UC-NRLF B 3 mfi 352 THEORY OF FINE ART. BY JOSEPH TORREY, LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY. 1874. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by ScRiBNER, Armstrong, and Company, In the Office of tlie Librarian of Congress, at Washington. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. PREFACE. The author of the following pages, during nearly the whole period of his connection with the board of instruction in the University of Vermont, was accustomed to deliver lectures to the students on the subject of Fine Art. These lectures were as- sociated with the philosophical studies of the senior year, after the plan pursued in some of the Euro- pean Universities. Not only was he drawn to the subject by natural taste and inclination, which led him during his visits to Europe to study with much enthusiasm, and with careful attention, the great works of Art contained in the principal galleries of Germany, France, and Italy ; but he considered, that, in any comprehensive survey of the powers and energies of the human mind, this important phase of its activity was by no means to be passed over in silence. He may have been impressed, at the same time, with the great importance attached to the subject, in its theoretic aspect, in the Uni- iv PREFACE. versities of Germany, where it has been for many years regarded as forming a legitimate part of a philosophical course of instruction. The lectures were generally regarded by the students as forming a very attractive feature of the senior year. The results of the author's studies and thought on this subject, studies which he continued through his life, are contained in the following pages. It will be seen that the method of treatment is historic in its spirit, and proceeds upon the fact that, in connection with the successive periods of time, there arises also a development in the department of creative power, corresponding with the interests and activities proper to each epoch. The spirit of the work is seen to be historic also, in the presen- tation and discussion of the views of many writers who have made the subject of Art the theme of special study, and who are entitled to respect, either on account of their experimental acquaint- ance with Art, or because of the- wide range of their genius and knowledge. In preparing the work for the press, the object has been to offer it to the public in the exact form in which it was left. This has been effected, with the exception of some slight and necessary altera- PREFACE. V tions. The principal work done has been in the verifying of citations and references. The refer- ences at the bottom of the page are nearly all by another hand. It is hoped, that, at a time when the subject of Art seems to be awakening new interest every- where, the present volume may prove a not unac- ceptable contribution to a view of it which, in this country, at least, has as yet received but little at- tention. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Province of Art. — Aciive and Passive Elements in Art. — Possibil- ity of a True Theory of Art, and its Value as a Means of Intel- lectual Discipline. — Method of Treatment to be pursued in this Work. — Definition of Taste I CHAPTER H. THE BEAUTIFUL. Various Theories of the Beautiful. — The Characteristic. — The Promise of Function. — Expression. — Multeity in Unity. — Truth in these Theories. — The Author's Theory of the Beauti- ful 25 •CHAPTER HI. THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. Taste a Form of Judgment. — The Object of Taste distinguished from the Agreeable. — From the Morally Good. — The Judg- ments of Taste of Universal Validity. — Independent of any Conception of Relation to an End. .... 47 CHAPTER IV. THE STANDARD OF TASTE. The Standard of Judgment within the Mind itself —Judgments of Taste distinguished from Moral Judgments ; from Sensuous Affections. — Impossibility of an Outward Rule. — Models : their Proper Use. — Identity of the Principle of Esthetic Judg- ment in all Men. 63 V'li CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. Diversity in Taste, Natural and Artificial.— Conventional Stand- ards of Taste. — Cultivation of Taste begins with Cultivation of the Mind generally. — Importance of a Right View of the Im- agination. — Freedom of this Faculty. — Its Right Exercise. — Study of Models. — Correct Taste not to be transmitted. — The Standard of Art Ideal » • « 77 CHAPTER VI. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. — INTERESTS AWAKENED IN CON- NECTION WITH THE BEAUTIFUL. Idea of Man as the Subject of Art. — Normal and Rational Idea. — » Impossible to attain its Expression by the Imitation of Models. Interests awakened in connection with the Beautiful. -^ Interest of Pleasure; of Knowledge,; of Vanity or Benevolence; of the Amateur. — Intellectual or Moral Interest, exemplified in th© Enjoyment of the Beautiful in Nature. .... 93 CHAPTER VII. RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. Art not mere Imitation. — Illustration. — The Dutch School. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. — Freedom Essential to Art ; but a Freedom that implies Labor. — Art must not be mistaken for Nature, but resemble Nature. — Artistic distinguished from Mechanical Skill. — The Artist thrown back on his own Resources. , . 107 CHAPTER VIII.. IDEALITY OF ART. Ideality of Art compared with the Truth of Nature. — « Use of the word Idea. — The Idea first manifests itself as a Feeling. — «- .Es- thetic Ideas, distinguished from the Ideas of Reason, and from CONTENTS. IX Conceptions of the Understanding. — Their Relation to Images of Sense ; To the Logical Understanding. — Spontaneity of the Imagination in the Production of its Ideal Creations. The Ideal. — Unity and Manifoldness reconciled in the Production of Ideal Beauty. — Ideal Beauty compared with the Beauty of Na- ture. — The Ideal of Humanity the Central Point for Art. — Ob- jects of Art below and above Man. — The Ideal Representation of External Nature. — Of Objects belonging to the Spiritual World. The Characteristic contrasted with the Ideal. — Use of the Char- acteristic in Art. ........ 12: CHAPTER IX. THE SUBLIME. The Emotion of Sublimity. — How does it differ from the Sentiment of the Beautiful. — Theory of Burke. — Of Ruskin. — wSublime Objects awaken the Consciousness of the Higher Powers of the Mind. Allston's Theory of the Sublime. — Of " Imputed Attributes." — • — Attitude of the Mind in contemplating Sublime Objects. — Moral Sublimity. — Sublimity in its Relation to Art. . 149 CHAPTER X. ^ DIVISION OF THE ARTS. Brief Review. — Principle of Division to be sought for in the Rela- tion between the Ideal and its Possible Modes of Expression. — Division proposed by Kant. — Criticism of this Method. — Divis- ion into Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic Art, illustrated in the Historic Development of the Arts. .... 163 CHAPTER XI. ARCHITECTURE. Position of Architecture among the Fine Arts. — Its Power of realiz- ing Ideal Beauty. — Two-fold Object — Use and Beauty. — Rela- CONTENTS. tion of the Form to the Material in Architecture — ■ Origin of this Art. — Architecture of the Egyptians. — Of the Greeks. — Orders of Grecian Architecture. — Lombard and Gothic. . 179 CHAPTER XIL SCULPTURE. Relation of Sculpture to Architecture. — Limitation to the Human Figure. — Comjjosition in Sculpture. — Equipoise of Form and Material. — Adapted to the Representation of the Superhuman. — Distinctive E.xcellence of Sculpture as an Art. — Its Ideal- ity. — Development of the Art in Greece. — Sculpture in Modern Times i97 CHAPTER XIII PAINTING. Relation of Paintmg to Sculpture. — The Material employed ; Color ; Perspective ; Lights and Shades ; the Line. — Effects to be produced by Colors, through Harmony of Combination, and Local Tints. — Color as a means of Expression. — Peculiar Ad- vantages of Painting as an Art. — Wide Range of Subjects. — Development of this Art. . . . . . . 215 CHAPTER XIV. MUSIC. Music belongs to a New Circle of Arts — Music the Basis of Oratory and Poetry. — How distinguished from these. — The Material in Music. — How moulded. — Quantity or Rhythm. — Quality, i. e. Melody and Harmony. — Peculiar Power of Music. — Associa- ted with Poetry. — Musical Style. — Composition and Execu- tion. .......... 231 Fragment on Oratory. .... ... 245 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XV. V' POETRY. — CONCLUSION. Prominence of Poetry among the Arts. — The Nature of its Mate- rial. — Language of Poetry, Passionate, Picturesque, Rhythmical. — Range of .Subjects fo r the PoeticArt — Its Power of gradually unfolding a Subject. — Relation of Poetry to the other Arts, and to the Ultimate Purpose of Art. — Divisions of Poetry. Prospects of Art in the Present Age. — Causes of its Decline. — Enjoyment and Appreciation of Art not confined to the Age that produces it. — Advantages of the Present Period for the Critical Study of Fine Art 2 17 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER HI. THE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE IN THEIR RELATION TO ART. Original Significance of the Dimensions of Space. — Measure and ProporfJ-x.- give the Law to all Art. — Importance of this Truth- — History of the Subject. — The Pythagoreans. — Aristotle. — Galileo. — Arbitrary naming of the Dimensions in Inorganic Bodies. — View of Coleridge. — Significance of the Names ex- plained by Reference to Organic Forms. — Dynamic Theory of Author of " The Physiology of Life." — Hypothesis of Schel- ling. The Primary Dimensions of Space first clearly expressed in the Human Body; — Relation of the Dimensions to each other. — Breadth the Lowest and most Matter-like Dimension. — Height the Principle of Form ; Breadth, of Symmetiy and Locomotion ; Depth, of Sensibility and Expression. — Discussion of the Theory contained in "The Physiology of Life." — The Constitutive Principle is the Soul. — The Soul in Art, as distinguished from. Formal Proportion, on the one hand, and Ornamentation on the other. — This Element demanded in Art. — Relation of Soul to Body. — Proportion of Form the only Foundation on which Soul can appear. — Admissions of Ruskin. — Significance of Forms rooted in the Original Difference in the Dimensions of Space. — Application of these Principles to Music, Oratory, and Poetry. 267 t. A THEORY OF ART. Library, 0/ Calif ort^^ A THEORY OF ART. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. There are three ways in which ideas preemi-^ nently manifest themselves as Uving powers in the practical life of mankind, namely : in Art, in Eth- ics, and in Religion. To the province of Art belong, generally, those productions of the imagi- nation which are capable of calling forth the sen- timent or emotion of the beautiful ; to that of Ethics, the striving of the individual will after worth and dignity of character, of communities of men after the right organization of society, and of a state after its true constitution ; and to that of Religion, the striving after the restoration of that fellowship with God and harmony with nature which alone can place man in the position he was originally destined to occupy. In all these ways, / ideas, either sesthetical, moral, or spiritual, become to some extent, though most often, it must be con- fessed, very feebly and imperfectly realized. The first of these ways for the realization of ideas, and 4 A THEORY OF ART. also the lowest, since it can never rise higher than to the completeness of being on the side of its form, is the subject I propose to treat of in the following pages. The general subject, therefore, is Art ; not, however, in the restricted and limited sense in which this word is very commonly under- stood. The Art which I wish to consider embraces whatever works — whether they be the works of Na- ture, or of man ; and whether of the common man, or of the man of genius — excite the imagination to that peculiar kind of activity which is the neces- sary condition of our perception of the beautiful. For in a certain sense, each individual for himself, in the very perception of beauty, may be said to create it. Our imagination, in exact proportion to our sense of a beautiful work, copies that of the original producer. Each man plays the part of an artist for himself He does over again what is al- ready done to his hands, and reproduces the em- bodied idea. He forms for himself those " intellect- ual images," as by Bishop Butler they are not inaptly called,^ which cause the pleasurable emo- tions he very naturally, though not altogether cor- rectly, supposes to arise from the merely passive susceptibility of his nature ; for in this whole order of perceptions — " We receive but what we give, And in otir life alone, does nature live." '^ 1 Ser. 14. - " Dejection. An Ode." Coleridge's Poems. INTRODUCTION. 5 It is first when we are made clearly aware of the ' function and agency of the imagination, as vitally concerned in the excitement of that emotion which the beautiful in Nature and Art produces upon us, that the possibility of a true theory of Art begins - to dawn upon the mind. For if in Ethics the will may be free, at the same time that it is subject to law, and can be truly free only so far as it freely conforms to its true law, — the great point in that science, — so too the imagination may be free in ^ its subjection to law, and can have, indeed, the true freedom which Art requires, only so far as it freely or spontaneously enters into the law which should govern its operations in each specific case of pro-- duction. And as the felt sentiment of approbation ' or of disapprobation is the form in which the judg- ment as to whether the will is acting in obedience to its true law or not, expresses itself to our imme- diate experience, in the moral sphere; so the felt/ sentiment of complacency or disgust, of delight or aversion, is the immediate judgment which we are constrained to pass upon the conduct of the imag- ' ination. In both cases, this instantaneous judg-* ment in the form of an approving or condemnatory feeling is the a posterioid ^vai^ixiQ.'A element, which should never be disregarded or thought lightly of, whether in morals or in art, while the will and the imagination, acting independently of our whims and caprices, and in free conformity with that rea- 6 A THEORY OF ART. son which is their true law and basis, are the a priori element and principle, never to be lost sight of in a philosophical system of Morals or of Art. To drop the subject of Morals, which I have in- troduced here only for the sake of the analogy, and to revert wholly to that of Art ; if the question were put, which one of the two elements just men- tioned — which may be distinguished as the active and the passive elements in Art — is the most im- portant, we cannot doubt that that is the most im- portant one upon which the other is wholly depen- dent ; and as the passive feeling stands in the relation of dependence on the intellectual activity, the latter is more important, and more carefully to be considered, watched over and cultivated than ■the former, which necessarily follows its lead. If this feeling, divorced from the imagination, is that which is really meant by the modern word Taste, a term which seems to have been first introduced by the French, and was certainly unknown to the ancients, — if this merely passive, aesthetical faculty of judgment, so liable to be warped in a hundred . ways, and to become altogether conventional, should be made the supreme arbiter over the imagination, it is difficult to see how genuine Art could long survive such a change in the true order of things, — what could save it from losing all its vitality, and degen- erating into absolute tameness or something worse. I may here bring in a few words on this point INTRODUCTION. 7 from the poet Wordsworth, naturally a most indig- nant observer of the false school of criticism which grew out of this instalment of taste over creative power, and from which he suffered so much and so unworthily. " Taste, " says he, meaning the taste I have just described, "like Imagination, is a word which has been forced to extend its services far be- yond the point to which philosophy would have confined them. It is a metaphor, taken from 2^ pas- sive sense of the human body, and transferred to things which are in their essence not passive — to intellectual acts and operations. The word Imag- ination had been overstrained, from impulses hon- orable to mankind, to meet the demands of the fac- ulty which is perhaps the noblest of our nature. In the instance of Taste, the process has been reversed ; and from the prevalence of dispositions at once in- jurious and discreditable, being no other than that selfishness which is the child of apathy, which, as nations decline in productive and creative power, makes them value themselves upon a presumed re- finement of judging. Poverty of language is the primary cause of the use which we make of the word Imagination, but the word Taste has been stretched to the sense which it bears in modern Europe by habits of self-conceit, inducing that in- version in the order of things whereby a passive faculty is made paramount among the faculties con- versant with the fine arts. Proportion and con- 8 A THEORY OF ART. gruity, the requisite knowledge being supposed, are subjects upon which Taste may be trusted ; it is competent to this office, — for in its intercourse with these the mind is passive^ and is affected pain- fully or pleasurably as by an instinct. But the profound and the exquisite in feeling ; the lofty and universal in thought and imagination ; or, in ordinary language, the pathetic and the sublime, — are neither of them, accurately speaking, objects of a faculty which could ever without a sinking in the spirit of Nations, have been designated by the met- aphor — Taste. And why ? Because without the exertion of a cooperating /^w^r in the mind of the reader there can be no adequate sympathy with either of these emotions ; without this auxiliary im- pulse, elevated or profound passion cannot exist." ^ 1 Essay siippletnentary to the Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Ruskin, who is generally a good negative authority, whatever we may think of his positive opinions on Art, makes the following remarks on this subject. " Wherever the word ' taste ' is used with regard to matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of be- longs to some inferior class of objects, or that the person speaking has a false conception of its nature. For, consider the exact sense in which a work of art is said to be ' in good or bad taste.' It does not mean that it is true or false ; that it is beautiful or ugly ; but that it does or does not comply either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain modes of life ; or the habits of mind produced by a particular sort of education. It does not mean merely fashionable, that is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper classes ; but it means, agreeing with the habitual sense which the most refined education, common to those upper classes at the period, gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far as that education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate. lA'rKODUCTION. 9 I find a strain of remark altogether similar to this in a spirited essay of Goethe on the same sub- ject.^ and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet instead of gaudy color, and with graceful instead of coarse form ; and by long acquaintance with the best things, to discern quickly what is fine from what is common ; — so far ac- quired taste is an honorable faculty, and it is true praise of any- thing to sav it is ' in good taste.' But so far as this education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please, and what is brightest can hardly entertain ; — so far as it fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own (as people build marble porticoes, and inlay marble floors, not so much because they like the colors of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber) ; — so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a well said thing better than a true thing, and a well-trained manner better than a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a good-natured one, and in all other ways and things setting custom and semblance above everlasting truth ; — so far, finally, as it in- duces a sense of inherent distinction between class and class, and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank ; so that the affection, pleasure, or grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred man, — just so far, in all these several ways, the feeling induced by what is called ' a liberal education ' is utterly averse to the understanding of noble art ; and the name which is given to the feeling, — Taste, Gout, Gusto, — in all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that art gives only a kind of pleasure analogous to that derived from eating by the oalate." — Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. v. § 6. 1 Einleitimg i/i die Propyldcn ? lO A THEORY OF ART. But I should not feel myself moved, even by these great authorities, to dismiss altogether the word Taste from the vocabulary of Art, simply because the faculty which it stands for has, not by its own fault, been made to usurp a place to which it is not entitled. I should prefer rather to restore it to its union with the Imagination, refusing to consider its decisions as infallible, except where it plainly acts in concert with, and in subserviency to \ that rightfully magisterial faculty. But I shall have something further to remark on the subject of taste, and of the aesthetical faculty generally, in another part of these lectures. We are perhaps least sensible how much the ac- tivity of our own imagination is concerned in pro- ducing our perception of the beautiful, when we feel it in the presence of the beautiful objects of Na- ture. And yet undoubtedly the sense of beauty is first awakened, in the experience of nearly every one, from the contemplation of natural objects in a fit and predisposing temper of mind. In general, it is the grand spectacle of Nature spread out be- fore the eyes of all, which, in its ever varying ■ aspects, supplies the chief sources of their aesthetical /enjoyment to the mass of mankind. And indeed, the principles of beauty in Nature are so essentially the same with those lying at the ground of all beauty in Art, that to sin against one is inevitably ^ to fail in the other. Still, it is evident, that in a INTRODUCriON. 1 1 philosophical theory of the beautiful in general, it is the productions of human Art in particular, and taken in distinction from those of Nature, which must constitute the special object of inquiry ; and for this good reason, that in Nature beauty is never the essential thing — is not that which Nature spe- cially aims at and works after. It is rather an accident ; or it is a quality coexisting with so many other qualities which address themselves more di- rectly to our interests, as to be either altogether shut out of view, or else so confounded with them as not to be clearly distinguishable. But it must be quite evident to every person who reflects, that in making out the scientific theory of a matter, the object of inquiry should be separated and detached, to the utmost degree possible, from all other mat- ter not belonging to its own proper essence. The object, then, in our present inquiry, is to make out what it is, in essence and principle, that constitutes the beautiful wherever it appears, and wherever it produces those effects by which we recognize it : and as to realize such effects, alone, and separate from all disturbing accidents, is the express end of Art, and an end which Art constantly realizes, — so far as it is what it professes to be, and is not a mere pre- tension, — it is manifest that a true Theory, while it ought by no means to neglect or overlook the Beau- tiful in Nature, must, after all, be mainly directed to the consideration of those productions of the hu- V 12 A THEORY OF ART. man mind where Beauty — a quality which only the human mind finds in Nature — being the sole ob- ject aimed at, would be likely to find its purest real- ization. Having taken this general view of the subject now before us, let us next proceed to examine why it should be studied, what constitutes its worth and importance as an intellectual discipline, what grounds there may be for presuming that it can be contemplated under a scientific form, and what method should be observed in the treatment of a science of this nature. I take up the two first of these heads chiefly with a view to relieve the subject of certain difficul- ties and objections which are apt to present them- selves to some minds. An objection felt, and often expressed, by men whose judgment is not to be despised, is, that the subject wants substantial in- terest and dignity ; that it is not connected with any really serious end of human life. Life, it is said, is earnest ; Art is but sport. It is at best but a relaxation, which is the very opposite of a discipline. Its natural tendency is to enervate and enfeeble, and such has been its actual influence on individ- uals and on nations. This is one objection. It is said, again, that Art cannot be studied as a science, or in the manner of a science ; it cannot be reduced to any such form. The arts are all of them addressed to our sensuous nature, to the feel- INTRODUCTION. \ 3 ings, to the imagination, rather than to thought. It is not scientific thought, but the most wayward and capricious of all our powers which is called into exercise in contemplating the arts of taste. More- over, it is the very essence of Art to be free. It will not be shackled by rules. It belongs wholly to the free world of fancy and imagination. Art soars beyond Nature, beyond real life, beyond the region of actual things, and revels in the inexhaustible kingdom of possibilities. How is it conceivable that scientific thought can fully compass and reduce to the order of a system the mode of working pecu- liar to a faculty of such boundless, unfettered ac- tivity ? Another objection, akin to the foregoing, arises from the great difficulty, not to say the impossi- bility, which many find, of arriving at any com- mon standard of taste in a case where it is so obvious that the judgment must be left free, or rather that each must judge according to his own emotions, which neither will nor can be controlled by any outward rule. And as the imagination itself can give to particular forms of the beautiful an endless diversity ; as it works among one people, and in one age, in a way quite different from what it does among another people, and in another age, — so it would seem that there must also be an equally endless diversity of tastes, and therefore no common rule of judgment in matters of this sort. Moreover 14 A THEORY OF ART. such a rule, if conceivable in theory, would be un- desirable in practice, since it would only lead to a lifeless uniformity, or a monotonous elegance, against which both Art and Nature equally protest. To take up these objections in their order, it may be remarked, first, as to the claim of Art and its the- ory to be considered as an important branch of intellectual discipline, that, though artistic pursuits are often regarded as a mere pastime, an elegant amusement, one of the better modes of increasing the sum of human enjoyment ; while their worth is measured simply by the degree in which they con- tribute to the means of private luxury, or to the splendor of national character ; though art is thus commonly considered in the light of a means to something else, and its importance estimated mere- ly by its utility, — yet, rightly considered, according to its true conception, it will present itself in quite another aspect, and challenge our respect and atten- tion by its own independent and intrinsic dignity. Art has its foundation in man's dissatisfaction with the finite, the imperfect. It is a striving after the absolutely perfect, grounded in the infinite long- ings of the human soul. In its highest and true meaning, it belongs to the same circle with the other high, practical interests and needs of a free, self-conscious being, and of the life of the spirit, — morals, the social state, religion. It is one mode, the first, perhaps, which would naturally occur to the INTRODUCTION. 1 5 human mind left to itself, of seeking to answer the need, which man, as a rational being, must ever feel, of bringing distinctly out to his own conscious- ness certain truths already mvolved in his spiritual nature. There has been a time in the history of our race when men strove to embody their ideas of the universe, and all their notions of religion, in works of art ; in which they strove to make distinct to themselves, in this particular way, — in outward determinate forms of sense, — the ideas of those matters of which they were dimly conscious in their own minds. Thus they endeavored to express in the finite the infinite, which, indeed, cannot ade- quately be so expressed. That time has long since passed away ; nor can Art now furnish the same sat- isfaction from the sense of having realized its object as it formerly could. But the essence of Art is still the same. Man is capable, now, it is true, of a bet- ter realization of what is spiritual, — of what belongs to the pure truth of ideas, — in other ways than by Art. But Art belongs still to the same great circle of 1^^ human endeavors and activities. It belongs to the ' free domain of man's spirit We still feel en- nobled, exalted, — we are still impressed with a sense of the inherent worth and dignity of man's nature, — in contemplating a great work of art. As to the moral objection drawn from the ener- vating influence which the arts of taste have been supposed to exert on nations and individuals, much 1 6 A THEORY OF ART. may be, and much has been said, on both sides. Plato, it is well known, was for banishing all poets from his republic. It is singular to remark, that the most devoted friends of Art have not been the least ready to admit, and even to illustrate by examples from history, this most serious and fatal of all objec- tions which could be urged against Art, as belonging in any true sense to the essence of humanity. It is a remark of Schiller, in a work which he wrote with the very purpose of recommending Taste as. a fundamental principle of education, that in almost every epoch of history in which the arts have flour- ished, and taste has become supreme, man has de- generated. " As long," says he, " as Athens and Sparta maintained their independence, and an in- bred reverence for law upheld their civil institu- tions, .... Art was still in its infancy, and the love of the beautiful as yet far from asserting any- thing like a sovereign sway over the heart But when, under Pericles and Alexander, the golden age of the arts cornmenced, and the dominion of taste became absolute, the energy and freedom of Greece were already gone. Eloquence falsified the truth, insulted wisdom on the lips of a Socrates, and virtue in the life of a Phocion. The Romans, we know .... had already bowed to the yoke of a fortunate dynasty before the arts of Greece could prevail over the stern severity of their character. . . . . And in modern Italy, it was not till the INTRODUCTION. jy glorious confederacy of the Lombards was broken, — till Florence became subject to the Medici, and the spirit of independence in all those brave cities gave place to an abject submission, — that the era of the fine arts fairly commenced." ^ The truth, however, would seem to be this. There is nothing in the fine arts, grounded and rooted as they are in the very essence of our hu- man nature, which can be supposed to have any necessary tendency to results which would be hos- tile to the best interests of that nature. No such contradiction can exist between essential principles of our mental constitution, rightly developed and employed ; but, as beauty, truth, and goodness are\ one in essence, so they must necessarily harmonize and mutually sustain each other in all their various modes of manifestation. This seems evident of it- self; nor can there be the least doubt it would be found confirmed by all experience of the fine arts within their own proper sphere, and unmixed with other influences with which, by the perversity of uur passions, rather than by their own fault, they are too often found combined. It is not the fine arts themselves, but their abuse, which leads to corruption. Such being the fact, the objection at ' most amounts only to this, that Art is liable to abuse. But the same may be said of every most 1 Schiller. Ueber die cesthetische Erziehung des Menschen, in einer Reihe von Briefen. Zehnter Brief. 2 1 8 A THEORY OF ART. excellent thing. And the greater the mischief re- sulting from a thing when abused, the higher, we often find is its real worth in itself, and the more important, that its true nature should be well un- derstood. Next, to the objection that Art addresses itself to our feelings and imagination, and not to thought, and hence is no proper object for scientific investi- gation, it may be replied, generally, that, as Art is a product of the human mind, and the mind, by re- flection upon itself, may contemplate all it does and produces, and also understand its own law of work- ing, even when it works with freedom, it must be able, too, to contemplate and understand this mode of its activity. Art takes its beginning from the hiind, the spirit, though it clothes itself in forms of /sense, and speaks chiefly to the feelings. The spirit merged in the sensuous form, which it com- pletely pervades, is not lost there. The thinking mind recognizes itself, in the shape of sense which affects the feelings, and in which, so to speak, it has embodied itself. It does not there recognize, indeed, its highest form, but it recognizes its own /form. Every true work of art is full, to overflowing, with thought, under some form of sense, addressing ^itself to the feelings. As the beautiful in Art, and Nature, must ever be presented to us under a sensuous form, and address itself primarily to our feelings, some writers have INTROD UCTION. 