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p In summing up we must say a few words about the social essence of the semantic philosophy of art. The social application of semantic idealism provides a key to the understanding of its social content. With respect to art this content involves the diminishing of the significance and role of art in the progressive development of mankind and a desire to absolve it of responsibility for the direction of artistic quests. The objective possibility of this social application of the semantic philosophy of art is conditioned by its formalist essence. The latter is connected with the general epistemological formalism of semantic idealism. But here we have to take account of another important factor.

p The Marxist-Leninist methodology of historical aesthetic study requires that the development of aesthetics should be considered in connection with the development of art. Art and aesthetics interact in their development. Just as aesthetics influences art so does the latter, with its relative independence, exercise its own influence on the development of aesthetics. Certain characteristic features of the development of bourgeois modernist art in the 20th century undoubtedly stimulated the development of the semantic philosophy of art.

p The interconnection of the semantic philosophy of art and modernist art in the west is a part of the more general question of the interconnectedness of philosophy and art, of modern bourgeois philosophy and modern bourgeois art. The different forms of artistic creation-painting, cinema, literature, music, theatre, etc.-in the capitalist world are all strongly under the influence of reactionary philosophical and aesthetic 229 schools, either working separately or in unison. The ideas of these philosophical schools are often more constant in art than in their abstract form. This is particularly true of semantic aesthetics, whose connection with modernism has frequently been noted in Soviet aesthetic literature, a connection which, moreover, has a more indirect character than that of other philosophical trends. It is not the point that the various semantic theories are popular with artists, writers, etc. What is important is the general philosophical atmosphere of idealism, from which the artists’ minds take nourishment, and one of the sources of this atmosphere is the semantic philosophy of art.

p Of course, semantic aesthetics tries not to base itself exclusively on modernist art. But the fact that it is above all this art which fuels the semantic philosophy of art and forms the object of its apologetics cannot be disputed. In the writings of the philosophers and aestheticians of the semantic persuasion, whom we have been discussing in this book, as well as of other members of the school we are able to find outright attempts at a theoretical justification of modernism and, in particular, of abstract art.

p The kinship between the semantic philosophy of art and modernism is pointed to by a whole series of philosophical principles-idealism, subjectivism, irrationalism, agnosticism, relativism.  [229•1  We shall here dwell on one important feature of the semantic philosophy of art, which is partially rooted in certain essential features of modernist art.

p Just as the development of science at the turn of the century was marked by heightened interest in the problems of the language of science, its structure and form, the artistic quests of the 20th century also display a keen interest on the 230 part of the artists in the problems of artistic form, of the “language” of art. It is not possible here to go further into the reasons for this general tendency, but there is no doubt that it has deep epistemological foundations. Just as logic is developing a method of analysing knowledge by creating artificial formalized languages, those artistic schools of the 20th century which come under the general rubric of “avant-gardism" display an experimental approach to the question of artistic form. Many avant-garde works, if we ignore a number of factors-a proviso which is both necessary and justifiable-can be assessed as artificially created, constructed “ languages" of art, by means of which their creators, over and above all else, objectively tried to elicit the laws of the structure, composition, forms and language of “natural” works of art. The present crisis-ridden conditions of bourgeois society, and the general decadent orientation of bourgeois art have brought about the absolutization of this experimentation and quest for innovation in the area of form, which has become an end in itself. The constructive aspect of these experiments (“building”, “inventing”, etc.) has also been exaggerated and declared to be the essence of artistic creation, and quite unjustifiably opposed to “imitation”, “reflection”, etc. The degree of abstraction from content necessary in the conditions of an experiment has been absolutized and form itself declared to be the content of art (language, colour, texture, weight, which “only designate themselves”). This absolutization, which, as stated above, had its own socio-psychological motives, was the epistemological soil of aesthetic formalism-i.e. of the most universal and essential feature of bourgeois modernist art (see 3, 63-111).

p The above-noted interest in the “language” of art and, in particular, the formalist actualisation of this interest nourished the aesthetic formalism of bourgeois aesthetics, including the semantic philosophy of art, and in its turn was theoretically “justified” and sanctioned. It often happens in the process that one representative or other of the semantic philosophy of art does not personally set himself such goals. “We cannot make proper progress,” writes the English Marxist philosopher John Lewis, “in the struggle for the 231 intelligentsia, for the more conscientious sections of the population of western countries, if we are unable to provide a calm and convincing reply to our ideological opponents. We must respect the intellectual integrity which characterizes many of them" (2, 91). We should, however, recall here Lenin’s words in a famous letter to Maxim Gorky: a good intention remains a personal affair, a subjective “innocent desire”. The proper sense of any theory, its significance is defined not by a benevolent attitude, but by the “relationship of social forces, the objective relationship of classes" (1, 128). Whether or not the various adherents of the semantic philosophy wish this subjectively, the fact remains that the objective logic of their ideas and theories leads to the theoretical justification of formalism and modernism. This thesis is true with respect to all the philosophers of the semantic orientation that we have discussed in the present work.

In works both by Marxists and non-Marxists which analyse the philosophical premises of modernism, its aesthetics and critique, the authors invariably mention, amongst others, the theories of art of Peirce, Croce, Cassirer, Richards, Whitehead, Morris and Langer. Its idealism combined with tendencies of formalism, which nourish and uphold the various forms of modernist art, constitutes convincing evidence of the reactionary orientation of the semantic philosophy of art.