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p Langer sets high store by the theory of expressive form, arguing that this theory gets closest to 154 an understanding of the essence of art. She regards as main deficiency of this theory in the past the fact that its advocates, amongst whom she counts Clive Bell, Roger Fry, R. G. Collingwood, Otto Baensch et al., will not on any account recognize expressive form as an artistic symbol, which, in her opinion, leads to contradictions. She regards it as her task to interpret the theory of expressive form in the spirit of symbolism, in order to free it from paradoxes and anomalies. Whether or not Langer has succeeded in this we shall see below.

p In its most abstract sense form-and in this case it is also called logical-is the structure, the means by which a whole is created. Objects and phenomena may have a similar logical form. The different embodiments of one and the same logical form are its different projections. A projection does not copy logical form, but it is isomorphic to it (that is, it is in a relation of one-to-one correspondence). Thus, for example, Mercator and globular maps of the world are different projections of a single loaical form, such that it cannot be said with reference to a Mercator map that its geographical relations have been copied. If we take two different projections of one logical form we can say of either of them that it expresses the other, that it is an expressive form with respect to the other. In this way the banks of a river express the dynamic form of the river. Expressive form is any perceived or imagined whole which displays the relationships between parts or points, or even qualities and aspects, in such a way that it can be taken to represent another whole whose elements have analogous relations. Langer believes that the work of art is an expressive form, which is analogous to, or congruent with, the dynamic form of our feelings and therefore expresses them (6, 15). From what has been said above we already know that, in contrast to many semanticians ( Wittgenstein, Russell, Carnap et al.) Langer proceeds from the premise that affective life, for all its fluidity and complexity, is not chaotic and amorphous, but has its own structure, its morphology of feelings, which is what the work of art reveals. Human feeling is the culmination of the vital process, and therefore possesses organic, or living form. 155 Accordingly, any articulated image of a feeling must be a reflection of this living process. That is why every work of art must appear organic and alive, in order to reflect feeling. Art is organic in its essence. Art is characterized as living form by a number of features: integrity, functional unity, indestructibility, rhythm, dynamism, the dialectics of stability and variability, growth and decline, the principle of phases, etc. All these properties distinguish expressive form in art from other non^discursive symbols such as the map or plan, which does not have an organic structure. Langer is fully aware that the work of art is not an organism. “The principles of life are reflected in the principles of art, but the principles of creation in art are not those of generation and development in nature.” The “quality of life" is “virtual” in the work of art (10, 152).

p The idealistic, phenomenological features of Langer’s aesthetics are most prominently displayed in her theory of the “virtual” character of expressive form in art. Naturally enough in works of art things function differently from the way they manifest themselves in life. If this were not the case, why would there be any such thing as art? Langer takes this circumstance as the epistemological platform for idealistic speculation. She argues that for the “naive” mind the philosophical problem of art revolves around the “ relationship between the image and the object”. But, she asserts, in actual fact the philosophical argument is concentrated round “the nature of images as such and their essential difference from actualities" (5, 46-47).   [155•1  Thus her programme is clearly mapped out: the main emphasis in this study should not be on the explanation of how the principles of life are reflected in the principles of art, but on the demonstration of the essential differences between art and reality. Let us see just how she realizes this programme.

p In as early a work as Philosophy in a New Key Langer 156 correctly showed that the artist cannot comprehend, and. consequently. Intentionally create artistic forms “from nothing”, he must find them in the surrounding world. The primitive artistic impulse seeks its reflection and that of inner forms of feeling in nature and in man: in action, in the inexhaustible wealth of tensions, rhythms, continuums and contrasts. All these forms function as similar projections of the “inner forms of feeling”. They can be expressed for us through the “external forms" of art: line and colour, artistic, musical and poetic compositions. In this way art functions as “the obiectification of feeling, and the subiectification of nature" (10, 86-87). Langer considers it guite natural that art begins with an imitation of nature, with representation, the depiction of things and phenomena. But in her view imitation obscures the emotional content of form and obstructs the loqical expression of feeling. In art a special “technique” of making abstractions is elaborated, and thanks to this a work of art can be used for the abstraction of forms which express the structure of feeling.

p Abstraction in art-in contrast to generalizing abstraction in science, the author calls it “presentational”-functions in various forms (isolating, metaphorical, etc.), but has a single objective: to “make the logical projection of feeling" (8, 380-81).