1 9 been led to consider the beautiful wholly on the side of the emotions excited by it. Thus Burke endeavors to resolve the whole subject into a theory of emotions, — emotions of terror, or such as par- take more or less of that passion, constituting the sublime ; emotions of love, or those which belong to that general class, constituting the beautiful. But it is obvious to remark, that, by contemplating the subject thus exclusively on the side of the affections moved by the works of Nature, or of Art, w^e are in danger of losing sight of the main thing, which is evidently the power, whether in Nature or Art, which produces such emotions. What belongs properly to Art is, that it produces feeling only in a certain way, and through a certain medium ; only through the medium of that which we call the beau- tiful. The beautiful, then, is the main thing to be considered, and the emotions it awakens only, in so far as they serve to reveal the nature of that which excites them. But, as the productive cause of a certain class of emotions, there is certainly no reason why the beautiful should not be considered a very proper object of scientific examination. Again, it is true that the great fountain of the fine arts is the free activity of the imagination, and this faculty possesses an inexhaustible fullness of productive power. But, although the imagination is free to produce whatever it pleases, and although it is freest of all in the highest productions of Art, 20 A THEORY OF ART. which bear, as the very stamp of their perfection, the character of entire freedom from all formality and constraint ; yet the imagination in art is not free in the sense of being capricious. In the first ^ place, as we have seen, Art has its problem, its pur- pose, which is ever but one, namely, to bring to jconsciousness what already lies deeply hidden in the recesses of the spirit. Art is not a mere play •of fancy without an object. Infinitely various and diversified as may be the ways in which the deep things of the spirit are capable of being expressed in works of art, yet this infinite diversity is after \\ all confined to a certain range of forms. Not every sort of form and shape is fitted to express ideas. Art, in its playful and sportive moods, may, it is true, occasionally descend to objects extremely triv- ial ; but if these have no connection with higher things, if they are not a ra^YQ part, contributing to the effect of some greater whole, but are considered as something of themselves, they fall immediately below the province of art, or of that kind of art which alone it is our present purpose to consider. And in the second place, when it is said that the imagination is free in art, it is meant that it is free inasmuch as it is not governed by outward empirical rules, but has its law within itself I shall have to say more on this point hereafter, and therefore shall not dwell on it here. The imao:i- nation in art, then, is a rational, discreet power, in its INTRODUCTION. . 21 freedom. It is not free to wander from its object,! to indulge in meaningless vagaries ; or to be extrav- f agant, and inconsistent with itself Having answered these objections, and, in so do- ing, presented some views of the nature of the subject in general, which, as I conceive, prove its title to the rank of a philosophical discipline, and its capability of being treated in the manner of a science, it will be my next object to point out briefly the method of inquiry which should be pur- sued in order to arrive at satisfactory results. Two "^ methods, directly opposed to each other, have been adopted by different writers on art. One of these, and, until lately, the only one which seems to have been regarded with much favor in our Eng- lish schools of philosophy, is that which attempts to construct a theory of art on facts and rules de- rived from experience, and particularly from works of art already extant. But it is easy to see the difficulty, if not utter impossibility, of establish- ing a satisfactory theory of art in this way. Such facts and rules, under the most favorable circum- stances that can be conceived, must, after all, be drawn from a comparatively narrow range of ob- servation, falling vastly short of what the human mind has actually accomplished in this immense field of its activity, through all the various epochs of art ; and hence the theory must necessarily fall , short of the facts, — must be insufficient, I will not 22 A THEORY OF ART. say to explain, but even to touch, many of them. But suppose it were possible to take account of all that has hitherto been done, still it would be neces- sary, in order to erect a perfectly reliable theory on any such foundation, to assume that the human mind had now at length exhausted itself, — that the hu- man imagination had run through all its possible phases. /' The other method is that which aims to arrive at the fundamental principle of a theory of art by the way of pure speculation. In this case, of course, it is presumed to be possible to arrive, with- out aid from experience, at the knowledge of the beautiful, as it is in itself, in its pure idea. But the peculiarity of the case here is, that essence and existence, that the form and the matter, are one and inseparable. The beautiful necessarily re- quires the actual expression of the idea in a form of sense. Separated from this, its necessary substan- tial form, its concrete expression, the idea is simply an impulse, an unknown power, something striving for utterance, it may be, but what it is, the subject himself whose mind it possesses and fills, finds out only so far as he bodies it forth in some shape of the imagination. Such being the case, it seems to be quite evident, that speculation, independent of experience, could, on this subject, lead to no satis- factory results. The true method, as it seems to me, is the one hinted at by Mr. Coleridge, where he INTROD UCTION. 2 3 says, that it lies between the method of law, and of that theory which depends on experience. It will not answer to trust sense and experience alone, nor pure reason alone ; but neither is the one or the other to be at any moment neglected, or lost sight of; but both are constantly to be taken together, the one as a necessary complement to the other. The faculty or principle of judgment which is called into exercise both in the production, and in the contemplation, of the works of Art, is by com- mon consent called Taste. Various definitions have been given of this power. The most general is that which simply assigns to it its sphere of opera- tion, and which describes it as that faculty of the mind whereby we judge of what is beautiful, or the reverse, in nature, or in art. This is a mere nom- inal definition. The following aims to express the essence of the thing. "Taste is the intermediate faculty which connects the active with the passive powers of our nature, — the intellect with the senses, — and its appropriate function is to elevate the images of the latter, while it realizes the ideas of the former." ^ The active intellectual power more especially brought into exercise in judg- ments of taste is the Imagination ; the passive powers are those of Feeling or Emotion. Not everything that calls into exercise the activity of 1 Coleridge's " Essays on the Fine Arts," in the Appendix to Joseph Cottle's Early Recollectiojts. V 24 A THEORY OF ART. the imagination is beautiful, but only that which \ so exercises it as to awaken emotions attended jwith complacency and delight. Not everything, /again, that excites emotions of delight is beautiful, but only that which awakens such emotions through the free activity of the imagination. The proper office and function of Taste is to elevate the sensu- ous, — whatever is presented to us in clear and well defined images of sense, and, for this reason, would only be pleasing and agreeable, — to elevate this, and to raise it to a higher power, by making it the vehicle of the supersensuous, the medium of expressing ideas. Taste then, finally, might be defined as the intuitive faculty or sense, either original or acquired, and rendered instinctive by habit, which in each case perceives what is befit- ting, discerns that just proportion, that union and interpenetration of the universal and the particular, which alone, and everywhere, constitutes excellence in Art ; and which, whenever perceived, invariably produces that complacency and satisfaction which grows out of the reconciliation and harmony of sense with reason. 11. THE BEAUTIFUL. CHAPTER II. THE BEAUTIFUL. Having thus defined taste, let me next speak of its object, the beautiful, and more particularly of the beautiful in Art. According to one theory, what constitutes the beautiful in Art is the charac- teristic. Let us endeavor to understand what is meant by this. It is assumed by this theory, that the beautiful is the perfect of its kind. That is perfect of its kind which has in it all that it ought to have, and nothing that it need not have. In the things, persons, and actions of our actual expe- rience, we find no such perfection, no such com- pleteness. They are imperfect, not on account of their natural limitation, not because they are finite, but because the laws of that natural limitation by w^hich the kind of each thing is determined are not allowed to operate freely, but are checked and ob- scured by causes foreign to themselves, or by their mutual interference with one another. Hence the necessity, in science, of observing a case in many difFereot circumstances and situations, in order to separate from it all that is non-essential, and thus to arrive at its simple law. Now, what science \ 28 A THEORY OF ART. Strives after by a laborious process of analysis, art effects synthetically and intuitively. It seizes upon the essential, and neglects the circumstantial. A drama, or a painting, for instance, confines itself to a single action. Such an action in real life would be complicated with a thousand circumstances, of no importance, because throwing no light on mo- tives or character. In Art, these useless adjuncts are weeded out, or rather, they are ignored. Now if, besides this negative merit of neglecting the non-essential, the positive side — of seizing the whole essence — were the thing really meant by the characteristic, I see not how any valid objection could be made against this theory of the beautiful. But by the characteristic is evidently meant, not the whole essence, but only the m'ore striking traits and outward manifestations of the essence of a \ thing. And in truth, a power of seizing with in- tuitive certainty upon those points, and those alone, which at once bring before us the true type, the real motive, of an object or of an action, is one which, beyond almost any other, distinguishes that creative imagination which gives birth to the beau- tiful in art. But although this is a great power, it is not all that is needed, and it is liable to become one-sided. In the first place, the characteristic may be made too prominent, too glaring. The real type and es- sence of a thing is, after all, that which lies deep- THE BEAUTIFUL. 29 est in it. It will not bear, therefore, to be brought too much to the surface. We thus see but one side of it, at the expense of that completeness of expres- sion which beauty demands. Burns may be cited here as a poet who possessed this power in an extraordinary degree, and used it well, too. " No poet of any age or nation," says Carlyle, " is more graphic than Burns ; the characteristic features disclose themselves to him at a glance ; three lines from his hand, and we have a likeness. And in that rough dialect, in that rude, often awkward metre, so clear and definite a likeness ; it seems a draughtsman working with a burnt stick, and yet the burin of a Retzsch is not more expressive or exact." He then proceeds to point out an instance, where this poet " by a single phrase depicts a whole subject, a whole scene. Our Scottish fore- fathers, in the battle-field, struggled forward — says Burns — * red-wat-shod ' ; in which one word," re- marks Mr. Carlyle, " the poet gives a full vision of horror and carnage, perhaps too frightfully accurate for art." ^ This, no doubt, is as good an example of what is meant by the characteristic as could be found. But it is a high example of the force of language rather than of art, — of its capability, as compared with that of the pencil or the chisel, of flashing upon the mind's eye, at a stroke, what could not be portrayed on canvass, what could ^ Essay on Burns. 30 A THEORY OF ART. scarcely even be presented, in its full reality, to any outward eye. But if this image answers its pur- pose, if it not only sets the action vividly before us, but its motive and its meaning, what more could we ask ? Nothing more, for effect, — something, perhaps, a little different and less glaring, for a perfectly beautiful whole. In the second place, the characteristic is apt to run into caricature ; and it is difficult to fix the limits. The characteristic is, in its essence, op- posed to the ideal. Shakespeare, the greatest mas- ter of characteristic, individual beauty, sometimes, it must be admitted, verges towards that extreme called caricature, though generally his own con- summate judgment leads him unerringly to stop short of all excess. In the Greek poets, on the other hand, particularly in Sophocles, character is subordinated to the colder, but nobler proportions . of ideal beauty. I shall not stop here to discuss the question which should have the preference, but only remark that, if each of these great poets is beautiful, wonderful, in his own peculiar style and manner, we should hardly be warranted to conclude, that it is the characteristic which constitutes the X very essence of beauty. . We may consider next the theory of an Ameri- can artist, Greenough, who defines beauty as "The promise of function." ^ This principle seems di- ^ See Tuckerman's Memor'url of Greenongk. Essay on Relative and Independent Beauty, etc. THE BEAUTIFUL. 3 1 rectly the reverse of the one just considered ; for character is the development and result of function, rather than its promise. It may be, however, that we have here fundamentally the same thought ; and perhaps with some improvement, some nearer ap- proach to completeness. Beauty, according to this artist, is always a relative quality, and is propor- tioned to the relation of promise with action and character. Action may not come up to promise, and character may prove to be a very imperfect re- alization of it. But, in the promise of a thing, at least, there is all that can ever be realized by it. We have everything in the promise of a function, though we may be disappointed in its performance. But suppose the function to go on unimpeded un- til its end is accomplished. Still, it will be more beautiful in its promise than in its result. The re- sult of a true function will be good, which was simply beautiful in its promise ; as the budding blossom has a charm which is wanting in the full- blown flower, and when its office is completed, we have no longer a flower at all, but, what is better, the fruit. So I interpret this theory, which is not very clearly explained by its author. Several max- ims follow naturally from these premises, the truth of which can hardly be disputed, i. It is impossi- ble to make a thing beautiful by embellishment. 2. Beauty cannot be borrowed, cannot be trans- ferred from one thing to another, but must grow 32 . A THEORY OF ART. wholly out of its own root. 3. To represent an ob- ject or an action at its highest stage, is to choose the moment of least advantage.^ It is to leave nothing for thought, nothing for the imagination. Perhaps the most striking and instructive part of this theory is what relates to em.bellishment, — the reasons for rejecting it. Since a very popular writer, and, with some, the highest authority of the present day on the subject of art, Mr. Ruskin, holds that ornament is the only thing that deserves to be called art, in architecture,^ it may be well to hear 1 " If the artist can never avail himself of more than a single mo- ment of ever-changing nature, and even of this single moment ex- cept as looked at from a single point of view ; and if his works are produced, not to be glanced at merely, but to be contemplated over and over again ; then it is certain that this single moment, and the single jDoint of view of this single moment cannot be chosen with too much regard to significance. But only that is significant which leaves full and free play for the imagination. The more we look, the more we should be led to think ; and the more we think, the more we should believe. But in the whole duration of an affec- tion or passion no moment has this advantage less than the highest stage of it. Beyond this there is nothing further ; and to show the utmost to the eye is to tie up the wings of fancy, and force her, since she cannot go beyond the expression manifest to sense, to occupy herself with feebler images beneath it, where she may get free from the visible fullness of expression which limits her. There- fore, when Laocoon sighs, the imagination may hear him cry out ; but when he cries out, she can neither take a step higher nor lower without beholding him in a contemptible and consequently uninteresting situation. She hears him gasp, or sees him already dead." — Lessing's Laocoon, pp. 42, 43. '^ See Ruskin's Lectures on Architecture and Painting. Addenda to Lectures i. and ii. THE BEAUTIFUL. 33 what a practical artist has to say on this general subject. First, then, through all nature, Greenough sees nothing done for the sake of mere embellish- ment, — nothing in flowers, in shells, in the higher animal life, or in man. '' The tints, as well as the forms of plants and flowers are shown to have an organic significance and value ; " it may be taken for granted, " that tints have a like character in the mysteriously clouded and pearly shell." It cannot be believed " that the myriads are furnished, at the depths of the ocean, with the complicated glands and- absorbents to nourish those dyes, in order that the hundreds may charm an idle eye, as they are tossed in disorganized ruin upon the beach." In the structure of the eagle, and of the lion, are beheld " the most terrible expression of power and domin- ion, and we find that it is here, also, the result of transcendental mechanism." Next turn to the hu- man frame, — "Where is the ornament of this frame .^ It is all beauty ; its motion is grace, no combination of harmony ever equalled for expres- sion and variety, its poised and stately gait." *' The savage who envies or admires the special attributes of beasts, maims unconsciously his own perfec- tion, to assume their tints, their feathers, or their claws ; we turn from him with horror, and gaze with joy on the naked Apollo." Next, with re- gard to architecture. Everything here, he main- tains, should speak of adaptation, and nothing else. 3 34 A THEORY OF ART. " If we compare the simpler form of the Greek temple with the ornate and carved specimens which followed it, we shall be convinced," he says, ** that they were the beginning of the end, and that the turning point was the first introduction of a fanci- ful, not demonstrable, embellishment ; and for this simple reason, that embellishment being arbitrary, there is no check upon it ; you begin with acanthus leaves, but the appetite for sauces, or rather the need of them, increases as the palate gets jaded. You are tired of Aristides the Just, and of straight columns ; they must be spiral, and by degrees you find yourself in the midst of a barbaric pomp, whose means must be slavery, — nothing less will supply its waste ; whose enjoyment is satiety, whose result is corruption." ^ Enough has now been said on this principle of beauty as related to function. In this rapid survey we have seen about the whole extent of its indisputable application. But there are two objections to it as a universal principle. While it may hold good as expressing the true law of the imagination in relation to all the plastic arts, it will not be found to apply so naturally and readily to music and poetry. Organic unity, it is true, is no less required in these departments of art than in the others. But it seems out of place to be looking, in them, for the promise of function. The second objection is, that in all really universal 1 Tuckerman's Memorial of Grccnojigh, pp. 174-176, 179. THE BEAUTIFUL. 35 propositions, the converse should hold true. But if it should be admitted that, in all the plastic arts, beauty is the promise of function, still the converse surely cannot be maintained, that wherever there is promise of function, there is beauty. ' . Again it has been held, that the highest princi-' pie of art, that to which everything else must be subordinated, in order to reach the beautiful, is ex- pression. This has ever been a favorite theory. I find it nowhere more explicitly stated than in the > following language of Sir Charles Bell. " Beauty," he says, " is consistent with an infinite variety of forms ; and this alone appears sufficient to con- vince us, that its cause and origin is to be found in some quality capable of varying and accommoda- ting itself, which can attach to different forms, and still operate through every change. This quality I conceive to be expression ; and although it may be said that beauty is chiefly excellent where there is observed no character of passion, yet in these cases the form we admire is calculated for expression, and has in our secret thoughts a relation to the qualities of mind." ^ Thus far the author. That there is always a moral or intellectual element con- cerned in what fascinates us, whether in the human form, or in brute and inanimate natures, the in- definable glance of which we call expression, it 1 Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Paintings by Charles Bell. Essay vii. 36 A THEORY OF ART. would be useless to deny. But the word is much too vague. All expression, even of moral qualities, is not grace. Affected, exaggerated expression, is positively disagreeable. So is the expression of all strong passion, as the writer intimates, Hamlet's direction to the players, that in expression they should " beget and acquire a temperance to give it smoothness," is of universal application in the arts. All exaggeration is distortion. But, it is evident, that which itself constantly needs to be measured, cannot be the measure of anything else, — cannot be a rule or principle of judgment. A peculiar modification of this hypothesis, — that beauty consists in expression, — is the theory of Mr. Alison. According to him, there is nothing really beautiful in the object we call so ; the word ex- presses nothing which is really in the object itself. The qualities of matter, or of any mere object of sense, " are in themselves incapable of producing emotion, or the exercise of any affection." But "they may produce this effect from their association with other qualities ; and as being either the signs or expressions of such qualities as are fitted by the constitution of our nature to produce emotion. Thus, in the human body, particular forms or col- ors are the signs of particular passions or affec- tions. In works of art, particular forms are the signs of dexterity, of taste, of convenience, of util- ity. In the works of nature, particular sounds and 7'HE BEAUTIFUL. 37 colors, etc., are the signs of peace, or danger, or plenty, or desolation. In such cases, the constant connection we discover between the sign and the thing signified, between the material quality and the quality productive of emotion, renders, at last, the one expressive to us of the other, and very often disposes us to attribute to the sign, that effect which is produced only by the quality signi- fied." 1 Such, in general, is the theory of Alison. The fatal objection to it is this, that it not only represents what we do actually refer to the object, as residing wholly in ourselves, in our own minds, and casual associations ; but that it makes it to de- pend on a subjective and private interest, the inter- est of the individual, an element, the absence of which, rather, as we shall see hereafter, is necessa- rily implied in our conception of beauty. Finally, let us consider another, more recent defi- nition, that of Mr. Coleridge. " The Beautifiil" says he, " contemplated in its essentials, that is, in kind, and not in degree, is that in which the many, still seen as many, becomes one." ^ According to this, it should seem that every object of sense must, of course, from the very nature of it, partake more or less of the beautiful ; for of what object of what '^Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, by Archibald Al- ison. Essay ii. ch. i. 2 Coleridge's Essays on the Principles of sound Criticism coTicern- ifig the Fine Arts. Appendix to Joseph Cottle's Early Recollec- tions. Essay iii. 38 A THEORY OF ART. sense may it not be said that the many properties, though seen, or capable of being seen and contem- plated, as many, are yet perceived as one in their substantial ground ? Or, if it be said that we do not see the many, as in the case of a single sound or color, in which we are not conscious of the several vibrations or undulations of which it is composed, would it also be denied, as the defini- tion requires it should be, that such sound or color possesses in any degree whatever the attribute of beauty ? To this doubtless the author would reply, that in every case whatever in which the many, still seen as many, becomes one, or in which we have a simultaneous intuition of the relation of parts each to each, and all to a whole, we have a case of the beautiful, — while the single sound or color, is simply agreeable. But let us look at his own illustration. "Take" says he, "a familiar in- stance, one of a thousand. The frost on a window- pane has by accident crystallized into a striking resemblance of a tree or a seaweed. With what pleasure we trace the parts, and their relations to each other and to the whole ! Here is the stalk or trunk, and here the branches or sprays, sometimes even the buds or flowers. Nor will our pleasure be less, should the caprice of the crystallization represent some object disagreeable to us, provided only we can see or fancy the component parts, each in relation to each, and all forming a whole. THE BEAUTIFUL. 39 A lady would see an admirably painted tiger with pleasure, and at once pronounce it beautiful, — nay, an owl, a frog, or a toad, who would have shrieked or shuddered at the sight of the things themselves. So far is the beautiful from depending on associa- tions, that it is frequently produced by the mere removal of associations. Many a sincere convert to the beauty of various insects has Natural His- tory made, by exploding the terror or aversion that had been connected with them." " The most general definition of beauty, therefore," he continues, " is Multeity in unity. Now it will be always found, that whatever is the definition of the kind, independent of degree, becomes likewise the definition of the highest degree of that kind. An old coach-wheel lies in the coach-maker's yard, disfigured with tar and dirt (I purposely take the most trivial instances). If I turn away my atten- tion from these, and regard the figure abstractly — * still,' I might say to my companion, * there is beauty in that wheel, and you yourself would not only admit, but would feel it, if you never had seen a wheel before. See how the rays proceed from the centre to the circumference, and how many differ- ent images are distinctly comprehended at one glance, as forming one whole, and each part in some harmonious relation to each and to all. But imagine the polished golden wheel of the chariot of the Sun, as the poets have described it ; there the 40 A THEORY OF ART. figure, and the real thing as figured, exactly coincide. There is nothing heterogeneous, nothing to abstract fi'om ; by its perfect smoothness and circularity in width, each part is (if I may borrow a metaphor from a sister sense) as perfect a melody, as the whole is a complete harmony. This, we should say, is beautiful throughout. Of all the many which I actually see, each and all are really reconciled into unity ; while the effulgence from the whole coin- cides with, and seems to represent the effulgence of delight from my own mind in the intuition of it." ^ But after all these ingenious illustrations, I think every one must still feel, that there is something defective in the definition ; and although we might be willing to admit that everything beautiful is, in fact, multeity in unity, yet it by no means follows from this, that whatever possesses multeity in unity is beautiful. The shapeless and deformed may still not be without a unity of its own, and a relation of its parts to the whole. The relation must be one of proportion. But aside from this, even when the unity consists of a most perfect harmony of rela- tions, whether it be a harmony of forms, or colors, or of tones, or of movements, if there is nothing more than this abstract unity of relations, if there is not also the concrete unity of an inspiring soul, seen, or in some sense divined, I think it will be found that we never contemplate the object with i Coleridge's Essays, etc. THE BEAUTIFUL. 41 that permanent complacency which the truly beau- tiful is sure to awaken. We soon grow tired of the stiff and formal symmetry, which is without mean- ing or life, and has relation to nothing but itself Thus, among geometrical figures, the square and the circle contain the most perfect relation of parts in the unity of a whole ; but even in architecture these figures are rarely admissible, except where their stiff effect can be wholly overcome, by some means or other out of themselves. In all these theories of the beautiful, taken from^ our best English writers, there is much that is true, and exceedingly important to be observed. In them all, two sides are constantly alluded to, — something characterized, and something which characterizes ; something expressed, and something which express- es ; something associated, and something which as- sociates ; something which is one„ and at the same time manifold. They all agree in regarding that which is characterized, expressed, associated, and one, as the main thing. In the arts, it is that which the artist looks at, strives after ; it is that which we feel who contemplate his work. Now we may call this what we please, — the conception, — the idea, as it lies, whether in the more vague form of feel- ing, or the more perfect form of intuition, in the artist's mind, or as it is awakened in ours by the sight of his work, — yet it has no existence as the beautiful, either for him or for us, except so far as 42 A THEORY OF ART. he has succeeded in bringing it out and reaUzing it in his production. His work is the means of reahzing ^- his idea, and embodies it. It is nothing else than purely the realization of this to the sight, to hear- ing, to the imagination, under some outward form consisting of parts. It is easy to see, that, what- ever else there is besides what suffices for this is not only unnecessary, but positively out of place, and in the way. It obstructs the view of the main pur- pose. What I would say may be otherwise ex- pressed as follows : It is necessary to every great and true work of art that it should possess perfect unity, that everything in it should have no other meaning, purpose, or tendency, than simply to ex- press that unity, to bring it, in all its completeness, fullness, and depth, clearly and distinctly before the mind. Thus the artist first realizes fully to him- self his own conception, and thus he flashes it, or more gradually instills it upon the minds of others. Hence the wonderful power of productions which thus unite in themselves principle, means, and end, in one. We say of them, they are instinct with life, ^ — they possess an inexhaustible fullness. There is no end to the images they suggest, to the associa- tions they awaken. We are never tired of looking at them, — of perusing them. We never return to them but to find something new, and to experience fresh delight. Such is the language we use, and - without the least exaggeration. y. THE BEAUTIFUL. 43 What is the secret of this endless charm ? I do ^ not hesitate to say that it may be expressed in a single word, and that is triitJi, — truth as seen in the coincidence of the ideal and real. Real truth, says Locke, '* is the agreement of our ideas with things ; " ^ and the definition is a very good one. But where shall we find such agreement .'