Why "Psychical Distance" Can Be A Factor In Art Or An Aesthetic Principle

Bullough used "psychical distance" as a term in his paper "Psychical distance as an art element and aesthetic principle". In this paper, he gave an example that on the voyage a ship met sea fog to explain the "psychical distance". In another word, psychical distance is different from the time distance or the space distance, the happening and holding of aesthetic activity is depended on the being of psychical distance. Once the psychical distance disappeared, the aesthetic would become to an ending, too. After these, Bullough expounded the diversified characters about the psychical distance. He brought forward that the antinomy of psychical distance was the most important character, because it comprised the negative and the active sides of psychical distance. The negative one could cut out the practically needs or motive with the man between the object in order to giving birth to aesthetic attitude which may lead to aesthetic activity. The active one was the main factor which maintained the aesthetic activity. Then, Bullough put forward the changeability of psychical distance which let the distance having the ability of alteration.This article seeing about the theory of Bullough, getting hold that psychical distance is a kind of art element, and it is not a universal aesthetic principal as Bullough said, it just can be saw as a descriptive tenet. On the other side, Bullough's theory could make some sense to the aesthetic activity in our daily life.