |doi=10.3389/fnhum.2013.00730 |issn=1662-5161 |pmc=3824150 |pmid=24273502|doi-access=free }}</ref> This form can be seen in art created by many members of the Bloomsbury Group, an example being ''Interior at Gordon Square'' by [[Duncan Grant]].

==Political views==
Bell was at one point an adherent of absolute pacifism, and during the [[First World War]] was a [[conscientious objector]], allowed to perform Work of National Importance by assisting on the farm of [[Philip Morrell]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]], at Garsington Manor. In his 1938 pamphlet ''War Mongers'', he opposed any attempt by Britain to use military force, arguing "the worst tyranny is better than the best war."<ref>Susan Sellers, ''The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf'' Cambridge University Press, 2010; {{ISBN|0521896940}}, (p. 23).</ref><ref name="lj">Lawrence James, ''Warrior Race: A History of the British at War'', Hachette UK, 2010; {{ISBN|0748125353}} (p. 620).</ref> Ideas that Bell eventually supported the war are unproven, as Mark Hussey points out in his 2021 biography of Bell (p. 350 n1).

==Works==
{{Div col|colwidth=30em}}
*''Art'' (1914)
*''Pot-boilers'' (1918)
*''Since Cézanne'' (1922)
*''Civilization'' (1928)
*''Proust'' (1929)
*''An Account of French Painting'' (1931)
*''Enjoying Pictures'' (1934)
*''Old Friends'' (1956)
{{div col end}}

==See also==
*[[List of Bloomsbury Group people]]

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00730}}

==Sources==
*{{Cite book |last1=Bell |first1=Clive |title=Art |date=2015 |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |isbn=9781514244715 |orig-year=1914}}
*[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16917  Text of ''Art'' Gutenberg Project]
*{{Cite book |last1=Bywater |first1=William G |title=Clive Bell's Eye |url=https://archive.org/details/clivebellseye0000bywa |url-access=registration |date=1975 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit |isbn=9780814315347}}

==Further reading==
*Hussey, Mark, ''Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography'' (2021). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. {{ISBN|978-1408894446}}

==External links==
*{{Gutenberg author |id=5034| name=Clive Bell}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Clive Bell |sopt=t}}
*"[https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/20/archives/clive-bell-dead-art-critic-was-83-british-writer-championed-cezanne.html CLIVE BELL DEAD; ART CRITIC WAS 83; British Writer Championed Cezanne During 1920's"] ''[[The New York Times]]'', 20 September 1964. 

{{aesthetics}}
{{Bloomsbury Group}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Clive}}
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:English conscientious objectors]]
[[Category:English art critics]]
[[Category:Stephen–Bell family]]
[[Category:Bloomsbury Group]]
[[Category:British philosophers of art]]
[[Category:People from West Berkshire District]]
[[Category:Writers from Berkshire]]
[[Category:Writers from Wiltshire]]
[[Category:1881 births]]
[[Category:1964 deaths]]
[[Category:People educated at Marlborough College]]