^ There is a difficulty on both sides. How inadequate are the ideas or notions we have in our minds to express the fullness of reality which is in things ! But then . again, on the other hand, how few of the things around us come up even to our imperfect ideas. What beautiful human form that we ever saw was wholly without blemish or defect } The individual things of nature do not, at any one particular mo- ment, fully correspond even with our imperfect con- ceptions. It is impossible that they should ; for they are continually passing and changing with time, and are never at one stay. Truth is eternal and un-^ , changeable. Now science strives to arrive at truth lin one way : art in quite another. The results of ■science cannot be expressed in sensible shapes and forms of the imagination. The results of science exist only in the thinking mind, and in the forms of recorded thought for the thinking mind. But the very end of all the imaginative arts is to express the truth of things in sensible forms, and in such a way as that these forms, so far as art is concerned, ha^e 1 Locke's Essay, b. iv, c. 5, 8. ^ 44 A THEORY OF ART. no other use or purpose than simply to serve as the expression of truth in its unchanging nature. Thus it is, that maternal love lives through the centuries, ever beaming forth with the same expression of in- effable tenderness from the face of that inimitable picture of Raphael, the Virgin of the Chair. The unalterable truth of perfect harmony of proportions found its realization in the Parthenon of Athens, and in that perfect model of architecture it has ever since sat enthroned. The beautiful, then, is truth, — the truth of eter- nal, as distinguished from merely accidental, arbi- trary, or conventional relations ; and reaching us, not through our understandings, in the form of con- ceptions or thoughts, but immediately through the heart, — therefore, in some form of sense, or of the imagination ; the truth in this case being felt rather than understood by us ; producing admiration, love, longing, rather than conviction ; moving, rather than instructing us. But will this apply to beauty in its lowest forms, in its simplest elements .'' Certainly. Beauty everywhere is a felt conformity to law. Everything pleases, or ought to please, which, in its own sphere, justly represents the truth of being. The deformed, the ugly, on the contrary, is the un- natural, that which comes under no positive law, expresses no truth in particular, but a mere contin- gency or accident. We see not that charm in a shapeless clod, or a puddle, which we see in a crys- THE BEAUTIFUL. 45 tal or a dewdrop. As the power and law of form in nature, — rather the creative power of almighty wisdom and truth manifested in nature, — mounts progressively upwards to its masterpiece in man, that charm increases in interest. In man himselL/^ the self-conscious being, it acquires its greatest in- tensity. His form affords, in itself, the type of out- ward bodily proportion, a true image, stamped upon it at creation. That form, radiant with intelligence and virtue, reflecting without distorting the divine image in which it was originally created, is the high- est beauty. ^- t- V 111. THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. CHAPTER III. THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. After having settled upon these definitions of Taste, and of its object, the Beautiful, it will be nec- essar)^ for us to consider, more fully than we have yet done, another point, which is. In what respect d6v judgments of taste differ from other judgments, and in what does the object of taste differ from other objects and qualities, the contemplation of which may also be attended with delight or complacency. I use the expression, judgments of taste, and ask how they are to be distinguished from other judg- ments. But here a previous question immediately suggests itself Can taste be, in any sense, properly considered as a judgment at all. For judgment, it has been said, is an exertion of the intellect, while taste is simply a faculty of receiving pleasure, or an " instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another, without any obvious reason, ex- cept that it is proper to human nature in its perfec- tion so to do." ^ And here let me remark, generally, that many speak of these original intuitions of the human mind, or heart, very vaguely, with very little 1 Ruskin, Modern Painiers, Pt. i. sec. i. ch. iii. 4 ^' \v 50 A THEORY OF ART. comprehending of their true import ; as if a pre- vious development of the human mind by discipUne of some sort or other, outward or inward, in which the power of judgment is constantly called into requisition, were not necessarily required and im- plied in such intuitions. / I think it cannot be denied that taste is at any rate a power of discrimination ; that it is by taste we judge between the beautiful and the ugly, that it is by this faculty we distinguish different degrees, as well as different kinds of beauty : whether the grounds and reasons for such decisions are at the moment clearly present to the mind or not ; and moreover, that a good taste, in the best sense of that word, and sound judgment, are, if not the same thing, at least rarely found separated. It is in this view of taste as a power of discrimination, that I call it a judgment. The fact that the judgment is intuitive and without reflection, or rather previous to reflection, that is, a judgment on the truth of which we confidently rely, though we may not dis- tinctly see the grounds and reasons of it, — all this does not essentially alter the fact of its being a judg- ment. Are not our moral judgments in many cases just as instinctive and instantaneous .'* / Allowing then that taste is a form of judgment, let us proceed to consider how it differs in its be- havior and exercise from other judgments, such as judgments of sense, judgments of the understand- THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. 5 I ing, moral judgments. We may remark, first, that the beautiful generally, and of art in particular, pleases immediately, and independently of any par- ticular interest of our own in the object. This is an important, indeed a fundamental distinction. We have an interest in whatever we conceive, or are led spontaneously, by the constitution of our nature, to regard, as the means to some desirable end. The feeling of interest resolves itself ulti- mately into the sentiment of utility, or of the pos- sible subserviency of a thing to some purpose out of itself. Objects of this nature, which constitute,^ or create an interest, whether because they are adapted to the primary constitution of our senses, or to answer wants which have arisen from reflec- tion on our past experience, or which have been contracted by the force of habit ; or objects which recall other things with which they have in some way or other become associated, and are therefore dear and pleasing to us, — all such objects we call agreeable. Of course, here, one man will differ in^v his judgment from another. The objects in this case, we may notice, are not valued on their own account, and for what they are in themselves, but only as they satisfy our wants, or may be made sub- servient to our wishes or passions. And as one man's wants and interests differ from another's ; as one man may have, for instance, an interest of curi- osity, or an interest for a certain kind of excitement, 52 A THEORY OF ART. an interest from the desire of possession, or an in- terest from his particular associations, where an- other has no such particular interests, but others of an altogether different kind, it is plain, that what seems agreeable to one man may be disagreeable, or at least wholly indifferent, to another. Taste is here much the same with inclination, and it is in this sense of the word taste that the saying holds good, ** De gustibus non est disputandum." The measure of the agreeable therefore, and the ground of the judgment respecting what things are agreeable and what are not, is their adaptation or want of adapta- tion to our subjective or personal wants. That only is agreeable which answers as a means to something else. No value is attached to the object aside from the end it subserves. When we look at it, we shall find the case is not so with regard to that which we call beautiful, whether in nature or art. The beauti- ful pleases on its own account ; not on account of its reference to something else. It has its end in itself. I may here notice a distinction made by a late writer on this subject which is worth observing. " That which is naturally agreeable, and consonant to human nature, so that the exception may be at- tributed to disease or defect ; that, the pleasure from which is contained in the immediate impres- sion, cannot indeed with propriety be called beau- tiful, exclusive of its relatiojis, but one among the component parts of beauty, in whatever instance it THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. 53 is susceptible of existing as a part of a whole. This, of course, excludes the mere objects of the [senses of] taste, smell, and feeling, though the sensa- tion from these, especially from the latter when organized into touch, may, secretly and without consciousness, enrich and vivify the perceptions and images of the eye and ear, which alone are the true organs of sense, their sensations, in a healthy state, being too faint to be noticed by the mind. We may indeed, in common conversation, call purple a beautiful color, or the tone of a single note, on an excellent piano-forte, a beautiful tone ; but if we were questioned, we should agree, that a rich or de- lightful color, a sweet, rich, or clear tone, would have been more appropriate, and this with less hesitation in the latter instance than the former ; because the single tone is more manifestly of the nature of a sensation, while color is the medium which seems to blend perception and sensation, so as to hide, as it were, the latter in the former, — the direct opposite of which takes place in the lower senses of feeling, taste, and smell. When I reflect on the manner in which smoothness, richness of sound, etc., enter into the formation of the beautiful, I am inclined to sus- pect that they act negatively rather than positively. Something there must be to realize the form ; some- thing by and in which the forma informans reveals itself; and these, less than any that could be sub- stituted, and in the least possible degree, obscure 54 A THEORY OF ART. the idea of which they, composed into outhne and surface, are the symbol." ^ These senses, however, sight and hearing, which are the only ones suited for the transmission of so pure an essence as beauty, really have many en- chantments proper to themselves by which they are apt to call off attention to themselves. Nothing is so easy as to be dazzled and beguiled by them, and to mistake that which is agreeable to the animal, for that which shows itself as beauty only to the higher nature, to the man. A true taste discrimi- nates, and never confounds the beautiful with the merely agreeable. Secondly. If the judgment of the beautiful, in which we repose and seek nothing farther, is distin- guished from the agreeable by being above it, it is separated from that of the morally good, by being beneath it. Moral judgments and judgments of taste agree, indeed, in the fact that both are at- tended with complacency in their objects, and they alike differ from the other just mentioned, inasmuch as they both claim universal validity. A moral judgment is not a particular, but a universal, judg- ment. To be true it must be universal. So also of the judgments of taste. Complacency in a moral action springs from its conformity to a rational law, and with the idea of an ultimate end, — the perfec- tion of our being, and the harmony of our will with 1 Coleridge's Essays on Art, above cited. Essay iii. THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. 55 the supreme will. It is therefore attended with an interest, — an interest for the attainment of that end, for the realization of the conceived idea. But in the beautiful the idea is realized already, and therefore the mind rests satisfied in the mere con- ,. templation or intuition of it. Hence again, thirdly, the terms of a judgment of taste are never separated. The universal validity of moral judgments, and of all logical judgments which are universal, as distinguished from judg- ments aesthetical, is grounded on the conscious ref- erence of a particular to a more universal concep- tion, formally expressed as a law. But in a judg- ment of taste there is no such conscious separation of the particular from the universal, — of the object from its idea, — but both ar.e inseparably one. How the universal and the particular, the kind and the individual, are, in a true work of art, fused in one, I cannot here stop to explain. It will be explained when we come to point out the distinction between works of art and those of nature. The judgment is, therefore, by feeling, rather than by a conception of the intellect. But though it is a judgment of feeling, rather than of the understanding, and, so far as this goes, subjective, yet at the same time it differs from other subjective judgments, in that it possesses universal validity, and holds good for all capable of judging at all. The predicate of beauty is not fixed to the conception of the object in the 56 A THEORY OF ART. sense of extending to its whole logical sphere, but has reference rather to the whole class of those ca- pable of judging. To explain, when we say of the rose that it is a beautiful flower, or of the elm, that it is a graceful tree, it may seem, indeed, in this case, as if we meant to include all belonging to , these respective kinds. But when we speak of a picture or a poem as beautiful, it becomes quite evident, that in passing this as a universal judg- ment, we mean simply that all must, or ought to, feel as we do. What I consider as beautiful, I am entitled to expect others will consider so, also. I have a right to expect it should please universally, which cannot be said of that which is agreeable to me, because it falls in with my particular likings, -.^my individual interests or associations. What is meant here is well illustrated by Cole- ridge. " That the Greenlander prefers train-oil to olive-oil, and even to wine, we explain at once by our knowledge of the climate and productions to which he has been habituated. Were this man as enlightened as Plato, his palate would still find that most agreeable to which it had been most ac- customed. But when the Iroquois Sachem, after having been led to the most perfect specimens of architecture in Paris, said that he saw nothing so beautiful as the cook's shop, we attribute this with- out hesitation to savagery of intellect ; and infer with certainty that the sense of the beautiful was THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. 57 either dormant altogether, or at best but very im- perfect. The beautiful, therefore, not originating in the sensations, must belong to the intellect : and therefore we declare an object beautiful, and feel an inward right to expect that others should coincide with us. But we feel no rigJit to demand it " ^ as we •do in the case of that which is morally good. Hence, again, we cannot reason or argue about ~ what is beautiful, or the reverse. We pronounce a work of art great and admirable of its kind, with- out reference to the views or opinions of others ; I mean in a purely aesthetical judgment. Argu- ments to prove that it is so, or that it is not so, can- not alter our judgment, any more than if it were purely subjective, as in the pleasures of sense. We may assent to such opinions and reasonings through modesty or diffidence, — but our judgment in fact remains unaltered. We either find the thing immediately beautiful, or not at all. We de- fine the beautiful, therefore, as that which, without the medium of an intellectual conception as the objective condition of the judgment, we pronounce suited to excite universal delight and complacency. Fourthly, it is of some importance to consider in w^hat sense relation to an end, or conformity to an antecedent purpose and design, is concerned in the judgment of taste. For some writers, as for exam- ple Hume, resolve the whole into the perception of 1 Coleridge's Essays on Art, Essay iii. 58 A THEORY OF ART. a relation of this sort.^ And here it is obvious to remark, that the perception of beauty is connected with some sense of adaptation, of fitness, of a har- mony of relations. We may distinguish two sorts of ends, — subjective and objective. A subjective end is one contained within the object itself; as, for example, an organized being in nature has for its subjective end the completeness and perfection of the individual. An objective end is where the object is regarded simply with reference to its adaptation to something else without itself, — with reference to its utility. It has already been seen that the perception of beauty is not grounded on the sense of utility, or of any purpose to be an- swered by the beautiful object out of itself: it is a judgment quite independent therefore of any con- ception of an objective end. How this general fact is modified, and why it should be so, in the partic- ular case of architecture, we shall see hereafter. Neither is any clear and definite conception of a subjective end in the object necessary to the per- ception of the beauty of it. A flower or a sea-shell, for example, is seen instantly to be beautiful, if it is so, as much by a person entirely ignorant of its internal structure, as by the naturalist who under- stands the whole meaning, use, and harmonious adaptation of the parts to the perfection of the in- dividual. By all this knowledge, the interest in the 1 Essay on the Standard of Taste. THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. 59 object is, no doubt, immeasurably enhanced ; but this interest is altogether distinct in kind from the pure and simple feeling of beauty. So a harmony in music, a picture, a statue, produce their effect, as beautiful productions, at once. Not that the whole power that is in them can be perceived at once, or indeed, if they are truly great, can ever be fathomed to the bottom and exhausted. Not that knowing the exact intentions and motive of the artist in all his details does not add greatly even to the purely aesthetic pleasure we derive from his work. But independent of all knowledge of this sort, if the thing is beautiful, we find it so, and that instantly. The truth is, the end and the means, the idea and mate- rial, the purpose of the artist and his execution, are so completely fused together, so blended into one, as not to admit of separation. Or if we may sepa- rate them in thought, yet just as soon as we enter on any such logical analysis, the total impression is lost ; not to be recovered till we abandon our- selves again, with an intellect " released from all service " to the free working of the outward whole. That the sense of beauty does not originate in our perception of the fitness of means to ends with- in the object itself, nor depend on any law of mere outward proportion, is thus beautifully illustrated by the same author who has already supplied me with illustrations. " How charming the moss-rose, with its luxuriancy of petals ! That moss, that luxuri- 6o A THEORY OF ART. ancy, are the effects of degeneracy, and unfit the flower for the multipHcation of its kind. Dispro- portion may indeed, in certain cases, preclude the sense of beauty, and will do so wherever it destroys, or greatly disturbs the wholeness and simultaneous- ness of the impression. But still proportion is not the positive cause, or the universal and necessary condition, of beauty ; were it only that proportion implies the perception of the coincidence of quan- tities with a preestablished rule of measurement, and it is always, therefore, accompanied with an act of discursive thought." " We declare at first sight the swan beautiful, as it floats on with its long arching neck, and protrud- ing breast, which, uniting to their reflected image in the watery mirror, present to our delighted eye the stringless bow of dazzling silver which the poets and the painters assign to the god of love. We ask not what proportion the neck bears to the body ; — through all the change of graceful motion it brings itself into unity, as an harmonious part of an har- monious whole. The very word * part ' imperfectly conveys what we see and feel, for the moment we look at it in division, the charm ceases." " The long neck of the ostrich is in exact and evident proportion to the height of the animal, and is- of manifest utility and necessity to the bird, as it stoops down to graze, and still walks on. But, not being harmonized with the body by plumage or THE JUDGMENT OF TASTE. 6 1 color, it seems to run along the grass like a serpent before the headless tall body that still stalks after it, inspiring at once the sense of the deformed and fantastic." ^ To sum up the whole of the characters which we ^- have now mentioned as distinctly marking, at one and the same time, the judgment of taste and its object : The beautiful is that which, without the least interest from our passions or desires, without the intervention of a logical conception, without the sense of an obligation to approve, without any definite perception of the fitness of means to ends, — either an outward end of utility, or a subjective end within the beautiful thing itself, — instantly awakens pleasure in uSy together with the conviction that it is fitted to awaken pleasure in all. _ 1 Coleridge, as above, Appendix to Essay iii. IV. THE STANDARD OF TASTE. CHAPTER IV. THE STANDARD OF TASTE. We have seen that one important particular by which the judgments of taste are distinguished from all others is their universality : their universality in the sense, namely, that all men^ agree in the same, that they pass without question from one mind to another. Thus they are distinguished, for instance, from judgments of sense, by which we pronounce a thing to be agreeable. Such judgments can lay no claim to universality at all. To say of a rose that\ it is beautiful, is the same as to say that it has one quality which will be contemplated with the same kind of pleasure by all. Saying that it has a de- lightful fragrance is asserting no such quality of it ; this fragrance may be delightful to one person, pain- ful to another. Again, judgments of taste differ from those of the understanding, although the latter are also universal, in the mode of their universality. In what are termed universal judgments of the un- derstanding, a certain class of objects are simply grouped together on account of their participation in some abstract quality, common to them all, as when we say, " all metals are fusible." But the uni- 5 66 A THEORY OF ART. versality of a judgment of taste is not so expressed. We do not say " All statues, all paintings, are beau- tiful," but, " This particular statue or painting is beautiful," and the universality of the judgment con- sists, as it exists in o-ur own minds, in the conviction, — as it turns out in experience, in the fact, — that the same quality which we find in the object will be found there also by every one who has any capacity of judging at all. In moral judgments we approve or disapprove of an action, we pronounce it right or wrong, as it is seen to conform or not to conform to a universal and righteous law ; and we blame those who think or do otherwise than that reasonable law prescribes. But with regard to taste, though we feel entitled to expect the coincidence of that of other men with our own, yet we do not think of blaming them if they do not agree with us, and, still less, of blaming the artist, if his work does not please us. The judgment of taste being in this particular way universal and common, or communicable, the next point to be considered is, whether the pleasure we receive from those objects which we call beau- tiful, precedes and determines the judgment, or whether the judgment is before the pleasure. This might seem, at first, to be a point of little or no im- portance. In a practical point of view, we may grant, it is of none whatever : but in investigating the true theory of art, it is a question not to be THE STANDARD OF TASTE. 6/ avoided or overlooked. Much is depending on the manner in which this question shall be resolved. For it is evident that if the judgment depends on the pleasure, if we learn how to judge by finding how far we are pleased in this, that, and the other case, and in no other way, this judgment must be altogether the result of experience, and taste an em- pirical habit, instead of an original faculty. Each man's judgment must depend more or less on the experience and sayings of others ; he could never be certain of the truth of its verdict for himself; it would have no absolute authority. If we suppose the pleasure we derive from a beautiful object comes first, and the judgment after- wards, then the reason of the universality which distinguishes this judgment from the perception of the simply agreeable remains to be accounted for. On the above supposition, the pleasure must come immediately from the object, just as our pleas- ure in tasting, smelling, or from any other sensuous affection, comes directly from certain objects in con- tact with our particular organs, and cannot really be shared along with ourselves by others. A man's immediate sensations are the most incommunicable part of his nature. Judgments which are grounded upon nothing at all but such sensations must be equally incommunicable. But there is nothing in which men have a stronger sense of sympathy and communion with their fellowmen than with regard 68 A THEORY OF ART. to anything which is truly beautiful. This com- mon pleasure, it is evident, must be owing to a com- mon sense, a faculty of judgment which, in regard to these matters, is common to all. The other, however, seems to be the view which more commonly prevails. " In the works of na- ture," says Dugald Stewart,^ " we find, in many in- stances, beauty and sublimity involved among cir- cumstances, which are either indifferent, or which obstruct the general effect." This we must allow. But how, then, are we to extract the pure gold from the dross. " It is only by a train of experiments," he says, " that we can separate these circumstances from the rest, and ascertain with what particular qualities the pleasing effect is connected. Accord- ingly the inexperienced artist, when he copies na- ture, will copy her servilely, that he may be certain of securing the pleasing effect." " Experience and observation alone," he adds, that is, experience and observation of the pleasing effect, *' can enable " the artist " to make this discrimination ; to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated, and to form a creation of his own, more faultless than ever fell under the observation of his senses." But how, we might well ask, would it be possible for any man, by simply following experience, ever to get beyond her .? How would it be possible to find in nature a ^ Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Pi. ii. ch. v., Pt. ii. § 2. THE STANDARD OF TASTE. 69 standard that is above nature ? Why should the artist ever feel dissatisfied with what he actually finds in nature ? What should ever lead him to think of producing anything better or more per- • feet ? It would seem to be evident that the standard of judgment must, in some way or other, be in him- self He wants to produce something more excel- lent than anything he has seen. His standard of excellence then, not being anything he has seen, must be within himself. He is not fully satisfied with what he sees, because he has a presentiment of something better. This presentiment being con- verted into a reality by a " creation of his own, more faultless than ever fell under the observation of his senses," he feels complacency, he is satisfied. Disr satisfaction is the spur to effort, gratification the accompaniment and reward of success. His grati- fication arises from his judgment being satisfied. It is the same here as it is with our moral judg- ments. The complacency we experience in observ- ing or doing a right action arises from the sense, the judgment, we have, that it is right, that it is an action freely done in conformity to what is right in itself, to a universal law of right. To say that we first feel this complacency, and thence conclude the action to be right, would be reversing the true order of things. So the complacency and delight expe- rienced in observing the agreement between a free / \ 70 A THEORY OF ART. work of the imagination, and our understanding of what the object represented by that work of the im- agination should be, is a feeUng which is not the ground, but rather the inseparable concomitant of such a judgment of tas'te. In the moral judgment,, it is not enough to approve, we are required to act. In the aesthetical, we rest in approving : the pleasure is simply contemplative. We linger in the contem- plation of a beautiful work, because we find in this contemplation a pleasure that renews itself every moment, instead of being soon exhausted, as is the case with every excitement of mere sensuous affec- tions. The sentiment of the beautiful, so far from having anything in common with such excitements of mere sensuous affections, belongs to a wholly different, and higher, order of perceptions. The dullest sense will be moved and gratified by a brilliant flaring color, or a sharp contrast of colors ; by anything which appears quaint or novel, any thing which excites surprise, or exceeds the ordinary bounds of nature, and every-day experience. Such effects, therefore, are often sought after by inferior artists, as if they were necessary to awaken and sustain an interest in their works. But there cannot be a greater mistake. Impressions of this kind soon wear out. The pleasure of excitement depends upon novelty. We do not allow ourselves to be surprised but once. THE STANDARD OF TASTE. yi A true taste is neither promoted nor gratified by such mere sensuous excitements. It makes use of the senses, but does not rest in them ; they are its means, but not its end. Hence in painting, in sculp- ture, in all the plastic arts, in architecture, and in gardening, so far as that is raised to the rank of a fine art, the main thing is the intelligible form, the design. The colors, the materials employed, are \ comparatively of minor importance ; though it is expected, of course, that these will stand in some relation of conformity to the proposed end. They are of importance only as conditions, necessary ele- ments, which must be wholly subordinated and sunk, wholly lost sight of, in the design, the intel- ligible form, not construable to sense, but address- ing itself solely to the inward eye. From all that has now been said respecting judg- ^^ ments of taste, the impossibility of any outward objective rule by which to determine its decisions must be obvious. By an objective rule, is meant a principle of the understanding formally laid down in the shape of a distinct proposition, or a series of such propositions. We have such rules, in abun- dance, in the common works which profess to treat of practical art, especially in the works on rhetoric. If such rules could be distinctly laid down, like the rules for any ordinary mechanical process, all judg- ments of taste might be compelled to submit to them ; and we should be obliged to admit that any y2 A THEORY OF ART. ♦ work which fully complied with all the required conditions must be possessed of merit, whether we felt it to be so or not. But it belongs to the very nature of a judgment of taste that it cannot be so constrained ; and it is plain that all the arguments in the world would be of no use to bring any man to own, that a work really possessed beauty, which left no impression of the sort on his own feelings. When a poet, for example, or any other writer or artist possessed of true power, complies with the prevailing maxims and opinions of his age, or with the judgment of his friends, yielding up his own, it is not because he has really become persuaded of the correctness of these maxims ; but because, al- though the public taste may be thoroughly corrupted, and he may know it, he still chooses to yield to the common delusion, in order to win the temporary ap- probation he covets, or for some other advantage he expects to gain by it. When his judgment really alters, as it would be likely to do in the course of its further development and cultivation, it will, if he exercise a manly independence, change freely ; not under the influence of any outward and formal rules, but by virtue of its own inherent law of pro- / gression. The degree of taste must always hold proportion to the natural vigor of its principles ; its healthy development will depend on the fairness and freedom with which it is exercised, and on the culture bestowed on the mental powers generally. THE STANDARD OF TASTE. 73 At the same time it is not denied that there are certain outward and empirical standards of taste, quite worthy of being called and 'considered as such. Standards of this sort are rightly held up as models. But it must be remembered, that, in their true use as models, they are not to be slavishly copied, any more than nature is to be servilely im- itated. There is no original faculty of the mind, which, if left to itself, and deprived of all foreign aid, would not fall into many mistakes and take many false directions, before finding the right one/ The models which every age has agreed in admir- ing serve to place others on the track to seek in themselves the principles by which their predeces- sors wrought, and so take their own independent, and, as it sometimes proves, better course. The good influence of models depends partly indeed on the susceptibility, but still more on the activity, of the mind in contemplating them. No imitation can avail anything but the imitation of principles. But .