Tendentive Powers of Elements

Abstract

If the artist’s expressional intention cannot in the end alone justify the choice and dis-position of elements, it is equally evident that the artwork cannot be explained solely through the inherent expressional or expressive powers of the elements. Artworks are done by deliberate intent; they do not grow like cells, although the analogy has occasionally some power to illuminate the process. Elements do indeed have powers that they exert on one another, but in art as we have known it heretofore at least, composition intervenes. Clearly both composition and the inherent powers of elements are at work. The structure of the work depends upon both of these.