p The most important and most “direct” form of abstraction is isolating abstraction (the term belongs to W. Wundt), or to express it differently, the principle of “primary illusion”. This ipso facto abstractive process represents an essential ^transformation of the actual dimension-be it space, time, action-in which the work is realized into a virtual dimension. Langer states that as a result of the abstractive process of “primary illusion" artistic form pertains to an illusory, virtual world, created in art. She treats logical expressive form in art in a phenomenological spirit: it is not equivalent to physical form; it is not a perceivable, but an imagined form, an “abstract” (5, 50).  [156•1  But she completely ignores the 157 question of the connection between this “abstract” and physical expressive form, as well as the connection between the latter and the “morphology of feelings”. As a result it is quite unclear why virtual artistic form is isomorphic with the structure of feelings. If one does not have recourse to a mediating link in the form of material structure the similarity between virtual form and feeling acquires a mystical character.

p Langer’s position inevitably leads to the rejection or underestimation of sensuousness in art. For this reason she makes numerous qualifications, stating that abstract form as such is not an artistic ideal, that the creation of an abstraction, insofar as it is possible, and the attainment of pure form only as a bare conceptual means are the business of the logician, and not of the artist or poet, etc. Arguing in this vein Langer contradicts herself.  [157•1 

p While ignoring the intermediation of physical form in the formation of virtual artistic form Langer was unable to substantiate the similarity (isomorphism) of virtual form with vital form in such features as dynamism, tension, wholeness (ciosedness) and certain others. In her article “Abstraction in Art" Langer tries to explain the presence of the abovementioned properties of form in art, without having recourse to the analogy with vital form. She adduces the Gestalt principle as her explanation. According to this principle, formed in Gestalt psychology (M. Wertheimer, Kurt Kortka), “good” form, created by the perception itself, is characterized by 158 “closedness”, dynamic structure, tension, etc. Moreover all these properties are inherent in the perception itself, and they automatically (passively) emerge in the process of perception. “The principle of gestalt or articulation of forms,” writes Langer, “has intimate relations with the principle of dynamic structure or tensive design in all the arts,” and goes on: “...the tensions arise from the very existence of closed forms" (8, 384).

p Langer fails to take into account that modern psychology and cybernetics take an extremely critical view of the Gestalt theory of the automatic emergence of images of perception, of the inborn capability to construe form. Analyses have shown that the perception of form is a complex analyticalsynthetic process, which presupposes a special form of interaction between man and object, and which requires “ training”. It is true that if we take a good work of art it is possible to abstract artistic form in it itself, without comparison and generalization of a lot of other examples. But then this takes place because the artist has done all the “preparatory” work for the abstracting of this form “for us”, or, to be more precise, created preconditions to facilitate its abstraction. Langer shows this rather well, illuminating the different principles, or types of “abstractive technique" in art.

p The above-mentioned explanation represents a total surrender to phenomenalism. Whereas earlier Langer had spoken of the isomorphism of virtual form in art and of real vital forms, although it was impossible to explain this isomorphism from phenomenological positions, now there was no further need to talk of this isomorphism. Virtual form and those of its properties like tension are explained as properties of perception itself. Tension is treated as a subjective quality —a property of perception-and not an objective quality of artistic form. Such an explanation fails to consider the most important question: what should the properties of the material structure of the work of art be if emotional tension is to come about in its perception?

p Apart from the principle of the “primary illusion”, or “ isolating abstraction" Langer identifies the principle of “ metaphor”. “Sensuous metaphor,” she writes, “does play an 159 important role in art" (8, 387). The meaning of this principle consists in the fact that the emotional meaning of form, embodied in sensory elements of one kind, such as, for example, sounds, can be expressed in sensory elements of another kind. By the very fact of “translation” expressive form is as it were abstracted from a particular embodiment. The third form of artistic abstraction is the principle of “secondary illusion”. When we contemplate a building we are sometimes suddenly able to feel a sensation of expanding space, when listening to music, to “see” colour or light, to “read” the eloquence in the line of a statue. Langer provides a phenomenological explanation for secondary illusion, as she does for primary illusion, pointing to its virtual character, and does not even pose the question of the material basis of this process.

We considered above Langer’s conception of expressive form. From a scientific point of view it is insubstantial and self-contradictory. The main reason for this is its phenomenological idealistic methodology. Below we shall endeavour to show that by undertaking to interpret expressive form from the positions of symbolism Langer not only failed to free this theory from its deficiencies, she actually increased them, adding new weaknesses connected with her own interpretation of symbolism.