\ if it is impossible to lay down any outward rules to form the judgment, and direct the taste, with regard to works in which the imagination is the chief con- structive power ; if, even in the appraisement of such works, the principles of a just and discriminating perception of excellence must be evolved, in the case of each individual, out of his own mind, — we may inquire, what then is the common ground of our judgment in matters of tast€, by virtue of which we 74 ^ THEORY OF ART. claim the assent of others to our own ? The an- swer must be, that the principle of taste by virtue of which the universal assent is claimed and ex- pected for its verdicts is the same with the regula- tive principle of the faculty of judgment generally. These judgments flow directly from the common principle of judgment in all men. The subjective principle of all judgments is a faculty which presup- poses two other powers, a power to seize and com- bine the manifold elements of sensuous intuition, namely, the imagination, and another power to pre- sent the manifold elements thus brought together, under the unity of a conception, namely, the under- standing. Now, in the case of all other judgments, the imagination is not left to its own free play, but is limited and restrained by a definite conception ; a formal conception of the understanding lies at the basis of the judgment as its necessary condition. But we may see, at once, that the case cannot be the same with judgments of taste. It is not only true that whatever tends to curb and restrain the free working of the imagination must tend, in the same degree, to destroy the feeling of beauty ; but it is true that the understanding generally is in itself wholly without power to apprehend and appreciate that quality in objects which we call the beautiful. When an object is contemplated simply with the purpose of understanding it, whether an object of nature or of art, the emotion of taste instantly van- THE STANDARD OF TASTE. 75 ishes, and is gone. Such being the case, how are we to regard the relation of these two faculties, the imagination and the understanding, in judgments of taste ? It is plain, that, since the imagination, in order to work freely, as it should do in Art, cannot be limited by any definite conception of the under- standing, it must have a power of spontaneously and unconsciously conforming to the laws which reason gives the understanding in forming concep- tions ; and the common ground of all judgments of tastes is the sense of perfect harmony, which thus arises, between the play of the imagination in its freedom, and the necessary laws of all thought ; in other words, the sense of harmony between the way in which we present things, give them shape and form, namely, the imagination generally, and the way in which they ought to be presented, according to the laws of reason in the understanding. Thus in the perception of what is beautiful in nature, our judgment reposes on the sense of the freedom, un- confined by any outward rule, or consciousness of an inward law, with which^ she indulges in such an endless and sportive diversity of forms, while, at the same time, she remains true to an inward law of order and adaptation. So in contemplating a true work of art, just so far as we enter into its spirit, and feel its beauty, we find our imagination, in- stead of being restrained and curbed, as in the working out of a scientific problem, set wholly at ^6 A THEORY OF ART. liberty, and yet never transgressing the bounds ///of truth and reason. This sense of harmony be- tween two powers whose relation to each other constitutes the condition of all judgment, and per- haps of all consciousness, though purely subject- ive, something that must be felt by each individ- ual, but cannot be expressed, is the common principle in all the fine arts. It is a subjective, and not an objective, principle of judgment, governed by an inward, and not an outward, rule. But while it is subjective, and that, in the sense, that it can have no other mode of existence than in the feeling of each individual who judges ; still, — as it is one and the same with the inward principle of the faculty of judgment generally, as it is not governed in the least by the particular sensuous affections, the par- ticular modes of conception, the particular under- standing of this or that individual, in which there is so much difference ; but is one with the inner prin- ciple lying at the ground of all knowledge, and therefore may, and indeed must, be presumed to be the same in all men, — we may rightly assume that the fundamental principle of the faculty of taste is the same in all men ; and that, in their judgments as to the beautiful, all will agree ; and that, in the emo- tions felt by us in contemplating this class of objects, we are entitled to claim and expect the sympathy of others. V. CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. I - CHAPTER V. CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. In the last chapter, we considered the sentiment of the beautiful on the side of its identity ^ as Xo pri7i- ciplcy in all men. I endeavored to explain what it is that constitutes the ground of universal sym- pathy by which all are led to see and feel alike with regard to a certain class of objects, notwithstand- ing the judgment called forth is purely subjective, independent of outward rules, and free from all con- straint whatsoever. Let us now proceed to consider the same principle on the side of its diversity ; and here it is important to distinguish two sorts of di- versity. The first is that which necessarily arises in all cases of the particularization of the universal. It belongs to the nature of every universal principle or law, to manifest diversity in its particular appli- cations. But a freedom of this sort is the very fact that marks the force and vitality of a principle, as distinguished from the fixedness and uniformity of a mere abstract rule. The other sort of diversity is \ that which results from a fundamental difference of principles. Keeping this distinction in mind, we shall be prepared to understand, in regard to the 8o A THEORY OF ART. subject now before us, how widely, on the one hand, the tastes of a particular age or nation, or of indi- viduals belonging to the same age or nation, may seem to differ, while at bottom the principle of judg- ment shall be essentially one ; while, on the other hand, the tastes of certain times and nations may seem not very widely different, — people may judge very much alike, — and yet the principles which de- termine their judgments may be very different. The first we may call natural, the second class, con- V ventional, diversities of taste. As an illustration of the first, we may mention the well known difference between the Orientals and the Western nations generally, between the Egyptians and the Greeks, between the ancients and the moderns, between the Classicists and the Romanticists. In all these cases of diversity, the principle of judgment remains essentially the same ; and the proof of this is, that a beautiful production, whether partaking of the Oriental or the Western character, whether of the Egyptian or the Grecian, the ancient or the modern, the Classical or the Romantic, type, will still be ad- mired and approved by all fair and unprejudiced judges alike, in all periods of time. But the case is entirely different with conventional diversities of taste. These arise from the influence of causes al- together extraneous from those which can rightfully be admitted to exert any determining influence in matters of this sort ; from the operations of the CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 8 1 private interests, the peculiar feelings growing out of the temperament and constitution of individuals, or of national and traditional prejudices, the ten- dency of which is to give a wrong direction to the development of the aesthetic judgment. The several schools of art, which have been found, almost with- out an exception, to degenerate, by insensible de- grees, into a stiff and lifeless uniformity of style, are for the most part separated from each other, and brought finally into antagonism, by the influence of such causes as I have last described. But it is evi- dent, from one of the considerations which have already been presented with regard to the disinter- ested character of pure taste, that all diversity of the nature of conventionalism, and issuing from that root, must inevitably lead to corruption. While the utmost freedom, and an unlimited range, may be allowed to the efforts of artistic power and skill, so long as they are still bottomed on the same funda- mental principle of judgment, seated in the common heart of humanity ; yet the least departure from this common principle, however much it may fall in with the prevailing spirit and fashions of a particular age or people, is sure to lead astray. Yet this conven- tional diversity of which I am now speaking is a very common thing. In the present day it prevails to an extraordinary degree. The very smallest num- ber of those who aspire to be artists, in any of the departments of art, have the courage to rely entirely 82 A THEORY OF ART. upon the simple impulses of their own genius, or to venture upon many steps without having hold of their leading strings. It is enough for some author with a certain claim to originality to seize upon a vein of thought or style of remark which takes with his age, to be immediately followed by a host of imi- tators, who think they must meet with the same success by pursuing the same track. In this case, the style is the man, indeed, but not the man who writes ; he has not the least good claim to it, but it is the man he imitates. In this way the taste of a whole nation may be led, by some brilliant but eccentric star, into a false track, in which every new step is but a wider depart- ure from nature and truth. / Thus there are two causes of mistake constantly operating. The first : that the truly original minds allow themselves, no doubt unconsciously, to be governed too much by the artificial taste superin- duced by a state of society where wealth and rank, rather than unsophisticated nature, prescribe the rule of judgment, dictate what shall be approved and what shall be admired ; and the second : that at the present day, while every second person you meet in the cultivated circles aspires to be an artist or an author, his inspiring impulse is simply his own persuasion of his ability to reflect the spirit of the society in which he moves, quite as well as those -who have already shown how it is to be done. It is CULTURE OF 77 IE 7MAG7NAT70N. 83 indeed plain that a class possessing no other claim to regard than merely the unlimited means at their command of gratifying each whim and fancy that may happen to come over them possess no rightful authority to dictate within the domain of taste. It \ is plain that what they are after is not so much the beautiful as the agreeable ; not so much truth as excitement. But this consideration is of little or nq account when weighed against another, that in their hands alone is the patronage and reward of merit. Nor is it at all to be wondered at, that, when the taste of society has been converted into such an al- together worldly craving after excitement, the re- turn to simple truth and nature by any mind so independently original as to stand above such con- trol should be sure to meet with ridicule, or the still more scornful punishment of indifference. But happily there is one hope for the world left. A true taste can always see clearly through a false one, though the false can never hope to understand the true. " Merely think," says Wordsworth to a friend, just after the appearance of his collected poems, " merely think of the pure, absolute, honest igno- rance in which all worldings of every rank and situa- tion must be enveloped with respect to the thoughts, feelings, and images, on which the life of my poems depends. The things which I have taken, whether from within or from without, what have they to do with routs, dinners, morning calls, hurry from door S4 A THEORY OF ART. to door, from street to street, on foot or in carriage ; with Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, Mr. Paul or Sir Francis Burdett, the Westminster electiDn or the borough of Honiton } In a word, for I cannot stop to make my way through the hurry of images that present themselves to me, — What have they to do with end- less talking about things nobody cares anything for except so far as their own vanity is concerned, and this with persons they care nothing for but as their vanity or selfishness is concerned .? What have they to do (to say all at once) with a life without love .^ In such a life there can be no thought ; for we have no thought (save thoughts of pain) but as far as we have love and admiration." " It is an awful truth that there neither is nor can be any genuine enjoyment of poetry among nine- teen out of twenty of those persons who live, or wish to live, in the broad light of the world — among those who are, or are striving to make themselves, people of consideration in society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because to be incapable of a feel- ing of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to be without love of human nature, and reverence for God." 1 / He who would preserve the simplicity of nature, and not lose the quick sense of truth in following after a false and jaded refinement, must begin the cultivation of his taste by laying the foundation in 1 Memoirs of Wordsworth, Letter to Lady Beaumont, May 21, 1807. CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 85 a broad and ample culture of his whole mind. He should aim at nothing less than that kind of culture which frees the mind from its idols of every sort, to use an image of Lord Bacon, and fosters the habit of enlarged and generous thought. He should, especially at this day, be ever on his guard against those radically vicious and debasing influences which, under the name of works of the imagination, belie, by the spirit which animates them, all title to the name they assume. He should aim at that , cultivation of both the mind and the heart which brings a man nearer to the position at which he can easily survey, and, whenever he pleases to do so, assume, the point of view occupied by others who may judge differently from himself, and account to himself for the difference. It is such cultivation, alone which leads to that harmonious consistency of thought where all the particular matters that are at any moment before the mind are habitually re- ferred to the rational principles to which they be- long, and whereby their relations to other things are determined. All this tends, more or less directly, both to develop, and also to purify the taste. This faculty must, it is true, like every other mental power, in order to a complete development, be habit- ually exercised on its own appropriate objects. It must be awakened to the consciousness of itself, and trained to place confidence in its own decisions by careful study of those works which, by the common 86 A THEORY OF ART. consent of mankind, have already met and satisfied the highest demands. But, even to a commencing interest in productions of this class, there must have been some previous general training of the mind. The charm of such works is of a high intellectual order. It is not addressed to the superficial pas- sions of our nature, nor to the dogmatic opinions, the abstract theories, of this or that particular school of criticism, nor to the prejudices of a single age or nation, but to the purely human in man, to that which belongs in common to the kind. It is evi- dent, therefore, that there can be no very high cul- tivation of taste, without some considerable degree of that intellectual and moral training which raises a man above himself, or rather elevates him to that true self, in which the narrow interests of the indi- vidual are merged, and comparatively lost and for- gotten, in those of the whole race. / Since the imagination is the faculty which is called into the most active exercise, both in produ- cing, and judging, works of art, it is evident how much must depend on the right cultivation of this great power, how important it is that this regal fac- ulty — for so I think the imaginative power which is concerned in the creations of art ought to be called, should be rightly understood and appreciated at its just value. I am free to say, that I have never found anything as yet in the writings of the most eminent of our English critics which seems to indicate that CULTURE OF THE IMAG/NATION. 8/ they have seized upon the essential thing which constitutes the power and grandeur of this attribute in man, which has scattered along the line of time, through the whole history of culture, such manifest proofs of its true nature, that it is wonderful how it could ever be misapprehended. If we consider the imagination, indeed, from the point of view of that philosophy which derives all our ideas from sense and experience, it would follow necessarily that it can be nothing more than what it is often repre- sented to be, a mere power of repeating, only in a more abstract and feeble manner, combinations which have already become familiar, as matters of outward observation. But then this view is contra- dicted, at once, by any single example of a work of high art which you may please to select. What the heart of man perceives and feels in such a work is not imitation, but inspiration, for such is the word prompted by the enthusiasm of the moment, to ex- press the sense of a power above common nature, which must have been present in the individual capable of producing such a work. We feel that he is not an imitator, but an originator ; that he is not the slave of copy, but the free author of his own work. And we feel with regard to ourselves, that our own imagination catches inspiration from what we behold, and works with the same freedom as the artist himself had done, whose work is before our eyes. 88 A THEORY OF ART. For it should be observed, that, in speaking of the cultivation of the imagination, as a faculty equally indispensable, equally called forth, in the production and in the contemplation of works of art, we speak of a power which, in this instance of its exercise, must ever be permitted to retain its freedom. It is common to speak of cultivating the imagination by placing it under due restraint, by setting up for it certain limits, and keeping it within bounds. But it is essential to the imagination, whether considered as the original productive power in the artist or the poet, or as that similar power which he addresses and quickens to activity in our own souls, that it should not be so confined. It must, therefore, have the principle of its limitation only within itself. It must not be hampered even by the material it works with, but conquer and subdue it wholly. There is a striking analogy in this respect between the pro- ductive agency of the imagination, and the working of the formative processes, and of the principle of life, in nature. In nature we see form impene- trating the entire matter,. residing in it as its true essence and shaping power. Even a crystal, we look upon as produced, not by outward and mechanical force, as the lapidary works down the facets of a ring jewel, but by some law of determination that lies within itself, or works through the whole matter. So, eminently, through the entire domain of ani- mated nature, we look upon the outward forms as CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATIOX. 89 the result of an indwelling principle which, disposes of every particle of matter entering into their com- position, with a reference alike throughout to its own predetermined end. As altogether analogous to this principle of form and of life in nature may we regard the imagination of the artist or the poet. It works freely and organically, giving itself its rule, or being its own rule ; and even when it imitates nature, as in fact it can never safely depart from nature, yet imitating her with a "rival originality." To set limits to the imagination, then, by any set of outward rules for its regulation, is to cramp rather than to cultivate it, — to make it subservient to the understanding, rather than its coordinate, rather than an independent co-worker with it, or, perhaps to speak with more truth, an originating power, which in producing gives to each thing its appropri- ate form, and in so doing spontaneously harmonizes with the laws of understanding. If the imagination then, in art, and in enjoying the works of art, must have the principle of its guidance and limitation within itself, since other- wise it could not be free, which it plainly must be in this province, it follows that the only way of cultivating such a power is by the right exercise of it. I say by its right exercise ; and as we canno^v' have, in this case, maxims of right, as in morals, the imagination must be set in the right direction by examples, by careful and profound study of those 90 A THEORY OF ART. actual productions which, by the general verdict of mankind, are pronounced the most perfect of their kind. In thus reverently submitting to the guid- ance of the best examples of its own freedom, the imagination will learn to govern itself This is the safest, the surest, the most appropriate discipline which it can exercise itself in. Sadly mistaken will he find himself to be who thinks that anything short of the best is good enough for the imagina- tion, or that it may be safely left to take care of itself We must study those works which all fit judges in all times have agreed in admiring, and, supposing that we cannot at first see what there is in them to deserve such admiration, — as how could it be expected that we should, since their power lies deep, and addresses what is deepest in ourselves, — yet study and study over again, peruse and reperuse : the feeling of their power will grow in the same proportion with the development of the same power in ourselves. But while some deference is due, as just stated, to the judgment of others, especially when this judgment is confirmed by the general consent ot an age, and, still more, of successive ages ; yet it is true notwithstanding, that a correct taste cannot be transmitted, and gain authority, by this, any more than it can by any other outward means. It never comes down by tradition, as the history of all art proves ; but the beautiful appeals, in each- CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 91 case, directly to the inner decisions and indepen- dent judgment of the individual. If some productions of taste and of literature are justly considered, and set up, as standards of their kind ; still the end really had in view by this, in the case of those persons who understand themselves, is, not to overrule any man's judgment, but only to solicit and call it forth. Every true work of art addresses itself to man ; it is meant only for man. It appeals to an original power, which each man has, of judging, not only what a thing is, in fact ; but how nearly it comes up to what it ought to be, — to what would be right and suitable in the given case and under the given circumstances. Hence it would appear that the highest model, the original standard of all, is, in some way, if not actually, then potentially, in the individual mind, — is an idea^ which each must either find, or call out, within him- self; else you may be told that this or that existing work of art is to be taken as a model, and believe it, indeed, on the authority of somebody else ; but as for knowing or feeling that it really is so, — how would that be possible .'* Now what are we to understand by this idea which is thus appealed to as the common measure of excellence in all the arts } It may be observed, then, in the first place, that the word, taken in this sense, as a measure or standard of excellence, is not at all applicable, nor is it ever applied, to the elementary beautiful ; and 92 A l^HEORY OF ART. but very seldom is it strictly applicable to the beautiful in nature. Cicero wrote thus concerning the idea of the perfect orator. " We behold," he says, " the form of eloquence in our minds, the actual image of which we seek to realize in the organ of hearing." ^ The old Italian painters, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael,^ Guido,^ all speak of an idea of human beauty, far superior to anything they had ever seen really existing, and which they strove to seize and embody in colors. But it is seldom or never that we hear men speak of the idea of a beautiful day, or country, or even of a beautiful animal. The word seems to be restricted in a great measure, within this particular province of art, to man ; and to human or divine qualities and characteristics, which are capable of being ex- pressed only in the form, or in the actions, of the human being. If anything of the ideal character is given, as it must be confessed that it sometimes is, to inferior beings, this end is to be attained only by investing them, either in the mode of represent- ing them, or in our own imagination, with some partial expression of attributes which are strictly peculiar to humanity. 1 Cic, Orator, c, iii. 2 Letter to Count Baldassare Castiglione. ^ Letter to Massano, quoted in Dryden's Parallel of Poetry and Painting. VI. INTERESTS AWAKENED IN CONNEC- TION WITH THE BEAUTIFUL. CHAPTER Vr. SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED, INTERESTS AWAKENED IN CONNECTION WITH THE BEAUTIFUL. It is evident that the idea of man, if by this is to be understood the idea of his whole essence, as made for immortaHty, and capable of an indefinite progression in all intellectual, moral, and spiritual excellence, — it is evident that this idea of man cannot be adequately represented by any of the arts of design, in any form of surface or color ad- dressed to sense. Yet man's form is, in some sort, the expression of his inner nature ; his body is inseparable from him here, and is not to be long separated from him hereafter. We may distinguish the normal idea of man, as the highest type of physical organization and conformation to be found on this earth, and as, in the highest degree, and in all respects, suited to the physical existence of a free, rational being ; and the rational idea of him, which cannot be adequately represented under any form of sense, but which is capable of being sug- gested, of being indicated, by the whole play of ex- pression in the muscles of the body and features of the countenance, particularly in that wonderful 96 A THEORY OF ART. organ, the eye, which has been called the seat of the soul ; in a word, in all the ways which man has of showing what is in him. The normal idea is the human frame conceived at the point of completeness and perfection, consid- ered as the type of all form possessing significance, expressive of meaning ; and as reconciling, at once, the utmost diversity of parts, with symmetry of pro- portions, and unity of purpose. In man, matter is completely subdued to the expression of spirit. This ideal of the human frame reveals, even in re- pose, the presence of a power of self-control ; of concentrating energy at any one point, whether in look, in posture, or in action ; of expressing by the slightest changes in the relation of parts the moods of the indwelling soul which vitalizes every part NX alike. It is this idea which the painter and the sculptor keep constantly before the imagination, not losing sight of it even when purposely departing from it ; since the infinite diversities and adapta- tions of the same common form must ever have reference to the fundamental type of that form. The rational or spiritual idea, on the other hand, has reference to man's end, as a being in himself free, and so accountable and immortal, as well as animal and sentient : and therefore capable of good- ness and capable of crime ; capable of great and noble affections, as well as of the meanest pas- sions ; of an entire self-sacrifice, or of an entire INTERESTS CONNECTED WITH BEAUTIFUL. 97 abandonment to self. This idea, more or less dis- tinctly or vaguely felt, is the common standard by which is more or less consciously or unconsciously measured the power of him who addresses us through the images or symbols of Art. We say he is the greatest poet, orator, painter, musician, — who pos- sesses and exercises the mightiest power over the passions. But by the passions are not meant here the ordinary sympathies of our common human nature which are excited every day, but those which lie back in the deeper recesses of the heart. These, when awakened, so startle or thrill us, because they give us some present sense of what lies latent in our own being. We feel that the mind which can so call forth that which is innermost in ourselves, really knows, or seems to know, what is in man. It will be necessary to speak more fully of these ideas, and of that which is usually called the ideal in art, in another chapter. The subject is introduced here simply for the purpose of showing, in general, the nature of that standard to which men ul- timately have reference, in their judgment of the beautiful in art. But if this is a true representa- tion of the matter, — and I see not how it could be otherwise represented so as to account for all the phenomena in the case, — then it must be quite ap- parent, that examples in art, or examples proposed for art in nature, are not to be imitated immedi- ately, and, if I may so speak, from the surface, any 7 98 A THEORY OF ART. more than examples are to be imitated immediately ^ and outwardly in morals. The examples of virtuous conduct which are held forth for our imitation in morals serve their true purpose only so far as they lead us back to the source from which such conduct springs ; not only because all right conduct must proceed from right principles, but because duty, and the way in which it is to be done, is continually defined by the circumstances of the individual, and it is only by having the principle in his own heart, that he can know with certainty how to act in what- \ever circumstances he may find himself. In like manner, fitness, propriety, adaptation to the circum- stances, uniform consistency and keeping, are the things most essential to be observed in Art, and as these must vary continually, so that what would be fit and proper in one case, would not be so in another, it is quite evident that the direct imitation of models, however perfect in these respects, could avail but little of itself It is only so far as they awaken active thought, as they draw forth, and make us more conversant with, the ideas which they express in our own minds, that such models are useful. To effect anything really great, a man's own mind must be aglow at the centre ; the utmost skill of mechanical execution cannot infuse one par- ticle more of life into his production than was first of all in himself ^ 1 " L-es ceuvres vraiment belles ne se commandant pas ; I'homme INTERESTS CONNECTED WITH BEAUTIFUL. 99 It has been seen that the perception of the beau- tiful does not depend on any particular interest of our own which we connect with the object, and that the characteristic mark of a pure judgment of taste is its disinterestedness. But it does not follow from this, that, when once such judgment has been passed, the object may not then be connected with an interest. If its beauty does not depend on any interest, it does not follow that it may not awaken one. We are naturally and necessarily interested in whatever gives us pleasure. Besides, that which arouses the slumbering feelings, fills the heart to fullness, transports us into an ideal world, sets be- fore us the struggles of man's will with an outward fate or with his own passions ; which presents, not abstractly, but in a vivid picture, enlisting the deep- est sympathies, what is most noble and heroic in virtue, or terrible in crime, — that which can thus supply, as it were, the deficiency of our ordinary every-day experience, and give us an insight into human nature such as we might never otherwise gain, must be attended with the same interest which we have in everything else that adds to the conscious knowledge of ourselves. But if many of capable de penser par lui-meme n'acceptera jamais un joug qui sup- pose comme premiere condition chez ceux qui le portent la medioc- rite ; et la tentation d'une literature officielle echouera toujours devant la double impossibilite de donner de I'originalite a ceux qui n'en ont pas et de discipliner ceux qui en ont." jKenau, Esmis de Morale, p. 6. 100 A THEORY OF ART. the fine arts possess this power in an eminent de- gree, still this is not the end which they professedly aim at, nor is it the secret of the charm which they have in common with all art. The aim of the art- ist, as distinguished from that of the moral teacher or the philosopher, is to realize the beautiful : if he does more, and in securing his main object, which is to please, also conveys instruction, which he nearly always will, since the beautiful and the true are so closely related that nothing can be beautiful which is false to nature ; yet is this aside of, or rather accessory to, his conscious aim ; and all the interest grounded on this pleasure of instruc- tion is but indirectly connected with the beautiful itself, — is, so far as Art is concerned, an accident, not the essential thing. Again, we may attach an interest to a work of taste or of art, not only on account of its efi'ect upon ourselves, but because it gives pleasure to others. This, indeed, constitutes a great part, if not the chief part, of the interest which many take in buildings and the laying out of grounds, and in the internal decorations of fine paintings and statuary. Works of architecture, especially, whether public or private, being necessarily exposed at all times to the public view, it is difficult to conceive how, in this art, the interest of giving pleasure to others should not greatly predominate over any interest of private delight which the individual projector or proprietor INTERESTS CONNECTED WITH BEAUTIFUL. 