Herbert Read Says Form Starts At Crossroads of Consciousness

When does a clay bowl become a work of art?

"When its utilitarian function reaches optimum refinement," art critic and historian Sir Herbert Read said last night. "Then its form begins to react to spiritual needs."

Before an overflow crowd at the VAC, the eminent English author spelled out his theory of "The Origin of Forms in Art." Form in art is shape imparted by human action, but unlike shape, he maintained, it has an esthetic connotation.

Tracing the progressive refinement of artifacts, Sir Herbert outlined their evolutionary sequence in terms of refinement to maximum efficiency, and then further refinement to form. When this occurs, as in the case of a tool becoming a ceremonial object (for example, the ax becoming a mace), form is divorced from function, and thus freed to develop on the laws and principles called esthetics.

"Will to Form"

Man began to react to spiritual rather than utilitarian needs as his consciousness of form evolved. Sir Herbert maintained "There is an independent will to form when the object has attained maximum efficiency and is stabilized." The forms then established by the artist may have universal significance.

Citing Heidegger, Sir Herbert explained, "Form belongs to essence of being." Not until maximum efficiency is reached can the object become form, uniting and maintaining the tension of opposites. The object which emerges has form due to its interrelatedness and harmony. The Greeks had no word for "art" because they did not distinguish it from "being."

"Not an Instinctive Reaction"

Sir Herbert emphasized, "Art is a will to form," and "not an instinctive reaction." From discloses meaning; it is spiritual content translated into an independent mode of configurations.

The origin of form in art, he concluded, "occurs at the crossroads of consciousness" where forms meet and mingle.