Benedetto Croce’s aesthetics form the foundation of his philosophical system, which he called the “philosophy of the spirit,” and the core concept employed is intuition. According to him, the activity of the spirit is divided into practical activity (for utility or morality) and theoretical activity, upon which practical activity depends. Theoretical activity aims at knowledge, from which one obtains conceptual knowledge concerning universals or intuitive knowledge concerning particulars. For conceptual knowledge to be possible, intuitive knowledge of particulars must logically precede it. Therefore, intuitive knowledge serves as the basis for conceptual knowledge. Furthermore, considering the dependency between practical and theoretical activities, intuitive knowledge is the foundation for all human spiritual activity. Croce referred to the study of this as aesthetics.

So, what is intuitive knowledge? For him, intuition is the most fundamental way knowledge arises and can be explained using perception. Intuition is a state where the perception of what exists and the simple images of possibilities based on that perception are integrated without being distinguished from each other. He also describes this as expression. In other words, for him, intuition and expression are not different. As an idealist, he viewed the physical world as a phenomenon, perceived when our spirit actively intervenes and constructively forms images. For him, anything before intuition is merely a confused and passive impression, whose nature cannot be known. He often referred to this as emotion or feeling. Since intuition clarifies and objectifies these vague emotions or feelings, calling it expression is appropriate, he argues.

Thus, expression is something that every person who engages in the act of knowing must do. In this sense, he asserts that expression is art. Therefore, evoking emotions is unrelated to art. Art is the spontaneous generation of internal images by imagination itself. So, is everyone who performs an act of knowing an artist? According to Croce, essentially yes. Of course, quantitative differences exist. In his work *Art*, he describes an artist as “a person whose talent or disposition for fully expressing a complex state of the soul is extraordinarily outstanding.” While ordinary people possess the minimum intuition and expression necessary for daily life, artists are those who possess an abundance of it.

In this regard, an extreme argument also exists that since expression is entirely internally completed, art is an ideal and abstract entity. According to this view, art exists only in the artist’s mind at the moment they have an intuition. However, Croce argues that what should be called art must be distinguished from what is commonly called a work of art (a physical object).

According to him, expression requires no means or methods. This is because expression, which produces clear images, has no purpose. Rather, expression itself becomes the purpose. He calls such artistic works or creative acts “externalization.” This involves methods, purposes, and means to achieve them. However, art itself requires none of this.

In conclusion, he asserts that art is expression, completed within the human mind rather than as a physical object.

Summary

In Croce’s aesthetics, art is a form of ‘intuitive knowledge,’ which is the most fundamental activity of the spirit, namely ‘intuition’ and thus ‘expression.’ While everyone perceives objects through intuition and expression, an artist is someone who manifests these abundantly. Art, being an already completed, conceptual entity in the mind, is not a physical object.