1 01 can be supposed to entertain. If the man of wealth, in building his city or country residence, consulted only his own particular pleasure or convenience ; if he were not prompted by vanity, or by some other and nobler social impulse, to respect the ver- dict of praise or censure, and the flitting emotion of pleasure or disgust which every casual observer, every passer-by, must needs feel, if he does not ex- press it, how different, — in many cases, doubtless, how inferior, and in some cases, probably, how much more simple and less pretentious, — would be the style of the private residences of the wealthy. For the same reason, again, quite as much, perhaps, as to gratify his own taste, every man of wealth and cul- ture pays some attention to the decoration of his apartments, and to furnishing them, as far as his means will allow, with the most approved works of plastic art. In Europe, every palace has its gallery, and every gallery its gem. No money has been thought too much to pay for the undoubtedly genu- ine work of a great master. Now this interest, it must be allowed, may not seldom spring from a true love of Art on its own account. Sometimes, how-'' ever, it is evidently but the idle vanity of possess- ing what nobody else can possess ; the vanity of hav- ing, rather than any taste for enjoying ; which is quite a different thing, — which cannot be exclusive, but, on the contrary, demands participation and sympathy. 102 A THEORY OF ART. This interest of possession is measured, of course, by the value of the object in pubhc estimation. It rises and falls with the market ; it is the interest ^ of the property-owner and the salesman. Another kind of interest is that of the amateur, the virtuoso, the dilettante, or by whatever other foreign name (since it is absent from our vocabulary) the man is to be called who neither produces anything himself, nor owns anything, but whose whole delight consists in seeing what nobody else can see, nor wishes to see, as he does. As a general thing, this whole class lack the important requisite of a fair and open sense for the truly great and noble in art. They are a vain, self-opinionated set, given to some particular school, led away by names. Their opinions, within their own fields of criticism, are often of the least value, and far less to be relied on than the first un- biased impression of any common man of ordinary good sense and cultivation. Finally, an interest may also be taken in the beautiful, both of art and of nature, which is of a purely intellectual or moral character, and where there is no room for the by-play of any such feelings as have just been alluded to. This purely intellect- ual or moral interest is, perhaps, most commonly felt in contemplating the pleasing, wild, or pictu- resque in nature. The beautiful in nature lies open to all. There is nothing here which can be appropri- ated otherwise than as it is enjoyed ; nothing that INTERESTS CONNECTED WITH BEAUTIFUL. 1 03 can be made the property, and thus gratify the van- ity, of an individual ; nothing that can be used as a means to any private or selfish end. In art, men may easily affect an interest which they do not feel ; or feel an interest just because it may subserve some other purpose of selfish gratification. But the in- terest in nature is not liable to be so perverted. It/ is more closely allied to a pure moral feeling. There must be, at least, a leisure from bad passions, a free- dom from low, sensuous desires, to leave the heart open for the impression of the simple beauty of nature. Besides, calmness, serenity, unobtrusive cheerful- ness, is the prevailing character of that which is most attractive in natural scenery. Everything in nature seems at peace with itself; to sympathize with anything of which this is the characteristic ex- pression, requires a mind which alsp is at peace with itself. The works of nature, again, are on an un- limited scale of greatness. Her pictures are with- out a frame ; each of them is all that the eye can take in at once. *' Nature," says one, '* stretcheth out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness." She also would elevate him, only let his thoughts follow whither she points. When, instead of striving to penetrate into her secret laws, we give ourselves up to the grand im- pression of her features, and prefer to lend our- selves to the feelings she inspires, rather than to gratify the curiosity which particular phenomena I04 A THEORY OF ART. may awaken, we find our thoughts immediately led upward to something higher than herself, even to God. This, no doubt, was the poet's meaning who said, " The undevout astronomer is mad." What connection between the mathematical calculations of the astronomer, whose problem is to account fully for everything by mechanical laws, — what connec- tion between this calculation of balancing forces and devotion } Was not Laplace the man who said, " I find here no necessity for God .'* " But who can look at the grand spectacle of the starry heavens as a whole, fairly surrendering himself to the full in- fluence of that magnificent display, and not do one or the other, either worship the stars, or devoutly recognize the God who made them } So also the boundless prairie, the mighty ocean, the heaving mountains, and even the simple, peaceful lake which they may encircle and guard, are objects which have ever been justly considered as associating with them a certain moral, and, to some minds, religious, inter- est, depending, indeed, in some measure, for its depth and intensity, upon the temper of soul with which they happen to be contemplated. There are some remarks on this point by Alison, which for beauty and propriety can hardly be exceeded. " It may not be our fortune, perhaps," he says, " to be born amid nature's nobler scenes. But wander where we will, trees wave, rivers flow, mountains ascend, clouds darken, or winds animate the face INTERESTS CONNECTED WITH BEAUTIFUL. 105 of heaven ; and over the whole scenery the sun sheds the cheerfulness of his morning, the splen- dor of his noonday, or the tenderness of his even- ing light. There is not one of these features of scenery which is not fitted to awaken us to moral emotion ; to lead us, when once the key of our im- agination is struck, to trains of fascination and of endless imagery ; and, in the indulgence of them, to make our bosom either glow with conceptions of mental excellence, or melt in dreams of moral good. Even upon the man of the most uncultivated taste, the scenes of nature have some inexplicable charm ; there is not a chord, perhaps, of the human heart, which may not be awakened by their influence : and I believe there is no man of genuine taste who has not often felt, in the lone majesty of nature, some unseen spirit to dwell, which, in his happier hours, touched, as if with a magic hand, all the springs of his moral sensibility, and rekindled in his heart those conceptions of the moral or intellectual excel- lence of his nature which it is the melancholy ten- dency of the vulgar pursuits of life to diminish, if not altogether to destroy." ^ These remarks of a Scottish philosopher recall to me the still more interesting confession of the sweetest of Scottish poets. " I have," says Burns, " some favorite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the 1 On the Nature and Principles of Taste. Essay ii. ch. vi. sect. 6. I05 A THEORY OF ART. wild brier-rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particu- lar delight. I never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover, without feeling an elevation of soul, like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my friend, to what can this be owing t Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the ^olian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident, or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod t 1 own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities, a God that made all things, man's immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave." ^ There is this distinction, then, between the kind of interest immediately awakened by the impres- sive features, the striking objects or incidents of nature, and that which is indirectly called forth by the beautiful works of art. It must be conceded that nature has entirely the advantage over art, so far as this, that while art is capable of being pros- tituted to unworthy ends, the beautiful in nature is never liable to be so abused. The influence go- ing forth from her, if felt at all, is felt as an enno- bling, elevating, purifying influence, and the more so, the farther we get from the works of man, and penetrate into the solitudes where she works in si- lence and without molestation. 1 Letter to Mrs. Dunlop, January i, 1789. VII. RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. 12 .vV?^ ^ary. ) CHAPTER VII. RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. There is another point not to be overlooked in speaking of what belongs essentially to a work of art. In all such productions, the hand of man must be clearly recognized. We must be dis- tinctly aware that what we contemplate is a produc- tion of art, and not of nature. It might seem as if there could be no danger of ever mistaking the one for the other, and in fact there is none. But still, the essence of art is supposed by many to consist in imitation ; hence it would seem to follow, if they are right, that the nearer the copy came to the original, — the nearer it was brought to a complete illusion, — the nearer art would approach to its per- fection. This is the notion which many entertain, as if the end of art were deception. The true prin- ciple, on the other hand, is, that we must always see in such works the forming hand and mind of man, and yet the productive power must seem to have acted just as free from constraint, and as un- confined by rules, as if its work were, in fact, an unconscious production of nature. In the first place, in order to feel the power of art, its work no A THEORY OF ART. must not only be clearly distinguishable, but actu- ally distinguished, from nature. I mean, the per- fection of art does not consist in so deceiving the senses as to make one believe that, instead of the mere representation of a thing, he has before him \\the real object represented. I am always glad to avail myself of the authority of good English writers on these subjects, wherever I find them ex- pressing the truth so exactly as, on the point before us, seems to me to have been done by the author of " Modern Painters." " Whenever anything looks like what it Is not, the resemblance being so great as nearly to deceive, we feel a kind of pleasurable surprise, an agreeable excitement of mind, exactly the same in its nature as that which we receive from juggling. Whenever we perceive this in something produced by art, that is to say, when- ever the work is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what I call an idea of imitation The most perfect ideas and pleasures of imitation are, .... when one sense is contradicted by another, both carrying as pos- itive evidence on the subject as each is capable of alone ; as when the eye says a thing is round, and the finger says it is flat ; they are therefore never felt in so high a degree as in painting, where appearance of projection, roughness, hair, velvet, etc., are given with a smooth surface ; or in wax-work, where 'Cd^ first evidence of the senses RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. Ill is perpetually contradicted by their experience ; but the moment we come to marble, our defini- tion checks us, for a marble figure does not look like what it is not ; it looks like marble, and like the form of a man ; but then it is marble, and it is the form of a man We see, then, the limits of an idea of imitation ; it extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occasioned by a thing's intentionally seeming different from what it is ; and the degree of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the perfection of the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing re- sembled. The simple pleasure in the imitation would be precisely of the same degree (if the ac- curacy could be equal), whether the subject of it were the hero or his horse." ^ In the year 1787, when the arts in this country were yet in their infancy, my grandfather, a New England clergyman,^ made a journey to Philadel- phia, and while there went to see, among other in- teresting objects, a celebrated collection of paintings and natural curiosities belonging to the elder Peele. " We were conducted," he says in his journal, "into a room by a boy who told us, that Mr. Peele would wait on us in a minute or two. He desired us, however, to walk into the room where the curiosi- ties were, and showed us a long narrow entry 1 Ruskin, Modern Painters, Pt. i. sect i. ch. iv. ^ Rev. Manasseh Cutler, of Hamilton, Mass. 112 A THEORY OF ART. which led to the cabinet. Dr. Clarkson, my com- panion, went fix^; and as he stepped into the room, I observed through a glass window at my right hand a gentleman close to me, standing with a pencil in one hand, and a small sheet of ivory in the other, and his eyes directed to the opposite side of the room, as though he was taking some object on his ivory sheet. Dr. Clarkson did not see this man until he stepped into the room, but instantly turned about, and came back saying, ' Mr. Peele is very busy taking the picture of something with his pencil. We will step back into the other room and wait till he is at leisure.' We returned through the entry, but as we entered the room we came from, we met Mr. Peele coming to us. The Dr. started back in astonishment and cried out : ' Mr. Peele, how is it possible you should get out of the other room to meet us here "^ ' Mr. Peele smiled. * I have not been in the other room,' says he, ' for some time.' ' No ! ' says Clarkson, 'did I not see you there this moment with your pencil and ivory .? ' * Why .'* do you think you did 1 ' says Peele. * Yes,' says the Dr., * I saw you there if ever I saw you in my life.' * Well,' says Peele, * let us go and see.' When we returned we found the man standing as before. My astonish- ment now was nearly equal to that of Dr. Clark- son ; for although I knew what I saw, yet I be- held two men so perfectly alike, that I could not RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. II3 discern the minutest difference. One of them, in- deed, had no motion ; but he appeared to me to be as absolutely alive as the other ; and I could hardly help wondering that he did not smile, or take a part in the conversation. This was a piece of wax- work which Mr. Peele had just finished, in which he had taken himself." " So admirable a perform- ance," continues the relator, " must have done great honor to the artist's genius, if it had been that of any person ; but I think it is much more extraordi- nary that he should be able so perfectly to take himself." Men of the same cultivation in other re- spects would, no doubt, at the present day, judge differently, and instead of allowing Mr. Peele's wax figure of himself to be a work of genius, would per- haps be inclined to question whether it deserved to be called a work of high art at all. Where no deception of this sort is intended, the direct copy- ing of nature in its more minute details, whether in painting or poetry, can never fulfill any of the high purposes of art. The Dutch school of paint- ing is celebrated for characteristic truth in the representation of common life. Chaucer and Crabbe are not less true and accurate, in the same line, as poets, though they both possess also other, and vastly higher qualities. Such painting and poetry must ever be the most pleasing and popular. Peo- ple love to see even the most common objects, which, as real, they would scarcely think of noticing, 114 A THEORY OF ART. truthfully represented in descriptive poetry or in painting. Hence the great popularity of such painters as Teniers, in whose pictures the shining brass kettles, the clear translucent vases, and other familiar household objects, which in a kitchen or a cabinet would hardly be looked at, are sure of at- tracting their full share of admiration. And it must be allowed that even in paintings of the high- est order, such close imitations of nature have their importance ; yet not as an end in themselves, but only as a means, subordinate and subservient to the general effect. Who would deny, for exam- ple, that the jewels which seem almost to sparkle on the graceful forms they adorn, in some of All- ston's pictures, contribute somewhat to the whole pleasing impression. But what are they, either in the aim of the artist, or to the feeUng of a worthy spectator, compared with the immeasurable fullness of expression reposing in those beautiful faces. /'' Nature herself," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " is not to be too closely copied." " A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great, can never raise and , enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator." Again, he says, " If de- ceiving the eye were the only business of art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed ; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to ^ address." ^ \ >k 1 Discourse in. RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. I 15 But, at the same time, it is absolutely necessary in a true work of art, that it should not merely ap- pear, but be, natural, — that it should be seen to flow from a power working spontaneously, like the productive powers of nature. The maxim, ars est celare artem, is certainly not true when taken, as it so often is, in the sense that this triumph of conceal- ing the appearance of art is to be obtained by dint of labor in mere polish and elaboration. In nature, and what is natural, we see no appearance of con- straint. There must seem to be none in art, no confinement to outward and mechanical rules at all. It is on this impression of freedom in the produ- cing power, that the pleasure we derive from con- templating works of taste, mainly depends. This, however, is not to be so understood as if the great works of art were spontaneous in the sense that they really cost no labor to the artist. A careless work by a great master may, indeed, show the free- dom of his touch, like that gigantic hand which Michael Angelo is said to have drawn with a piece of coal on the wall of the room where Raphael was painting, in the latter's absence, and which, when he returned and saw it, awakened in him the con- sciousness of a higher power than he had yet shown, and led him from that moment to adopt a bolder and nobler style of art. But how much previous toil and labor that seemingly slight and careless sketch presupposed. It was indeed but \ I 16 A THEORY OF ART. the work of a minute or two, and though it stands there still pointing disdain at Raphael's still unfin- ished painting, it was meant simply as a passing hint ; while the really great productions of both these masters, in which they show all their power, were the fruit of immense labor ; for they ever la- bor the hardest who are spurred on by an impulse within themselves. A production of art, then, can be pronounced beautiful, only when we see that it is art, while yet it looks to us like nature. An impression of this kind can never be given except where art is not limited by rules and systems held distinctly before the understanding, but proceeds with unconscious- ness of rules and in perfect freedom. The effect of rules and systems which profess to lay down the way in which a thing is to be done is to induce stiffness, and what is technically called mannerism. Such mannerism has generally been the inevitable result, and ending off, of the different schools in painting, and in the other arts. A man of power produces something great, — others flock to him as a master, and study his works as models. He himself teaches them all he can ; but how can he communicate the essential thing, that which really gives the life and power in his own works } This is a thing too deep even for his own comprehen- sion. Much less could he make others understand it. Hence such schools, while they do, indeed, in RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. \ 1/ one respect, serve an important end, by arousing the latent powers of a few to conscious action, yet produce also a much more copious harvest of mere imitators, and, in the end, generally dwindle to nothing. This productive power, which does not depend on instruction from without, except as an occasion of exciting it to self-development, and of warning it against false directions, is what we mean hy genitis. Genius is a power to produce that for the produc- tion of which it is impossible to lay down any pos- itive precepts, or rules of working. In this respect chiefly it differs from expertness or skill, which can be acquired by experience, and a faithful applica- tion of the rules which have been derived from ex- perience. Consequently the essential and distin- guishing quality of genius must be originality. The originality, however, in this case, has also its distinctive mark. It is not singularity, quaintness, or extravagance, all of which a feeble mind may so easily affect ; but it ever commends itself by natu- ralness and simplicity. With the man of genius we feel at home ; for, in carrying us farther away from our individual self, he does not convey us into a foreign world with which we have no natural sympathies, but only deeper into the recesses of our own true being, where, strange as it may seem, we recognize every new thought and feeling, though awakened for the first time to our conscious \ I l8 A THEORY OF ART. knowledge, as a possession that belonged to us already, and as only showing how much richer we are than we supposed. I might go on still farther to point out the re- lation of art to nature, — a great subject, but an utterly incomprehensible mystery, except when viewed in the light, and on the principles, of a spiritual philosophy. I shall here limit myself, however, to a brief notice of Lord Bacon's cele- brated definition, that Art is man added to nature, — " additus rebus homo." ^ In saying that art is man added to nature, Lord Bacon seems to mean, that the unconscious power in the artist's mind, which is the man's nature, is still wholly under his own control, directed by a law of freedom and not of necessity. Man produces freely by his own na- ture what nature left to itself produces by necessity. He is free in the determinate conception of his ob- ject, and free in finding and applying the means for bringing it out, of which, however, the uncon- scious natural power is the chief. The same thought is expressed by Shakespeare, where he says, — " Nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean ; so o'er that art Which you say adds to nature is an art That nature makes." ^ r The acquiring of practical skill is a thing, mean- 1 Descriptio Globi Intellectualis, cap. ii. 2 Winter'' s Tale, Act iv. sc. iii. RELATION OF ART TO NATURE. I 19 while, which depends almost entirely upon experi- ence and voluntary effort. For however true it may be that one must be born a poet, one can be a poet only by his own volition. The practical skill which is to be acquired by exercise alone, and not by the- ory, is as necessary in the liberal as in the me- chanical arts. But there is this essential difference between the two, that, in the mechanical arts, the rule of working can be taught by rote ; nay, that external nature herself, by the application of scien- tific principles, can be made to perform with entire precision and uniformity, and with an almost un- limited superiority in respect to power and rapidity of execution, the work of the human hand. But, in the liberal arts, neither can the method of working be taught by mere theory, nor can the work itself be transferred to another agent ; the whole skill must be absolutely self-acquired, and all the essential labor, that which really makes the work to be what it is, must proceed from the artist's own hands. There is, to be sure, in many of the liberal arts, a part that is purely mechanical, as, for example, in architecture, in sculpture, in engraving, — where other hands may be employed than those of the master ; but this mechanical skill belongs wholly on the side of the outward means and material ; it is simply a process of fitting the material for its purpose, but without any power of applying it to that purpose. A higher than mere mechanical skill here becomes necessary. I20 A THEORY OF ART. It seems evident, then, — as the man is, in this case, nearly deserted by all helps from without, — that he is thrown necessarily upon his own re- sources. Indeed, what other has he, or can he have ? To find out by actual trial the exhaustless fund of those resources which lie hidden in the human spirit itself, so as to draw upon them with a confi- dent reliance, instead of servilely depending on what has been furnished ready to hand by the mental activity of other men, — this requires care- ful, patient, unwearied self-education. And this is particularly the case in art. The man's style, it is said, is himself What that deeper self is, which is to be expressed by his style, if he has any of his own, can never be reached in any other way than by the most assiduous cultivation of such powers of expression as he has. This is a labor which no other man in the world can do for us. But it is precisely the sort of labor of which we are so apt to be impatient. Hence the tendency to resort to theories and rules of other men, as mechanically learned, as they were in the first place mechani- cally conceived, and which at best could never serve any other purpose than the mere negative one of warning against false directions. Cicero wrote an elaborate work on Rhetoric, but unhap- pily that work never did, and never could, produce V a second Cicero. VIII. IDEALITY OF ART. CHAPTER VIII. IDEALITY OF ART. The subject of this chapter is the Ideality of Art, as compared with the truth of Nature ; — the ideality of art, — the ideal character of those pro- ductions, or creations, as they may not unfitly be called, of the human mind, which are distinguished from other productions of man by the name, works of Genius, — the truth and beauty of these crea- tions, as compared with the truth and beauty which is in nature. Conflicting opinions have been en- tertained, and are still entertained, on this subject, — as to the meaning of the term ideal as applied to art, and of truth as applied to nature ; as to whether there is, or ought to be, any other ideal of art than what is to be obtained from a faithful ob- servation and exact copy of the truth of nature ; in a word, as to whether the ideality, so often spoken of as a distinctive characteristic of the higher works of art, be anything more than a mere no- tional abstraction of the human understanding. It will not be my purpose to enter at all into the matter of this controversy at the present time. But I shall take the liberty to use the word Idea in 124 .A THEORY OF ART. the sense in which it has often been used by per- sons the best entitled to choose their own language in writing and speaking on the subject of art. I mean those who have stood in the highest rank as artists themselves. For, — not to go back to Plato and Cicero/ men standing in the highest rank as artists as well as thinkers in the ancient world ; not to quote the authority of Raphael and Guido Reni, nor even that of Dryden and Sir Joshua Reynolds ;^ all of whom, not only employ this term as peculiarly fitted to express the distinctive char- acter of works of genius, but take pains, many of them, to define the exact meaning which they would give to it in this application of it, — I shall content myself with a single reference to the authority of a good old English author and poet. Sir Philip Sid- ney, in discoursing of the Idea, wherein consists the skill, as he holds, of every artist, says, " The fact that the Poet hath this Idea is manifest, by the de- livering forth his works in such excellence as he had imagined them ; — which delivering forth is not wholly imaginative, not a mere work of fancy, — as we are wont to say by them that build castles in the air, — but so far sjibstantially it worketh as not only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a par- ticular excellency, as iiaUire might have done ; but 1 See Plato, TinifBus, 28, A, Cic, Orator ^% 3. '^ Dryden's Parallel of Poetry attd Painting. Reynold's Works^ Dis. iii. See also Letters of Raphael and Guido, referred to p. IDEALITY OF ART. 1 25 to bestow a Cyrus on the world capable of making many Cyruses " — being the substantial type of the character. " Neither let it be deemed," he contin- ues, " too saucy a comparison, to balance the high- est point of man's wit with the efficacy of nature ; \ but let us rather give right honor to the Heavenly j Maker of that maker, who, having made man in his \ own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature ; which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry ; when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings." ^ It is very much in the sense of this old English writer I shall use the word Idea : and I shall assume, as well understood, that, in proportion as a work of imagination has proceeded from such an inspiring idea, it has /i/e : and the more vigorous and pure the idea, the more will that life be of a kind which triumphs over time, over national prejudices, artificial customs and tastes, and wins its way to universal recognition and homage. Without this, all the rest, the most skill- ful and methodical combination of materials, of words, images, tones, colors, rythms, will always go for nothing. We may admit the speech, the poem, picture, or whatever else it may be, is an elegant and faultless piece of composition ; but it is spirit- less, and leaves on us, after all, no impression of power. 1 T/ie Defense of Poesy. \ 126 A THEORY OF ART. That vital inward power which is the idea, the forma informans, in the artist's soul, exists first as 2,feeli7ig of the truth of a thing, that spontaneously seeks to understand itself by utterance, and at the same time finds itself guided by an infallible in- stinct to the appropriate utterance.^ Thus art not only addresses itself to feehng, but begins with it. Such a power resides, in some degree, in every hu- man breast, for it is as indispensable for the recog- N^ nition of the beautiful, as it is for the creation of it. " Format enim Natura prius nos intus ad omnem Fortunarum habitum. '■^ This feeling which inspires and guides the imag- ination of the artist, and, through his production, is awakened again in the minds of others, contains the rule of its own expression, and acknowledges no authority without itself If you ask what in particular this idea is, which, spurning formal rules, is yet so infallible a rule for itself; and which, though it has all the vagueness of a feeling in its incipiency, shows all the precision of intelligence in its mode of working, — the best, indeed the only answer, is found in that which it produces. It ■^ t ^ The subjective ground of the ideal lies in the heart of our com- 1 mon humanity, in its infinite longing after something better, purer, and more perfect than has ever yet offered itself to its actual expe- rience, after something it knows to be possible though not yet real, . and which can be realized at least by imagination in the ideal i world, though it may not be in this imperfect world of our actual I experience. ^\ 2 Horace, De Arte Poetica. IDEALITY OF ART. 12/ very distinctly announces what it is, in what it does. So far as this is seen by us to possess both "^ originality and truth, so far as it commands our willing approbation, and touches our ready sympa- thies, we do in fact acknowledge, that all this was already contained in the original idea out of which the whole has sprung. The stating of a few distinctions, however, may serve to make the matter somewhat more clear. The idea which is sought to be realized, but is as'^ yet only in the process of realization, only as it exists unexpressed in the artist's mind, may be called the aesthetic idea, or the idea of the imagi- nation ; for feeling and form go together here, — they cannot well be separated. Let us consider, then, how such ideas differ from those of pure rea- son, that is, pure theoretic reason, — for aesthetic ideas, too, really have their origin in reason. Let us see how they differ, moreover, from conceptions of the understanding, and in what relation they stand to images of sense, and also to the logical understanding. We may define an aesthetic idea as a single intuition which does not admit of being expressed in a conception, or in any number of conceptions of the understanding, and hence it is that in so many cases, — always, indeed, where lan- guage is the material, — the painter or poet has re- course to symbols and emblems. Such symbols plainly are resorted to not so much on their own 128 A THEORY OF ART. account as because, being themselves suggested by, they are capable of suggesting, thoughts which lie too deep to be ever reached by the poverty of ^ abstract language. An idea of the imagination is a thought so fused, as it were, with the image or form in which the artist would embody it, as to be- come thus first capable of passing into the minds of others. We understand what it is thus attempted to express, in the endless significance of the form to our feelings ; but if we endeavor to explain it, one man may do it in this way, and another in that, and each explanation will be equally just and equally inadequate. While an (Esthetic idea of the imagination is an intuition which cannot be fitly represented by any abstract conception, an idea of reason, on the other hand, is one which cannot be exactly represented by any outward emblem. Ideas, for example, of a purely mathematical, moral, or spiritual, nature belong to V this class. Their element and substance, their mat- ter as well as their form, is spiritual or of the na- ture of reason itself, and they do not admit, there- fore, of being really externalized in outward forms of sense. Such ideas may indeed be awakened by art, but they can be truly and fully realized only in the thinking mind and in the form of living thought. As to the relation of these aesthetic ideas to the faculties of sense, I have already observed that forms of sense are their only mode of expression ; IDEALITY OF ART. I 29 but under the influence of these ideas sense be- comes, as it were, another and entirely different thing, — a transfigured and ennobled mode of per- ■■—■I I II I ^' — " ception. If sight and hearing are, in themselves, the most elevated of all the senses, they receive a j still higher and more ethereal character when re- leased from their strict confinement to the actually present, and emancipated into the free domain of a poetic imagination. The steps by which, even in ^^ a rude mind, the prosaic sense which sees nothing in nature but its outward forms may be awakened by incidents of ordinary occurrence out of this lethargic dullness, into so quick a sensitiveness as to convert even the rustling of a dry leaf into a chasing phantom, are finely set forth by Words- worth in his story of Peter Bell. But what an other'^v life is given to the most common things in nature by a truly poetic imagination, deriving what it sees from within, rather than from without, itself, I hardly need illustrate by examples. That well- .: known passage in the " Tempest " " Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves ; And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him. When he comes back ; you demy-puppets, that By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you, whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms ; that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew." ^ 1 Tevipest, Act v. sc. i. 9 130 A THEORY OF ART. This passage, so accurate in the statement of facts, as to excite the surprise of modern naturaUsts, presents at the same time, with inimitable touches, that still higher truth in the mysterious life and sympathies of nature which the mere naturalist so often misses. Such is the power of sense when quickened by the seeing eye within. / But the understanding is not left wholly idle here. The understanding is in this case the in- strument of the preconceived purpose^ — the imagi- nation, the free creative vital power by which that preconception becomes realized. It is necessary the artist should have some definite object before him, some conception of what he would produce. But the imagination produces in a living form, which includes in it the conception, instead of be- ting included by it ; that is to say, the conception is contained in the work, not as a confined product of the individual understanding, but 2iS flowing owl of an inexhaustible idea, where the imagination is still left free to expatiate at will in any direction to which it may be led by the forms and images act- ■^ ually presented. The imagination is a most busy power, ever at work, whether we sleep or wake. In our ordinary perceptions it is a shaping power acting in strict obedience to the fixed laws of the understanding. In the common arts of life, it is a shaping and modifying power, acting in subserviency to the IDEALITY OF ART. I3I understanding, for outward ends. In science, the imagination is a productive power, guided by vol- untary thought in constructing general forms for the purposes of knowledge. But under the influ- ence of aesthetical ideas, the imagination is a free creative power, unlimited in its resources, which! bodies forth its ideal creations under whatever intel- ligible forms of sense it may choose as its material.| So far as the understanding of the artist is con-V cerned and consulted, he may aim to please the multitude, and he may seek for patronage as a means to his end. But as an artist, he must have the spontaneous impnlse. He must have what is called a genial spirit, and delight in the idea for its own sake. His main prevailing motive must be to realize what is in his own mind, and the pleasure he finds . in the exercise of this high creative power. Having explained what is meant by the artistic idea, let us now proceed to the consideration of ideal beauty, or of tJie ideal. Ideal beauty is where the\ whole truth contained in the idea itself is so fully brought out and blended with the sensible material, that there is no discordance between them, but such entire correspondence and agreement, that both are absolutely one. It seems, indeed, to involve a pal- pable contradiction, that unity and manifoldness, which are so directly opposed, should be so com- pletely reconciled and harmonized with each other./ Yet this contradiction is the very problem for art to 132 A THEORY OF ART. solve ; and only just so far as the artist succeeds in solving it, can he satisfy himself by reaching the end for which he is striving. The unity of the idea in a great work of art is such a unity as goes forth into a full expression of its own endless nature, in the manifoldness of an outward existence ; and this manifoldness, again, in the whole diversity of its details, must be such as everywhere to carry us back to the unity of the idea out of which it flows. ^ Wherever such a work has been achieved, we need not first to be told of it in order to perceive it, even though our experience may be small ; for it speaks to a keener eye than that of outward sense, and to another power of judgment than that which is y^ formed by much study. In fact, as ideal beauty is, in its own way, nothing but the clear outward expression of reason itself, it only needs that one should have arrived at some consciousness of his own essential being, to recognize and appreciate it . at once. And here it is important to understand in what sense the language is used when it is asserted, that this ideal beauty surpasses that of nature. Doubt- less it is a vain and foolish fancy which has led any one to imagine that the human mind, however highly gifted, could ever vie with that deep inwork- ing power whose effects are to be seen in the most insignificant of nature's productions, especially in organic life. IDEALITY OF ART. 1 33 " What fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath ? " ^ And to speak of a still higher life. What poet or philosopher has ever yet produced such a true rep- resentation of man as has been furnished by the actual history of humanity, and would be presented to us, were it possible to grasp that actual history as a whole, and bring it within the compass of a single glance. But still there is a sense in which the artist may be said to make the marble or the canvas breathe, and in which the poet can embody in a single character, and present before us in one vivid intuition, a truer and more complete represen- tation of the kind, stripped of all accidents of the individual, than any actually living and merely hu- ^ man individual ever exhibited. . The peculiar essence of each thing, the law of its particular being, working from within and fix- ing its own limits, defines the form of that thing. This is constant, perennial, ever the same ; — all the rest temporary, transient, accidental. The, material elements which enter into the presently existing iuL^vidual, the point of development actu- ally reached, the relations and circumstances from i VVinter''s Tale, Act v. sc. iii. But thou who didst appear so fair To fond Imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation. Wordsworth, " Yarrow Revisited,^' / 134 ^ THEORY OF ART. without which hinder or modify the working of that inward principle, — all these, compared with the latter, are unessential. That inward law seek- ing simply and entirely to realize itself, but with such materials as are presented, under such out- ^Avard circumstances, hostile or favorable to success, as may happen to exist, is what we mean by the '^■truth of nature ; and all such truth is more or less beautiful. Now this truth is what art endeavors to seize in its purity, and quite separated from all the accidents by which it may be disturbed, or cur- tailed of its full proportions ; and with an unlimited // choice of materials and circumstances. Thus, while nature can present only the individual, art can represent the kind. While nature presents the individual itself only in a series of developments, following one after the other in a never ending suc- cession of growth or decay, art can seize it at the highest, or at any other, point of its being ;^ and ar- resting it there, make it independent of time, and bring out the unchanging truth which belongs to xthe chosen moment. And finally, while nature presents its object under certain inevitable circum- stances, which by themselves considered are all accidents, — and hence we speak of an accidental effect in nature, produced by a grouping of objects, where no such effect was designed, — art can place its objects in whatsoever circumstances and com- binations it pleases, and so represent the beautiful, IDEALITY OF ART. I 35 either in the calm repose of unconscious truth, or in the moment of genial excitement, or struggling with hostile elements, which, in seeking to destroy, but serve to call into fuller expression the latent power which lay resei-ved within. Now if every individual thing in nature is beau^ tiful just in the same proportion as it is a true ex- pression of that which it was originally meant to , be, and if everything is ^^formed just in the same proportion as it fails, — whether owing to the im- perfection of its materials, or to the power of counteracting agencies without itself, — of being fully //^formed by its own appropriate law, much more is this so in the case of man. Both religion and philosophy teach us to regard him as the crowning work of creation. All that elsewhere in , the world is scattered in fragmentary portions is in him gathered up and concentrated. What else- where is the product of an unconscious law, acting with necessitv, is in him the rational self-conscious being, so much the work of his own freedom, that if it goes wrong, he is not only so far deformed, but guilty, and his guilt is his worst deformity. While/ everything in external nature is necessarily indi- vidual, man can rise above his narrow self, and wholly identify himself in all his interests, hopes, fears, and aftections, with his kind. He can realize'^' in himself the whole idea of that humanity of which his individual self is but a single exponent. 136 A THEORY OF ART. V ^For all these reasons, the highest possible type of * ideal beauty for art is to be found in man ; and this is the point, therefore, to which all its strivings ^\\ tend. But above and below this central point, the ideal of humanity, in which spiritual and sen- sible are so completely blended and harmonized, stretch other regions of unlimited extent for the boundless range of the creative imagination. There is the whole world of external nature, and the still freer world of pure spiritual existences. The ques- tion is, what is the ideal here, and after what man- ner, in what possible form, can it be attained .'' For that ideal beauty must be confined to the human being alone, no one, certainly, will pretend. How then are we to conceive of the ideal in these two cases, in which the object in the first falls below, and in the second transcends, the human nature, since both these legitimately come within the prov- ince of art, and both must in some sense be ideal- Y ized .'' And first, with regard to the objects which, '^'in dignity, fall below the human nature. It is gen- erally conceded at the present time that a bare 1 imitation, a direct copying, of external nature ^ never can fulfill the purpose of art. In fact, this has always been felt. Hence it has been supposed that the talent of the artist consists in selecting what is most beautiful in nature, and then forming "^. it into new combinations. This seems to have been the opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ^ and 1 See Reynolds^ Works. Discourse iii. IDEALITY OF ART. 1 37 Other writers of his age. But the question is, how- is he to do this ; what is to guide him in the selec- tion, and what is to be the principle of his combi- nations ? According to the common notion, it would seem as if all this were a mechanical process, guided by nothing but mere caprice or casual as- sociations. But not so. Closely as the artist may be allowed, and though he is driven indeed by a spontaneous impulse, to study nature ; still, it is evident his work must proceed wholly, in all its de- tails, out of his own soul. The artist's work is him- self ; it is not nature as the ordinary careless mind sees it, but as he views it ; or it is nature transfused into his own life ; so that he first becomes one with it, and then creates it afresh, with a free and living power. As a late writer has it, " The artist not on\y places his spectator, but talks to him, makes him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick thoughts, .... leaves him more than delighted, — ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having not only beheld a new scene, but of having held communion with a new mind, and having been endowed for a time with the keen perception and the impetuous emotion of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence." ^ To some it seems mys-/«v ^ tical and altogether unintelligible, to others pan- theistic, to say that the creative power in the ar- tist's soul, while it works independently, and wholly 1 Ruskin, Modern Painters, Pt. ii. sec. i, ch. i. nS A THEORY OF ART. d out of itself, is yet one in kind with the creative power in nature. Yet plainly, in some sense or other, it must be so, else there could be nothing • after all but mere imitation, nothing but mechani- cal combination of abstract forms ; no originality, no freshness of life, no radiation of that life from a central point, and therefore no organic unity, in the productions of genius. It is a great mystery, indeed, that God has created man with such a power ; but that man has it, the works of the great poets and painters of every age and nation prove T' beyond dispute. In representing external nature, ^therefore, the artist does not copy what is without him, but gives body and form to what was already within him, — to his own ideas ; not in the sense that he may depart from nature, or lose sight of her for a moment, but in the sense that it is im- possible to reach the truth of nature by imitating her outward forms, which are in themselves life- less ; that the only way to reach the truth which nature expresses in these outward forms is to have that truth within one's own soul ; to feel its power, ^ . and to work purely from its impulses. Now ideas in nature herselr are expressed symbolically ; that is, they are rather suggested than fully expressed ; the forms of nature lead us to something higher than themselves. Or, as the thought is expressed by Coleridge, in language which only a poet could write : " I seem to myself to behold in the quiet IDEALITY OF ART. I 39 objects on which I am gazing, more than an arbi- trary illustration, more than a mere simile, the work of my own fancy. I feel an awe, as if there were before my eyes the same power as that of the Reason, the same power in a lower dignity, and therefore a symbol established in the truth of things." ^ Now the artist feels that truth which nature symbolizes, but symbolizes so faintly to the apprehension of many, that they have no discern- ment of it whatever. The descriptive poet, the true landscape painter, idealize Nature by making her symbolic language so plain, that we of dimmer vision can in his text read and interpret it also. The language of nature is largely written, but to many it is often as unmeaning as the Chinese characters on a tea-chest. Symbols they are, but of what, we cannot divine. But in the case of the Chinese characters the symbols are more or less arbitrary. Not so with those of Nature, which are eminently significant and suggestive ; so much so that we constantly recur to them as figures and images, to illustrate and give body to the truth which our own imperfect and abstract language is inadequate to convey. These images taken from nature illustrate a truth in our minds, because they . are actually a part of it. It has often been said '^ that nearly all our words to express intellectual and ^Statesman's Manual, App. B., Coleridge's Works^ Shedd's edition, vol. i. 140 A THEORY OF ART. moral ideas were originally taken from the names of sensible things and actions. But these sensible things and actions are themselves, for the most part, expressions of those very ideas, " in a lower dignity," which, in their higher development in the human mind, we say they express figuratively. \ And this, in my view, is the true principle for the explanation of all figurative language. Now the artist who is worthy of the name makes all nature expressive of these higher ideas ; and that, too, as must be evident from what has now been said, not by departing in the least from the truth of nature but, on the contrary, by entering more profoundly \ into it. As the latest English writer who has spoken on this subject with something of a philo- sophic spirit says : " Truth " is " the foundation of all art ; like real foundations, it may be little thought of when a brilliant fabric is raised on it ; but it must be there : and as few buildings are beautiful unless every line and column of their mass have reference to their foundation, and are suggestive of its existence and strength, so nothing can be beau- tiful in art which does not in all its parts suggest and guide to the foundation, even where no undec- orated portion of it is visible ; while the noblest edifices of art are built of such pure and fine crys- tal that the foundation may all be seen through them ; and then many, while they do not see what is built on that first story, yet much admire the IDEALITY OF ART. \ ^\ solidity of its brick-work, thinking they understand all that is to be understood of the matter ; while others stand beside them, looking not at the low story, but up into the heaven at that building of crystal in which the builder's spirit is dwelling- And thus though we want the thoughts and feelings i of the artist as well as the truth, yet they must be! thoughts arising out of the knowledge of truth, and' feelings arising out of the contemplation of truth." ^ Having thus explained, and as I think truly, what is meant by the idealizing of external nature ^ I next proceed to consider how the case stands with those objects, when introduced into art, which belong to the spiritual woidd, and which are of a purely spirit- ual nature. And here it is quite obvious that art must necessarily begin with ideas, and that the ob- jects themselves are essentially ideal. And there is no other possible way of expressing them in art except by symbols, not already furnished, as in the case of outward nature, but, by altogether new com- binations, springing out of the creative imagination of the artist himself It would seem as if the sym- bols must, from the very nature of the case, be ex- tremely imperfect, and that their effect would nat- urally be to degrade the objects thus brought down out of their own sphere into a lower one. As the ideal representations of external nature lead us to think of something above what is actually expressed, 1 Ruskin, Modem Painters^ Pt. ii. sec. i. ch. i. 142 A THEORY OF ART. by giving prominence and intensity to that which is most significant in the objects represented ; so the symbolic representations of spiritual things, since they have been formed purely on the principle of significance, and have no meaning at all, except just so far as they are suggestive, lead away the thoughts Ao something higher than themselves. The higher kind of poetry, for example, has no other way of ex- pressing spiritual and moral ideas, but by images and symbols. But to dwell on these images, how- ever fine in themselves, would defeat the very object for which they are introduced. Their beauty con- t sists, not so much in what they are, as in what they suggest, and the more directly they tend to turn the thoughts away from themselves to what they signify, the more completely do they subserve the purpose for which they are introduced. Opposed to the ideal, as I have already observed in a former lecture, is the characteristic. It is im- portant to obtain a right understanding of the rela- tion of these two essential elements of the beautiful in art to each other. The ideal, we have shown, is the nearest possible realization, in an actual work of art, of the truth of the kind, of the abiding, uni- versal, central law, on all sides of which there will be, in things as they actually exist, slight deviations, but from which there can be no very wide depar- ture, without leaving the sphere of one particular kind, and passing over into that of another. Now IDEALITY OF ART. 1 43 it is evident that an absolutely perfect and exact conformation to the law of the kind would admit of little or no variety among the several individuals belonging to the sphere of the same kind. The only character would be the universal character which marks off and distinguishes one kind from another. This character, seized in all its truth and fullness, as,~^ for example, in the absolute proportion and har- mony of parts which constitute the beauty of the human face, or of the whole structure of the body, would impress us with a profound sense of the power of form ; and as the form, in the case chosen for illustration, is that of the human rational being, it J would not be mere form, without spirit, — soulless form ; but it would be instinct with a certain intel- lectual grandeur and force, yet in perfect repose, in an absolute equipoise and indifference of every power of expression, with no concentration of en-| ergy, feeling, or life, at any particular point ; power consisting in the perfect self-collection and repose of the spirit within itself, and manifested by the en- tire harmony of all the parts and members in their relations to each other. Something like this, evi- dently, would be the realization to sense of the ab-i solutely pure idea of man. But however much we might be impressed with the beauty and majesty of such a form, it is certain that it would not be apt very deeply to enlist our sympathies, or move the affections of the heart. A plain face, illumined and 144 ^ THEORY OF ART. brightened with some particular expression, would be likely to interest us more. \ Let us now turn to the characteristic. And by this, as opposed to the ideal, it must be apparent, is meant that which distinguishes one individual from another belonging to the same general class or kind, as well as the same individual from himself, at dif- ferent times. It is evident at once how far this point of distinction and individuality of character may be carried within the same sphere. It has been said that no two leaves are exactly alike on the same tree. In higher beings, in man, the differ- ences are no less interminable ; while, at the same time, they are vastly more obvious and important. Here, not only one individual differs from another, but the same individual differs from himself at dif- yN ferent times. It is out of these differences of the individual at different times, the whole play of ex- pression which indicates more or less clearly the inner man, that the true artist, the really faithful portrait painter, is enabled to seize at length that • which constitutes the individuality of character. It is impossible to judge what a person is, — I mean in nature, — seen but once, and in the per- fect repose of all the features. The imagination, to be sure, will be busy, and we may form a thousand conjectures, which perhaps would quite as often lead us wrong as right. '* The guess would be," says Mr. Allston, " that a beautiful person would presently be JDEAUTY OF ART. H5 enriched with all possible virtues." This would be the guess of the sanguine and imaginative, " The colder speculatist would only see in it, not what it possessed, but the mind that it wanted. Now it would be curious to imagine how the eyes of each might be opened, with the probable consequence, how each might feel when his eyes were opened, and the object were seen as it really is. Some un- toward circumstance comes unawares on the perfect creature : a burst of temper knits the brow, inflames the eye, inflates the nostril, gnashes the teeth, and converts the angel into a storming fury. What then becomes of the visionary virtues t They have passed into air, and taken with them, also, what was the fair creature's right, — her very beauty. Yet a different change takes place with the dry man of intellect. The mindless object has taken shame of her ignorance : she begins to cultivate her powers, which are gradually developed until they expand and brighten ; they inform her features, so that no one can look upon them without seeing the evidence of no common intellect : the dry man, at least, is struck with their superior intelligence, and what more surprises him, is the grace and beauty which, for the first time, they reveal to his eyes. The learned dust which had so long buried his heart is quickly brushed away, and he weds the embodied mind. What third change may follow, it is not to our. purpose to foresee." ^ 1 Allston's Lectures on Art. Introductory Discourse. in 146 * A THEORY OF ART. Besides these marks, gathered from the variet); of expression which distinguishes the personality of of the individual, there are others, still more gen- eral, — family, national, professional peculiarities, — which stamp a character of resemblance among themselves, and difference from all others, upon whole classes or communities of men. Of these it /'/ is unnecessary to speak at the present time. But having, sufficiently for my purpose, pointed out the distinction between the ideal and the characteristic, I now return to the question, which was, to deter- mine the relation of these two essential elements to ^each other in the fine arts. It is evident that we re- quire expression, character. The object represented must have a character of its own, clearly expressed, and unmistakable. To interest us, it must be some- thing; a Caliban, aTrinculo, a Prospero, or Miranda. But while the hideous Caliban, a creature as near to a brute as anything could be, and still be called a man, might amuse us by himself; yet his purpose, evidently, in the mind of the poet, as well as in his effect on ourselves, is simply to act as a foil and contrast to bring out the higher and gentler qualities of his betters. The latter alone engage our human interest, and the more so as contrasted with such an incarnate monster, their sole companion. Such is the only conceivable purpose of deviation from the ideal, carried to the extreme. This is one case. In general, however, strong oppositions and contrasts IDEA LI TV OF ART. 1 4/ of this sort are not required in order to the bring- ing out of character. Few can manage them rightly. There is a truth in ugliness, if I may so express it, which, if overstepped in the least degree, produces only a feeling of disgust. In general, character,./^ passion, " the endless inflections of thought and pas- sion," in order permanently to interest, must repose on the ideally beautiful as their basis. This, as it seems to me, is the true representation of the rela- tion in which these two elements stand to each other in art. Life, expression, soul, requires some moveA ment, some shade of deviation from the equipoise of absolutely perfect beauty, but a deviation which would be inconceivable except as that perfect beauty is presupposed. Thus in the statue considered the / most perfect work that has come down to us from antiquity, in the Apollo Belvidere, the lower lip curls with the slightest expression of scorn as the god lets fly his shaft, sees it reach its mark, and , moves calmly on. To conclude the subject, it is evident that some mixture of the characteristic is requisite, even in the most ideal creations. It is needed to awaken and sustain all that human interest which grows out of the passions, humors, and even weaknesses of our nature. The ancients, who were so devoted to the^* beautiful in form and in character, still had to make many concessions to this demand. The moderns, who attach far more importance to the individual, 1 48 • A THEORY OF ART. and to the traits that distinguish one individual from another, and therefore take a pleasure even in the eccentric, within certain limits, introduce into all their artistic productions a much richer diversity of character than we find in any works of the ancients. ^ In these times, when the fondness for excitement has become a passion, we require, not a diversity merely, corresponding with the truth of nature, but the strongest contrasts, human nature exhibited at its extremes, and such contrasts running through the whole tissue and fabric of a composition, as if it were the only thing which could be safely de- pended on to create and sustain an interest. One who has been accustomed only to productions of the modern mind is likely to feel chilled by the coldness, and dulled by the comparative monotony, of the best translations of the ancient classics. We '.esteem our modern form of art an improvement on the older models ; and, doubtless, it is so, in all those branches of art which were capable of improvement , in this particular direction. IX. THE SUBLIME. CHAPTER IX. THE SUBLIME. Every one is conscious, in his own feelings, of a remarkable difference in the effect produced on him by those objects which are called beautiful, and by another class, addressed to the same power of judgment, but which are called sublime. There is a peculiar feeling of complacency, of admiration mingled with a sort of awe, awakened by whatever presents itself to the senses or to the imagination under any such form of undefined vastness or grand- eur as seems to stagger and confound all power of distinctly conceiving it. Thus the broad ocean, an interminable desert, the depth beyond depth of the starry heavens, the crash of thunder, the shout of a vast multitude of men, and the like, produce, whenj^/^^ there is no immediate or urgent sense of fear, an) effect on us which I know not how better to de- scribe than by saying that it is at once pleasing and elevating. The awe is not such as to depress or humble, but rather to raise us. The sublimity which we attribute to the outward object is in some sort a reflection from our own minds. And it is to be remarked that the judgment in this case, where we ^ 152 THE SUBLIME. feel the emotion of sublimity, possesses the same general character with the judgment in the case of the beautiful : namely, it clearly does not arise from any sense of personal interest we take in the object that excites it ; nor from any complete conception of it as an object we understand, — for it is quite certain in this case that the complacency is not only separate from, but wholly incompatible with, that which arises from the clear and distinct compre- hension of the object before us. The judgment, again, is instantaneous, and waits for no arguments. It is also of universal validity, in the same sense as in the case of the beautiful. It possesses, there- fore, all the characters of a judgment of taste. The question is, how then does the sentiment of the sublime differ from that of the beautiful } I have already alluded to the theory of Burke, who distin- guishes the sublime from the beautiful by referring it to fear, apprehension, the instinct of self-preser- vation, as its essential and fundamental element. But if this were correct, then, in the same propor- tion as the essential element predominated, we might expect to find the emotion of sublimity would be called forth. The reverse of this, however, is nearer the truth ; for nothing can be more clear than, that, in order to the perception of the sublime, the mind must be completely self-possessed, and instead of shrinking from the object which inspires the emotion, must either feel itself drawn towards THE SUBLIME. I 53 t, or else set it at defiance. Others have resolved .he subHme into the simple feeling of greatness. Thus, the writer whom I have quoted before, on the subjects of imitation and of truth, says: "The simple conception or idea of greatness of suffering or extent of destruction is sublime, whether there be any connection of that idea with ourselves or not. If we were pleased beyond the reach of all \ peril or pain, the perception of these agencies in their influence on others would not be less sublime, not because peril or pain are sublime in their own nature, but because their contemplation, exciting compassion or fortitude, elevates the mind, and ren- ders meanness of thought impossible. Beauty is not so often felt to be sublime, because, in many kinds of purely material beauty, there is some truth in Burke's assertion, that ' littleness ' is one of its elements. But he who has not felt that there may be beauty without littleness, is yet ignorant of the meaning of the ideal in art." ^ It is no doubt true that many things which are beautiful are also sub- lime, and that the ideal beauty of art always par- takes more or less of this character. But to say, that this sublimity is attained simply by the removal of every element of Httleness, and that the sublime i^^*^^'*"' is only " another word for the effect of g-reatness on iJ ^^ the feelings," goes but a very little way towards ex- plaining the nature of this effect, and enabling us ^ Ruskin, Modern Painters, Pt. i. sec. ii. ch. 3. 154 A THEORY OF ART. to see its true relation to that which is produced upon us by the simply beautiful. The explanation which I have to present is as follows : In our judg- ment and feeling of the beautiful, the imagination, as has been said, while it is free, that is, tied to no rules, and to no actual experience, conforms entirely to the same laws of reason by which the under- standing forms definite conceptions. The beautiful is always presented, therefore, under the/^r;;W rela- tion of an object to an end, the relation of all the parts of a harmonious and well defined whole, as in a piece of music, a statue, or a group of figures in a painting. In these cases the object, however great, is easily grasped as one complete whole. There is neither any break in the contour, nor does it run out into the vague and indefinite. But in the sub- lime, the case stands otherwise. In a judgment of this sort, the imagination, being incompetent to pre- sent the object under any definite form of a con- ception, refers us immediately to those ideas of rea- son which cannot be sensuously represented. Any one, as it seems to me, may easily convince himself that this is so, if he will but narrowly watch the movement of his mind in contemplating the sub- lime of space, of time, or of power in nature, or the morally sublime in human actions. The imagination here is staggered, the understanding confounded, but not so the r eason. That which is too great for those other faculties to comprehend, still comes THE SUBLIME. I 55 within the power of the latter. There is no sub- limity in that which merely astounds the mind, if the mind cannot still rise above it, or at least to a level with it. The elevation must be in ourselves, in our own feelings. It is not the mountain masses of towering icebergs, scattered in rude confusion in the crash and tumult of a sea storm, nor the calmer, but scarcely less terrific desolation of the Alps, — things that confound the senses, — that are in them- selves alone sublime, but it is these and such like scenes which awaken the emotion of sublimity in the spectator, when he finds that these vast mate- rial masses, and brute powers of nature, must con- fess after all their inferiority to the mind which, in- stead of being overpowered by them, rejoices and triumphs in their undefined horrors. That which exceeds the comprehension of the sensuous imagi- nation, were it not immediately measured by a higher power of the soul, would simply startle and shock us, and become positively disagreeable ; as we see in the case of those who instinctively cover up their eyes, or hide away, from a thunder storm. But the greatest things in nature are still small compared with the still greater possible conceptions of the human mind, and hence, from the consciousness of this, the mingled feelings of complacency and awe/- with which they can be regarded. Since writing the above, I have had the oppor- tunity of studying the recently published views on 156 A THEORY OF ART. this subject, of the late Mr. Allston, in his " Lectures on Art," a work of great interest and power, so far as it goes ; but, unfortunately, like his " Belshazzar's Feast," left in an unfinished state. His remarks on the beautiful, and particularly on a class of objects which, as he justly observes, has not hitherto been noticed as holding a distinct position, but which forms a consecutive series, connecting the beauti- ful with the sublime, show that power of nice and delicate discrimination which we should expect to find in one who was a perfect master of the subject on which he writes. To the causes which operate in this class of objects so as to produce their pecu- liar effect on the mind, he applies a particular des- ignative term, that of " Imputed Attributes." For what distinguishes such objects in their relation to the imagination, is this, that we connect with them " (not by individual association, but by a general law of the mind) certain moral or intellec- tual attributes ; which are not, indeed, supposed to exist in the objects themselves, but which, by some unknown affinity, they awaken or occasion in us, and which we, in our turn, impute to them." ^ The ideas so awakened, he says, we " express by the ascription of such significant epithets as stately, majestic, grand, and so on." He then proceeds to the gradual transition by which we pass from ob- 1 See Lectures on Art and Poems, by Washington Allston. Intro- ductory Discourse. THE SUBLIME. I 5/ jects of this character to those possessed of the at- tribute of sublimity. We perceive something Hke these moral characteristics in the inanimate world "when we call some tall forest stately, or qualify as majestic some broad and slowly winding river, or some vast yet unbroken waterfall, or some soli- tary, gigantic pine, seeming to disdain the earth, and to hold of right its eternal communion with air ; or when, to the smooth and far-reaching ex- panse of our inland waters, with their bordering and receding mountains, as they seem to march from the shores, in the pomp of their dark draper- ies of wood and mist, we apply the terms grand and magnificent : and so onward to an endless suc- cession of objects, imputing, as it were, our own nature, and lending our sympathies, till the head- long rush of some mighty cataract suddenly thun- ders upon us. But how is it then ? In the twink- ling of an eye, the outflowing sympathies ebb back upon the heart ; the whole mind seems severed from earth, and the awful feeling to suspend the breath ; — there is nothing human to which we can liken it. And here begins another kind of emo- tion, which we call sublime." ^ This is forcible and true painting. The successive stages by which we ascend, — and which we mark by the very language we employ to designate our emotions, — from the lovely, quiet, and placid lake "^ Lectures, etc. Introductory Dis. 158 A THEORY OF ART. or river, to the thundering cataract which awes and bewilders us, could not be more faithfully de- scribed. But what then is the nature of this feel- ing of the sublime, to which we are thus gradually- led, but which is of an entirely different kind from all the others ? Mr. Allston ascribes it to the sense of the Infinite, and more particularly to the sense of an infinite harmony without us. This, he means, is the ground of the feeling, of which, how- ever, it is by no means necessary that we should be distinctly conscious. In most cases it is un- thought of He admits that " a sublime effect is often powerfully felt in many instances where this idea could not truly be predicated of the apparent object. In such cases, however, some kind of re- semblance, or at least, a seeming analogy to an in- finite attribute, is nevertheless essential. It must appear to us, for the time, either limitless, indefi- nite, or in some other way beyond the grasp of the mind : and whatever an object may seem to be, it must needs in effect be to its even that which it seems." ^ We impute infinity to the object thus presented to us, and an infinity which is without ourselves. The question is, whether this infinity is any- thing other than the unlimited, the indefinite, that which cannot be grasped by the understanding or sensuous imagination. On this point he remarks : 1 Lectures, etc. Introductory Dis. THE SUBLIME. I 59 " To make our meaning plainer, we should say that that which has the power of possessing the mind, to the exclusion, for the time, of all other thought, and which presents no compreJiensible sense of a whole, though still impressing us with a full apprehension of such as a reality, — in other words, which cannot be circumscribed by the forms of the understanding, while it strains them to the utmost, — that we should term a sublime object." ^ This certainly does not differ much from the state- ment of the fact as already laid down in the former part of this discourse. But why should we be so attracted by what baffles all our powers of compre- hension ? Why should we feel the sense of eleva- tion before that, which, as it should seem, could only serve to impress us with a feeling of our in- feriority ? Mr. Allston endeavors to account for this, unsatisfactorily, as it seems to me, by the affinity which, as he supposes, exists between the principle of harmony within us, and the unknown, incomprehensible principle of infinite harmony without us. That there is such an affinity is not disputed. That, by a secret attraction and influ- ence, nature draws on the " attempered " mind towards God, is not denied. But that this mysteri- ous influence is confined exclusively to the sublime in nature is certainly not true : and the elevation experienced when the mind is really thus drawn on- ^ Lectures, etc. Introductory Dis. l6o A 7'HEORY OF ART. ward from things created to the Infinite Creator is more nearly allied in kind to the sentiment of devo- tion than to that of sublimity ; two feelings which no person who has ever felt them both would ever \think of confounding. As one example of the sub- lime in art, by which we feel lifted above the earth, Mr. Allston instances the Gothic Cathedral, "whose beginning and end are alike intangible, while its climbing tower seems visibly even to rise to the idea which it strives to embody." While we acknowl- edge the deep significance of this style of architec- ture, as well as its singular adaptedness to inspire and sustain devotional feelings in a rightly disposed mind, yet we cannot but perceive that this meaning and this tendency are quite distinct from that im- pression of sublimity which one spectator equally " with another would have in contemplating the vast pile aside from its religious associations, and simply with reference to its aesthetical effect. In the one case, when we surrender ourselves to the sentiment of devotion, we are indeed drawn upward to the in- finite, but so far as we are so, wholly lose sight both of the structure and ourselves ; in the other, the structure itself is what fills the mind, and at the same time elevates it, because it enjoys, instead of being only amazed and confounded by, the perplex- ing infinitude of details, in which the imagination is lost. / In the presence of the sublime, the mind is tnovedy \. THE SUBLIME. l6l while at the sight of the beautiful, it is in a state of comparative repose, of tranquil contemplation. In the former case, we are, as it were, startled and at- tracted by the same object. The inadequacy of our limited power of sensuous apprehension, which is appalled at the magnitude, or the indefiniteness, of the object before it, discovers to us another, unlim- ited, power within ourselves, which is the measure of absolute greatness, and therefore, instead of shrinking from such objects, we are drawn to them. ^ Hence, perhaps, we may account for the strange interest we take in the sublime of human suffering as it is exhibited in tragedy. Many have been struck with the singular fact, that, while sympathiz- ing deeply with such suffering, we still give it the^ sanction of our secret approbation. The hero may, struggle with his destiny, but he must not shun it, ' however terrible and undeserved. We see that des- tiny, at first vaguely shadowed forth, becoming more and more inevitable as the final catastrophe approaches. It is fixed by inexorable necessity, — lj\ fearful, undefined power, which gives all its terror to the ancient tragedy. The sublimity, however, does not lie here, but rather in the defiance of this power by the human will, when so situated that it could not do otherwise than defy, without at the same time denying the deep conviction of its own inherent freedom. Such a conflict, in which the resistance of the will is not only hopeless, but pro- u 1 62 A THEORY OF ART. vokes and brings about the terrible catastrophe, would be a shocking rather than an elevating spec- tacle, unless we felt that, after all, freedom is higher and mightier than necessity, and, by asserting itself to the last, instead of falling, conquers. It may be observed, in general, that it is this kind of sublimity, which consists in the elevation of the mind above matter and brute force, which alone can be represented by the arts of design. The material sublime, or its effects, may, it is true, be to some extent reproduced in poetry and description, though even here it must necessarily always fall short of the reality. But the great masses and powers of nature, mountains, earthquakes, storms, cannot be so imitated by painting as to produce the effect of their actual presence. While, on the other hand, the passions, and the control of the mind over them, devotion, inspiration, self-sacrifice, self-forgetting love, are favorite subjects, both in painting and sculp- ture. Thus the Laocoon and the Niobe are ac- counted among the most sublime productions of ancient art. In the one, the father and his two sons, in the other, the mother and her daughter, forget themselves in each other. The undefined grief and love which, in the latter group, strikes the two into senseless stone, baffles the imagination, but leaves a subject of endless contemplation for the mind. o X. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. CHAPTER X. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. I HAVE now said all that the limits of my plan will admit on the subject of Art in general ; and it has been my intention, however imperfectty it may have been fulfilled, to present in these remarks, in outline, at least, the principle, the means, and the end of all art, without reference to the particular mode and form in which it may embody and repre- sent itself. The principle, — by which I mean, not S^ the formal, but the essential principle, — the sub- stantial ground, and vital source of all art, is the idea of the truth, dwelling within the breast not as a conception, but as a feeling, as a truth power, mani- festing itself first in the form of feeling, and both prompting and guiding the imagination to the more or less adequate expression of all that is contained within it. The organ of expression is the imagina- tion thus set in motion, and the means of expression are whatever materials can be employed to embody the forms of the imagination for the intuition of the outer or the inner sense. And the end of all art is simply the realization of the idea. Such a reahza- tion, that is, as the mind can repose in with com- 1 66 A THEORY OF ART. plete satisfaction, quite independent of all bias of personal desires or interests. But following this, as subordinate ends, are the empirical interests of A pleasure, instruction, sympathy, and moral elevation. ^ The next thing to be considered is the division of art into the fine arts, the principle of this division, and the relations and affinities, thence resulting, of the fine arts among them&elves. ^ What the fine arts are we know in general already ; but why they are, and in what necessary relations they stand to each other, is a question not so easily disposed of The general opinion of the best think- ers, so far as I have had the opportunity of observ- ing, is, that the ground of the division of art into the several fine arts must be looked for in some re- lation or other existing between the idea, which is the common principle of art, and its possible modes of outward expression. While the idea of the beau- '' tiful is one, the mode of its expression is necessarily determined by the nature of the outward materials of which it must avail itself in seeking realization. The materials of art comprise in general all those means which inward feeling and meaning have of / expressing themselves outwardly. The first attempt at a philosophical division of the fine arts which has come to my knowledge is one made on this basis by Kant, in his criticism of the faculty of judgment.^ ^ Critik der Urtheilskraft, § 51, Von der Eintheiliing der Schb- nen Kiinste. - DIVISION OF THE ARTS. 1 6/ There are, he observ^es, several natural modes of ex- pression which we resort to in the utterance of our thoughts and feeUngs, when we wish to communi- cate them to others ; such as tones and inflections of the voice, sounds modified by the organs of speech, postures and motions of the body : in other words, V modulation, articulation, and gesture. These are the three modes of outward expression natural to man. That they are natural to man is evident from the fact that they are resorted to alike by the untu- tored savage, and by the accomplished orator, when / e'qually bent on conveying home to those whom they address, the impassioned feelings or thoughts which fill their own breasts. These three modes of ex- pression -when employed together, as in eloquence, admit of endless variety of combination, according as passion, truth, or fancy may be the governing im- pulse which sways and moves the mind of the speaker. But each of these modes of expressing actions, thoughts, and emotions may also be em- ployed with great effect separately from the others. A story may be told in a very clear and graceful . manner where the fancy alone is addressed through the eye, as in the Pantomime. Ndthing is resorted to here, as the means, but outward action and ges- ture. Another and still higher class of emotions may be called into lively play by simple arrange- ments and combinations of inarticulate sounds. And 1 68 A THEORY OF ART. the power of language, even when unaided by ac- tion, or modulations of the voice, we all understand. The fact that there are these three modes of ex- pression, which can be used either separately or in combination, lays the foundation, according to Kant, for three general divisions of the Fiiie Arts : first, that class of them which employs as its material articulated sounds or words ; second, that which makes use of outward forms and images of sense ; and third, that class which resorts to the immediate expression of feelings. 1. That class of the fine arts which makes use of words as its material is again subdivided into two, Oratory and Poetry. Oratory moulds and fashions a work of the understanding and of pure logic so as to reconcile it with the free play of the imagination. Instead of confining itself- to strictly logical forms, which can interest only the understanding, and that, too, only on the condition of its having reached a certain stage of development, which brings up the hearer towards a level with the speaker, it embodies thought in the form of symbols, images, and actions, addressing themselves alike to the fancy and feel- ings of all. Poetry, on the other hand, brings out a free work of the imagination which is at the same time strictly conformed to the essential laws of logic and of the understanding. 2. The arts which employ outward forms as their material, or which express ideas in intuitions of out- DIVISION OF THE ARTS. 1 69 ward instead of the inner sense are either such as exhibit real forms of sense, or such as employ only apparent forms. The first are the plastic arts, properly so called ; the second painting. Both use forms in space for the expression of ideas ; the one, forms addressed to the senses of both sight and touch ; the other, forms addressed to sight alone. The aesthetic idea in the imagination is the arche- type for both. The plastic arts are Statuary and Architecture. In the first of these the expression of aesthetic ideas is the sole object : in the other, this is subordinate to an end of outward utility. 3. The arts which awaken the sense of beauty by \ the immediate excitement of feelings and emotions (the material, in this case, being not distinct images of sense, but simply the modulation and harmony of sounds and colors), are addressed to the senses of hearing and sight : namely, music and the art of coloring. This division may be said, perhaps, to be inge- nious, but when the attempt is made to carry it out into detail it is found to be artificial and defective. The analogy in some cases is extremely far fetched, as, between gesticulation and the plastic arts. By what stretch of the imagination can architecture be connected with gesture .'* The art of coloring, again, is wrongly separated from painting : for though design is the main thing with the painter, yet, evi- dently, by design is not meant simply the outward 170 A THEORY OF ART. contour of the figures, but every part which helps \ towards the full expression of form. But the great <^ objection is, it does not follow the natural order in- dicated by the historical development and progress of the arts themselves. In fact, the author himself does not pretend to propose it as the only philo- sophical division, but merely as one out of the many which might be proposed for the purpose of a systematic survey of the whole field of art. A division which will be found, I think, to cor- respond more nearly to the true character of art, as naturally flowing out of its generic idea, as well as to the course of its development in history, is that into symbolic, classical, and romantic art.^ I shall now proceed to point out more fully the grounds of .\i this division. There is a period in the history of art, and also one particular art, as I shall presently show, of which the sublime, the magnificent, is the characteristic type. In all cases of this sort, it may be said that the outward material or medium suggests to the mind more than it immediately expresses. The ma- terial, as such, preponderates over the expression, which latter is therefore extremely vague and inde- terminate. This, as we have already seen, is the character of the symbol as it is found in all the works of material and organic nature below man. To these natural symbols we often resort, for the J See Hegel's IVcrke, 10, i, s. 378-380. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. 171 purpose of suggesting that which we have no con- venient language to express. Hence the most rude and savage men, in an excited state of feehng, spon- taneously express themselves in the boldest figures ; and hence the early poetry of almost every nation abounds in such symbolic forms, which rather ob- scurely hint at, than fully bring out, the meaning- intended. Nor does poetry in its more refined and cultivated state by any means avoid language of the same kind ; the difference is, that such language does not constitute its prevailing character, because in cultivated poetry, instead of nature striving with more or less rudeness to express reason, we have self-conscious reason purposely embodying clearly developed ideas in forms so transparent, that we see clearly through them to the more spiritual thought. 7 We find cultivated poetry, however, occasionally resorting to these natural symbols, which suggest rather than clearly present the thing intended. Thus Milton, describing the encounter between Death and Satan : — " Such a frown Each cast at th' other, as when two black clouds With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on Over the Caspian ; then stand front to front Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow To join their dark encounter in mid air ; So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell Grew darker at their frown." 1 It is in vain we seek here for a clear and distinct 1 Paradise Lost, ii. 713. .4m I., 2 172 A THEORY OF ART. image of the thing designed to be represented. All is left vague ; but so the poet intended it, in order to give ample room to the shaping imagination. The symbol, as such, is also introduced more or less into sculpture and painting ; and indeed into all the arts, — but sparingly, and only for a particu- ar purpose : for example, as a standing or tradi- tional emblem of the character represented. Thus, the aegis of Minerva, the bonnet of Mercury, the laurel of Apollo in Grecian art ; the camel's skin of John the Baptist, the sword of St. Luke, the wheel of St. Catherine in Christian art, — are symbols significant of more than they immediately express, and characteristic of the individuals on whom they are found. Now what I wish to say here is, that where the symbol, as such, instead of being introduced occa- sionally and for a subordinate purpose, as in the cases just mentioned, constitutes the prevailing type and character of art, — in this case the real, by which I mean the medium of outward expres- sion, ever has predominance over the idea. The latter is vague, and oftentimes wholly lost in the material. On the other hand, when the idea is completely expressed in the outward form, so that there is neither a preponderance of the former over the latter, nor of the latter over the former, we have an entirely different, and much more perfect type of art, which also is represented by one particular art. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. I73 Again, when the idea preponderates over the form, we have still another entirely distinct style of art, as well as another epoch in the progress of its de- velopment. This lays the groundwork for a divis- ion of the fine arts which, as I have said, grows out of the true conception of art generally, and, moreover, corresponds with what is found to be ac- tually true in the history of the arts among men. In the first place, the symboly which is the least defined expression of conceptions or ideas, was the form of art as it existed among the most ancient nations, — among the Persians, the people of India, and the Egyptians ; and as it is still seen in what re- mains of their works. In the ruins of Persepolis, in the grottoes and pagodas of Hindostan, in the sub- terranean or out-standing temples of Egypt, we can- not fail of seeing at once the symbolic character of the art of these ancient peoples. It was an attempt f to suggest by massive, and often monstrous, forms the infinite and absolute, which cannot be so ex- ^ pressed. Art was here intimately connected with religion. And its peculiar character, where it did not run into the grotesque, was sublimity. The feeling of sublimity, as we have already seen, is more or less connected with the vague, the shape- less, the undefined. Massive structures, figures of colossal size, for the most part emblematical, and varying from the human form in order to be so ; hieroglyphical inscriptions, where each letter was \ 174 A THEORY OF ART. an indistinct image of some natural object, — these are the predominant characters of Oriental, and more particularly of Egyptian, art. The second great step in the history of the fine arts is that in which this symbolical and emblem- atic character is entirely superseded, and where we find as perfect a coincidence and equipoise be- tween the idea and its outward realization as the nature of the case admits. The first complete and successful representation of mental ideas in forms addressed to the outward sense was in the plastic arts of Greece. Many good observ^ers have noticed the plastic, statue-like character which pervades the whole domain of Grecian art, not less the poetry than the sculpture of that people.Jx Every- thing here is objective, fully realized, completely expressed to sight and touch. The symbolic meaning is absorbed and lost in the beauty of out- ward forms. The tJdrd step in the progress of the fine arts is the more spiritual character of modern art. The pure, ideal, characterless perfection of outward beauty of form here ceases to be the main thing. The individual rises to importance. Gods and demi-gods make place for man created after the di- vine image, and capable of rising above his earthly 1 See Coleridge, Characteristics of Shakespeare's Dramas ; A. W. Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art ; Schelling's Oration on the Re' lation of the Arts of Design to Nature. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. 1 75 nature. The outward form is valued only as a means of expressing the inward beauty of the soul, and as that beauty admits of an endless variety of expres- sion, and, in order to be brought out in its more deh- cate shades, must often be brought into contrast with the opposite qualities, hence the great latitude and freedom which modern art allows itself as com- pared with the ancient. It is true the ancients did\ not neglect the higher moral qualities of the soul ; as we see in the bloom of their poetry, in the drama, " the lofty grave tragedians," as Milton calls them. " Teachers best *' Of moral prudence," .... " High actions and high passions best describing." ^ But this is the predominant character of modern art. Hence the materials themselves are less pal- pable, less outward, — colors, sounds, words. The art which was cultivated to the greatest ex- tent in the symbolic period, and which also most truly represents it, because in this art the material has a vast preponderance over the idea, is archi- . tecture. That which answers to the classical epoch is sculpture. And the branches of art which char- acterize the modern period are painting, music, and y poetry. It is generally allowed that the moderns, in their best attempts, have not been able to approach the 1 Paradise Regained, Book iv. 266. / / 176 A THEORY OF ART. ancient Greeks in sculpture, comparing what the for- mer have done even with the few great productions of ancient art which still remain. But when we call to mind that the best productions of the age of Phidias have perished, and that every little city of Greece was full of the noblest works of the chisel, we may see the claim of sculpture to be called pre- eminently the classical art.^ To compensate for this, the moderns have carried the more spiritual arts of painting, music, and poetry, to a higher de- gree of perfection than was proBaBly known in the ancient world. )^ In the first of these arts, in architecture, we have the conception, the idea, but vaguely defined, and in its most abstract form, as in organic nature, — beauty expressed by outward regularity and symmetry of parts. In the second, in sculpture, we have the more complete realization of aesthetic ideas, the utmost possible distinctness of parts har- monized together in the unity of a whole. And as everything in the idea is in the form, the beauty is entirely objective ; we are fastened to the object. Settled repose, calmness, dignity, grace, are the pe- culiar characteristics of this statuesque style of art. The art of painting among the Greeks seems to have partaken of the same character. The Grecian temple was as severely chaste and simple as the naked figure it enshrined. 1 See Overbeck, Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik, P. iii. Ein- leitung. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. lyy In the third, and romantic, style of art, so called because it grew up among the Christian nations of the West, who laid the foundations of modern cul- ture on the ruins of the old Roman Empire, — in this last style of art. the main thing is expression, the expression of the inward beauty of the soul, of moral ideas, of man's connection with a higher world, of his great destination. If we ask for the greatest productions of modern art, we shall have to look for them in the three arts which I have mentioned as belonging peculiarly to modern times : and particularly in that music, that paint- ing, and that poetry, whose object it is to raise man above earthly things. If we ask for the two great epics of the modern world, would any one at all ac- quainted with the subject hesitate a moment to say : they are the " Divine Comedy " of Dante, and the " Paradise Lost " of Milton > '^ 12 Jf XI. ARCHITECTURE. \ / CHAPTER XL ARCHITECTURE. The several fine arts having been thus arranged according to their natural and historical order, let us proceed next to inquire more particularly re- specting the means, the special ends, and the capabilities of each. We begin then with Architecture, as the first in historical order, and the lowest, inasmuch as it is the basis and foundation of all the others. But when architecture is reckoned as the lowest among the arts, it should be remembered that the standard of comparison is not utility, nor magnificence or im- posing grandeur of appearance, nor harmony of out- ward proportions ; but simply its suitableness to answer in a satisfactory manner the great end and purpose of art in general, which is, as we have con- sidered it, the realization or embodiment of ideas in sensible forms. Considered from this point of view, architecture, in its relation to the other arts, must take an inferior place ; and, gardening excepted — if this can be considered in art by itself, and not rather a mere appendage to architecture, — it makes the least pretension to that kind of beauty which 4^ \ 1 82 A THEORY OF ART. V consists in the full realization of such concrete ideas. It has no power of presenting its objects so as to produce the impression of an organic unity. Its only unity is that of such outward relation of parts V one to the other and to the whole as we call sym- metry, — exactness of proportion. In this respect it may be said to stand in the same relation to stat- uary, as in nature the formative law shown in the crystal does to that in an organized body. / Again, the end of architecture, as a fully devel- oped art, is not in itself It does not terminate in the realization of a beautiful conception or plan, but looks still farther onward to a purpose of utility. Its work has meaning only so far as it is adapted to a use out of itself, — to accommodate an occupant vgr occupants. It must have an obvious purpose of utility. It must not only be adapted to an end with- out itself, but must clearly manifest that adaptation. And hence an architectural work should unite har- mony of outward proportions, with fitness for its proposed object ; and as this fitness depends on the nature of the object, on the locality, on the climate, and other like circumstances, it is evident that there can be no common standard or model for works of /this sort. The Grecian architecture, for example, was adapted to the national institutions, and to the peculiar climate, of Greece. It grew out of the \ wants of that people, and took a form which, though I it may have been in part borrowed originally from \ ARCHITE C rURE. 1 8 3 the East, yet was modified, or rather reproduced and made over again, with a strict reference to their climate, and to the materials it was most conven- ient for them to employ. It would be absurd, there- fore, to set up the Grecian style as an absolute stand- ard for all times and places. Architectural forms must necessarily be modified by the purposes of the structure ; and when these two elements, beauty ' and use, do not completely harmonize, a sound taste, which in this case is one and the same with good sense, will not be satisfied. ^ At the same time, architecture, as a fine art, has regard simply to the beauty of the fabric, and is de- signed to express the subjective idea of the art- ist.-^ That idea is the ground of all the unity that appears, and embraces the useful and the decora- tive together. Hence if the plan of the original concipient is not fully carried out, or is altered in 1 Sismondi, in his history of the Italian Republics, speaking of the revival of art, under the auspices of those republics in Italy, which he says began with architecture, remarks in regard to this art, that it is of all others " the one that most immediately wears the char- acter of the age, since its object is not the imitation of nature, but to represent the ideal forms of abstract beauty, as man conceives them. Hence it best makes known the greatness, the energy, or the littleness of the nation where it flourished, of the man who carried it to perfection ; and it is the art which can best afford to do with- out the heritage of preceding generations, the one where genius and the force of will can most easily supply the place of the rules or ex- amples with the study of which all the other arts must begin." Histoire des Repub. Italiennes du Moyen A^e, ch. xxv. / 184 A THEORY OF ART. the process of construction by any one but himself, the effect at which he aimed is inevitably lost. A piece of architecture which manifests genius is \ worked out, as it has been well said, in the same manner as a poem. The aesthetic idea as the groundwork of the whole must come first ; and it is to this conception of the imagination that skill and understanding are applied to render it practi- cable in construction. All the ends of utility can be answered without this, but the charm of beauty must be wanting. As the materials of architecture are massive, in- organic matter, so its forms consist for the most part of abstract relations of quantity. It is the most mathematical of all the arts. Straight lines, determinate angles, regular curves, and exact pro- portions abound ; the bold, free, unconfined outlines of organic life are wanting. It may seem strange the notion should ever have been entertained, that either the forms or the proportions of architecture were all originally derived from the organic world. The fixedness of these proportions is their main characteristic ; and is so manifestly connected with the necessary disposition and support of Jieavy masses, as to be unaccountable without reference to the original materials. It is an art necessarily re- \\ posing on certain structural conditions. Is not the proportion of the Grecian pillar, for instance, neces- sarily calculated upon the strength of the material employed, an4 the superincumbent weight .'' ARC HI TEC TURK. \ 8 5 But when we attempt to account to ourselves for the fundamental forms, proportions, and ornaments of architecture by the massive nature of the mate- rial of which the first architectural zvorks were con- structed, we assume something as a fact, which can neither be proved by history, nor shown to be very probable, namely, that the first buildings were con- structed of stone or some other heavy material. There are three ways in which we may suppose that architecture, as an art expressive of some de- sign beyond that of mere utility, originated. First, in simple structures of wood. In this case the idea of the pillar might be taken from the trunks of trees ; the ceiling and roof from their overarching boughs. Other ornaments, when introduced, would naturally follow this primitive type, and be taken from forms peculiar to the vegetable world. These would be retained when more massive materials began to be employed. Or we may suppose that architecture, \ in the proper sense, commenced with the employ- ment of those heavier materials, and arose from the effort to give dignity to structures erected for public purposes, and especially for the celebration of re- ligious worship. In this case the style would nat- / urally have some relation to the nature of the mate- rial employed, as well as to the particular purpose for which the building might be designed. Finally we may conceive that the first efforts in the archi- tectural art were expended in the erection of struc- 1 86 A THEORY OF ART. tures of a purely symbolical character, having no other use than their significance as memorials of important events, the historical records of a people without a written language, the first rude attempts to give outward expression to thoughts and ideas considered worthy of being handed down to future generations. It would be difficult to conceive any other purpose for which many of those ancient mon- uments were erected, — the Druidical circles, the mounds of Wisconsin and Ohio, the isolated pillars and obelisks, which belong among the earliest and most permanent works which man has erected on the face of the earth. It would soon very nat- urally occur, to distinguish these monuments from all other structures intended for the ordinary pur- poses of life, either by more elaborate ornament, or by a form bearing some relation to the things they were designed to commemorate or to symbolize, or else by their colossal size and proportions. All these marks of distinction might be combined together in the same work, as in the tower of Belus, which stood entire in the time of Herodotus, who saw it and de- scribes it.^ A massive square wall, two stadia in length on each side, with brazen gates, inclosed a solid tower of one stadium in length and breadth. This supported another tower, also solid, and so on to the number of eight towers, one above the other. Steps ascended on the outside from one 1 Herod., i. i8i. ARCHITECTURE. 1 8/ Stage to another, and the whole was crowned with a great temple, containing nothing but a couch in the centre, before which stood a golden table. We cannot fail to perceive the difference between this and a temple in the Greek or Roman sense. It was a temple in which there was no idol, and in which no worship was performed. From such structures, designed rather for a symbolical purpose, than to serve as the habitations of men, or for the accom- modation of a public assembly, it is most probable that architecture as an art, in the proper sense of the word, began ; and, in connection with these,^ we may suppose, were invented those fundamental forms which, variously modified, were subsequently employed in the decoration of buildings having a more direct reference to public or private utility. We shall find this supposition remarkably illustrated and confirmed by a glance at the general character of the architectural works of one of the oldest civil- ized nations, whose monuments, owing to their material and the solidity of their structure, while they are the most ancient, are among the best pre- served, that have come down to our times. One of the first things that strikes a stranger among the remains of ancient Egypt is the obelisk, an upright polished shaft of solid granite, covered with hiero- glyphical inscriptions. We ask what it means, and whence its form. We are informed by Pliny ^'that it 1 Nat. Hist.y XXXV. ch. 14. 1 88 A THEORY OF ART. was a monument dedicated to the sun, whose rays it caught, and at the same time represented. It was a sunbeam in stone. Of the partly monumental, partly symbolical character of the sphynxes ; of the so-called statues of Memnon, of the pyramids, there never was any question. The labyrinths, those sin- gular buildings, stranger than the pyramids, half in the air, half underground, ekch embodied a riddle. One of these, near the lake of Moeris, said to be re- cently brought to light again, was visited by Herod- otus, who says it contained three thousand cham- bers, besides halls and winding passages without end, inclosed by one and the same wall. To walk through its mazy rounds was to solve the intricate courses of the planets. The halls in this building were surrounded with columns of polished marble.^ But let us pass to the temples. Here we have a continuous series of the structures already described, following, one kind after the other : sphynxes, obe- lisks before the great entrance, a pair of semi-pyra- mids constituting the portal and called the propy- laeon, then a long double row of pillars standing in the open air, finally the temple itself, the sacred in- closure, dedicated to the inner mysteries of a super- stitious and idolatrous worship. The significant, suggestive character of all these objects is more or less distinctly expressed by the winged globe and other symbolic figures on the propylaeon, the Lotus 1 Herod, ii., 148. ARCHITECTURE. 1 89 flower of the Nile on the capitals of the pillars, the very walls of the inner temple completely covered with figures in bas-relief, different from those in nature, and designed to be significant by means of this difference. The same remarkable peculiari- ties we find in the ruins of Persepolis,^ and in the recently excavated remains of ancient Nineveh. The old temples of India, also, were after a wholly analogous style ; so that no doubt can remain with regard to the general pervading type of the oldest architecture. The farther we go back, the more massive are these forms. This is the general fact with regard to all the ancient nations, and with regard to the earliest type of architecture in each. Whatever importance, therefore, may be attached to local cir- cumstances, and to the direct influences of external nature, which may have led some nations, as for ex- ample the Egyptians, to form structures of gigantic size and indefinite extent ; yet when we find this tendency to prefer the vast and massive characteriz- ing the earliest architecture of every people, it seems evident that this disposition naturally belongs to the human mind at a certain stage of culture. The name " Cyclopean," which the Greeks and Italians applied to their most ancient structures, indicates the solid and massive character of those works, which seemed to them too stupendous a labor for any other 1 Miiller, Archaeologie der Kunst, § 246. 1 90 A THEORY OF ART. than a Cyclopean race of men.^ As it regards Egypt, it still remains a wonder how such vast blocks of stone as are found in the oldest architectural works of that country could have been removed from their natural positions. But the buildings themselves were correspondingly enormous in size ; — the ruins on the plain of Luxor, for instance, exhibiting to the wonder of modern eyes a temple which when en- tire must have extended more than a mile in length. It is indeed difficult to transport one's self back, and really enter into the feelings and views of an age which seemed to require such stupendous monu- X ments to express itself But that the peculiar char- acter of these works grew out of the people them- selves at that particular stage of culture, and was not owing, as some would have it, to purely physical and other influences, is as evident as that similar works have never been produced, under precisely the same physical and outward influences, in any succeeding time. The same general remark, that the farther we go back to the early beginnings of architecture among any people who have had an architecture of their own, the more massive we find its forms, holds good in tracing the progress of this art among the Greeks. That this people borrowed the fundamental forms of the art which they carried to such a height of perfection from the Egyptians, cannot be doubted. 1 See Muller's Archaeologie der Ktinst,% ^i^. ARCHITECTURE. I9I But among the Greeks these forms were divested altogether of their symbolical character, made wholly^/ subservient to an end combining utility with beauty, and reduced to that severe unity of design, rigidly excluding everything superfluous, everything not indispensable, either for use, or for harmony of effect, which justly entitles their style to the epithet which it has ever borne, that of the classical architecture. Before tracing the development of this art among the Greeks, let us consider for a moment the gen- eral character of the classical style, and the necessary relation which every part has to the other in this sort of building. The object is to inclose a space, either for walking, as a portico ; or for the accom- modation of public assemblies, as an open forum, a pnyx, a theatre ; or as a sanctuary and shrine of the deity, a temple. As the latter is the only case, out of all these, in which a space is completely in- closed by walls and a roof, in which therefore all the ends of architecture are fully realized, we may confine our attention to this as the most perfect model of the classical style of architecture. In the first place we are struck with the grand proportions of the whole, in the three dimensions of space. The structure is neither too low nor too high, too long nor too broad. There might be an excess in either of these and still the building answer the purpose of its construction as an inclosure, a sanctuary ; but in the first place, there ought to be no such excess 192 A THEORY OF ART. without a reason for it ; and in the second place, such excess would be contrary to that symmetry and harmony of proportions which a just sense of the beautiful in art ever requires. The Greek architecture for the first time established and fixed .the law regulating those conditions on which the grand, imposing effect of an architectural structure as a whole must always depend. Now if there is a roof, it must be supported, as well as the triangular spaces necessitated by the sloping of the roof at the two ends. The walls have already a purpose of their own like the roof; they are for inclosiire. Some other special provision is therefore necessary for support. In many cases walls alone could not support a roof This necessity is supplied hy pillars, which, as supports, should each have a base and capital. In order to stability and strength, these pillars, instead of being isolated and wholly independent of each other, should be bound together at top by a common beam. This neces- sitates the architrave. The architrave, at the same time that it binds the pillars, must itself also serve as a support ; on it lie the beams and rafters of ceiling and roof The heads of these beams lying over the architrave, together with the intervals between them, necessitated the frieze. But the architrave and frieze need protection ; the roofs should not end suddenly upon them, but must pro- ject over them. Hence the necessity of a cornice ARCHITECTURE. 1 93 over the frieze. Thus we might go through every detail of a Grecian building, and easily convince ourselves that the minutest parts all stand together in that mutual relation of necessity which comes nearest to express, in a case of this sort, where all the relations are outward, the unity of an organic whole. I now proceed to give a rapid sketch of the de- velopment of this art among the Greeks, and of the several orders which resulted from that develop- ment. The most ancient, and at the same time the most simple and massive style, was the Doric. Some think that the Tuscan, the prevailing order of the Greek colonies in Italy, was still older, the oldest style of architecture among the Greeks.^ It is char- acterized by still greater simplicity, by pillars with- out bases, and the absence of everything merely ornamental. In other respects these two orders were nearly alike, and gave the same impression of solidity, strength, and massive grandeur. The most obvious mark of the type in these, as well as all the other Grecian orders, is contained in the pillars, their height in relation to their diameter, their orna- ment, particularly the capital, their distance apart. In the Doric pillar, the pillar is never more than seven, or seven and a half times its own diameter in height ; sometimes only four. The capital is 1 See Hirt. Geschichte der Bauhmst, Zvveites Alter, § 27, and Vitruvius, lib. iv. c 7, and lib. iii. c. 2. 13 194 ^ THEORY OF ART. a simple swell or expansion. The shaft is some- times smooth, at others channeled. They stand apart, in the oldest buildings, only at the distance of the thickness of two pillars. Next after the Doric, in the order of time, comes the Ionic, which, in respect of solidity, stands between the Doric and the Corinthian. Elegance and grace constitute the distinguishing characteristic of this order, which effect is due chiefly to the smaller size of the pillars in proportion to their height, and to their greater distance apart. In the capital of the Ionic pillar, the termination is finely expressed by the four seg- ments, each winding upon itself With the Corin- thian order the architecture of the Greeks seems to have arrived at its natural end ; for the material is here wrought to the highest degree of lightness and elegance compatible with the strength of the shaft. With the exception of the cylindrical pillars and their wreathed capitals, we find nothing in these purer forms of the Greek architecture which con- tains any hint of the arch, whether round or pointed, which forms so constant a feature in the more mod- ern art. Straight lines and angles constitute the whole, and the Romans are said to have been the first to introduce arches between the pillars, as well as vaulted ceilings and domes. If we except this change, the architecture of the ancient Romans, as well as all their other arts, was borrowed wholly from the Greeks. ARCHITECTURE. T 95 The last of the historical orders deserving that name belong exclusively to Christian art ; and al- though they probably grew by insensible transitions out of. the elements taken from these older heathen forms, yet these elements were in themselves of but subordinate importance, mere conditions ; and were transfused with an entirely different spirit. The first of these is the Lombard or Romanesque : the second the pointed, or Gothic order of architecture. The domed cathedrals of Italy represent the one style, the spiry and pinnacled structures of the north of Europe the other. Having mentioned these most characteristic features, I shall not enter any more minutely into the differences between these two types of modern architecture. Of the Gothic, how- ever, it may be observed that the aim seems to be to overcome the massiveness of the material by di- viding it into the utmost tenuity of parts. The slim and tall pillars are strengthened by being grouped into ten or twenty together, and the roof and ceiling are formed by their branching extremities. With- out, the structure ends in a central or double spire, springing gradually upward from the base, with numberless subsidiary pinnacles. With regard to the symbolical character of these two styles of Christian art, I will quote the follow- ing — perhaps they may be deemed rather over- strained — remarks of a late English writer. "The Lombard architecture, with its horizontal lines, its 196 A THEORY OF ART. circular arches and expanding cupolas, soothes and calms one ; the Gothic, with its pointed arches, as- piring vaults, and intricate tracery, rouses and ex- cites, — and why ? Because the one symbolizes an infinity of Rest, the other of Action, in the adora- tion and service of God. And this consideration will enable us to advance a step further. The aim of the one style is definite, of the other indefinite ; we look up to the dome of heaven, and calmly ac- quiesce in the abstract idea of infinity ; but we only realize the impossibility of conceiving it, by the flight of imagination from star to star, from firmament to firmament. Even so Lombard architectute attained perfection, expressed its idea, accomplished its pur- pose, but Gothic never ; the ideal is unapproach- able." XII. SCULrTURE. CHAPTER XII. SCULPTURE. Architecture naturally prepares the way for sculpture, and, in fact, the two are found almost constantly associated. The oldest temples of India were crowded with figures, for the most part sym- boHcal. This is the case also with the splendid ruins of Persepolis, where, however, the figures are not all symbolical, but represent the different nations belonging to the old Persian empire, coming to bring their tributes to the king, in their several costumes, and with the natural products of their countries. The walls of the Egyptian structures were covered, within and without, with figures in bas-relief, and even those ruder monuments recently brought to light by the researches of travellers in Central America abound in decorations of the same kind. Among the Greeks, architecture and sculpture were rarely separated from each other. Most of the de- tached and isolated remains of Grecian sculpture which are to be found in modern galleries originally belonged to public buildings, and those which were brought from Greece to Rome were again employed for a similar purpose, — to embellish the temples, 200 A THEORY OF ART. forums, and porticoes of the latter city. The temple was incomplete without a statue in its shrine, while, besides, on the exterior of the buildings, the frieze under the eaves, or the metopes of the frieze, — the intervals between the projecting roof beams, — were ornamented with bas-reliefs ; and the pediment, or triangular space sustained by the pillars in front, was filled up with entire figures in groups. But although sculpture grew out of architecture as its natural root, although it used the same mate- rial, and went hand in hand with the latter art, yet as those highly organized forms in nature which require and imply others less perfect, as their neces- sary condition and basis, still have a law of their own, so sculpture was governed by its own principle, and aimed at its own peculiar end. While the temple was for the statue, the latter, which it enshrined, / was for itself. While in architecture the material predominated, and the unity was only one of out- ward proportions of masses, in sculpture the mate- rial was overcome, and converted throughout into an expression of the inspiring idea ; and this idea j was rnan, in the full-developed energy of his entire physical, moral, and intellectual being. Hence, no doubt, in part at least, the comparative limitation of the range of objects which come nat- urally and appropriately within the sphere of this \ art. It is not everything in nature that can be fitly represented by sculpture. And while the art is SCULPTURE. 201 confined for the most part to the human figure, ad- mitting of variety only within that general range, its power of representing the human form is also confined in a great measure to detached, isolated examples. In order to variety, it must descend be- low the strict severity of the ideal standard ; since character, individuality of character, necessarily re- quires a deviation — greater, in the same proportion as it is more strongly marked — from the perfect balance and unity of ideal beauty. The statue is a whole by itself, isolated from everything else ; it carries its own space with it. Each figure must constitute a world within itself, a microcosm. This highest unity is the only one of which, strictly speak- ing, statuary is capable. I have said, that, in the ancient sculpture, objects in many cases were represented in groups, where each fis:ure stood in a certain relation to the others. This grouping was necessitated, for the most part, by the close connection of sculpture, in the ancient world, with architecture ; and hence the posture, and action, of the several figures in such groups were determined, very often, by the nature and condition of the spaces they occupied. Thus it was common to fill the pediment supported by the pillars consti- tuting the front of an ancient temple, not with bas- reliefs, but with entire figures in statuary. The space being a triangular one, gradually narrowing towards the extremities, it was necessary, of course, 202 A THEORY OF ART. that while the central figure preserved a standing posture, the others should be represented in a va- riety of positions, as the space allowed, as kneeling, recumbent, or prostrate on the ground. There were other groups, however, where the position and atti- tude of the figures were not necessarily determined by their relation to anything without themselves. The Laocoon is the most perfect example of a grouping of this sort. The figures in this remark- able composition are bound together by the terrible link of the two serpents, clasping three human beings together in their inextricable folds. So in the Niobe, the daughter clings to her mother as her natural refuge. Such are the cases of the highest conceivable unity of composition between several independent figures in statuary. It is unity se- cured solely by bringing the objects into actual contact with each other. In the other cases of grouping, where the objects are separated from each other by an intervening space, the unity is expressed simply by the relation which these ob- jects have to each other, as indicated by their actions. The connecting link is not supplied by art, but by natural space ; or rather it is supplied by the mind of the spectator, who perceives that these objects have a connection with each other, not merely because they are in proximity, but be- cause their several postures and actions are intel- ligible only by reference to their relations to each other. SCULPTURE. 203 It is in this respect, that composition in sculp-"^^ ture difters from that in painting. In the latter art, space itself is created, as well as the figures which occupy it. The lights and shadows, all surrounding objects and their reflections, actually unite together, by means entirely within the province of the art itself, a multitude of different and independent ob- jects within the same whole. Each figure, to be sure, is but partially represented ; we cannot con- template each, as we can in a group of statues, on every side of it ; but we can see that all are not only ideally, but really and m fact, united together by a medium which is the product of the same art that produced the figures themselves. Thus, in this matter of grouping, we perceive the very close connection of sculpture with architecture, on the one side, and one of its most remarkable points of difference from painting, on the other. There is a necessity in sculpture of preserving a perfect equipoise, so far as that is possible, between the form and the material. In all art, the complete fusion of form and matter is the highest achieve- ment ; but nothing great can be accomplished in this particular art without it. If the material has • the preponderance, the artist must fall short of his idea, and produce nothing, in not producing what he intends. And sculpture cannot give promi- nence to the ideal side, cannot indulge in the strong expression of intellectual or moral qualities, with- 204 ^ THEORY OF ART. out overstepping its appropriate limits. The spirit- ual must be expressed wholly in the material, — the marble or the stone. Hence, according to Schel- ling, sculpture can reach the very height of its power, in the representation of such natures, alone, as imply in their essence and conception the ne- cessity of being uniformly and at all times what they are in idea ; namely, in beings supposed to be possessed of a divine nature.^ And for the same reason, since inertness belongs necessarily to mat- ter, it is a fundamental law in sculpture, that, in order to preserve the equipoise between the idea of the artist and the material he employs, the expres- sion of feelings, of the passions, must be moderated. And this holds good, not of the lower passions only, but of them all, even of the highest of which the soul is capable. In this respect too, — in its capability of expressing human passions, sculpture, ♦ as an art, concedes its inferiority to painting. ^ • The distinctive excellence of sculpture, in a word, ^ is, that it can embody the highest possible degree ^ of outward beauty in a single figure. In this re- spect, painting cannot approach to sculpture ; and sculpture exhibits the highest creative power of art in detached examples. Art, as such, cannot go be- yond what sculpture is able to produce, so far as beauty of form in a single figure is concerned ; and as complete perfection of form can be carried by 1 Relations of the Arts of Design to Nature. SCULPTURE. 205 this art into every part of the figure, as it does not represent one side merely, but every side, and can ^\^^ perfection to every Umb and every muscle, it can go beyond what nature has to present in any individual example. Hence the ideality of this art. The notion of the ideal perfection of the human form seems to have been first awakened in the modern mind by contemplating the classical works of antiquity. The sense of this perfection was vividly impressed on the Italian masters, both of sculpture and paint- ing, in the fifteenth century, who employed this word to denote the difference between the beauty of the human form as expressed in the remains of Grecian sculpture then existing in Rome and Florence, and the ordinary productions of art in their own days. Winckelmann, a German, who spent the greater part ot his active life in Rome, and who seems to have united, beyond most other | men, either of his own age or of any other, a quick sensibility to the beautiful in art, with the most pro- found judgment, together with a power of exact analysis, was the first to express, in clear language, in what this ideality of ancient art essentially con- sisted. Since his time, several of the best works of the best days of Greece, then scarcely known, or al- together unknown in Italy, have been discovered and transported to Western Europe, — to Germany or England. But although an important addition 206 A THEORY OF ART. J\ has thus been made, since the days of Winckelmann, to the means of forming a judgment oi" the pecuUar character of ancient art, still no occasion has yet been found to alter, or materially to modify, the just views which seem to have presented themselves, at once, to his clear vision. ^^ The ideality of ancient sculpture appears to con- sist mainly in three particulars. First, in the unity in which the several parts of the human body, in their most perfect state of organization, — the knowl- edge of which, therefore, could have proceeded only from actual and immediate observation, — are taken up and combined together in a new whole expressing / the utmost freedom. Secondly, in the minute accu- racy with which every point of surface, every swell and depression, every accidental modification of a muscle or a vein occasioned by the action or the atti- tude of the figure, modifications so slight as often to be imperceptible, except to the most delicate touch, or under a particular point of light, are rep- resented. These slight shades of variation, though not noticed by themselves, yet, being at one place as much as another, over the whole surface, instead of being lost, contribute essentially to the general impression. These interminable differences, bal- anced and reconciled at every point, express the very flush and vigor of life. We see some muscles in repose, others in action, but each kind so as to seem capable of exchanging parts with the SCULPTURE. 207 Other, which change would be instantiy followed by a wave of motion over the whole surface of limb or body. But this general harmony of parts, and accuracy in the details of particular parts, com- municating as they do the impression of freedom and life, are after all but conditions, the necessary foundation and basis of something else, namely, spirit. This is the third and last quality of the ideal in art. In the highest works of sculpture/^ spirit is corporealized, or body spiritualized. Such^"^ terms seem, indeed, to imply a contradiction ; and by some people, perhaps, would be pronounced ab- surd. Language is, at best, but an imperfect me- dium to convey impressions, intuitions. In fhe present case, it is simply intended to denote a pe- culiar impression made on every susceptible mind in contemplating a great work of ancient sculpture. It is not only instinct with life, physical life, but with spirit, internal life. What spirit } Of course it is that of the artist. He has breathed himself // into it, and the best of himself, his whole feeling of what that exalted nature is, or ought to be, which he strives to represent. That nature, that high intelligence, that immortal youth and vigor of in- ward life is embodied, represented not by symbols, but in fact. It diffuses itself and declares itself throughout the whole form. But we are not to suppose that this ideality was confined by the Greek sculptor to the representa- 208 A THEORY OF ART. tion of those higher natures, those imaginary or traditional beings, which his countrymen worshiped as gods. Tlie same pervading character is appar- ent in all the productions of the chisel belonging to the flourishing period of the arts in Greece. In those beautiful reliefs, now in the British museum, which once adorned the frieze of the Parthenon at Athens, and are supposed by many to be the work, or at least after the design, of Phidias himself, we see a religious procession composed of young men and maidens, intermingled with their elders, clad in the holiday costumes, and bearing the imple- ments and vessels, of a Panathenaic festival. Here we have ordinary life. But it is the idealized life of a people, the people of Athens, in the pomp and circumstance of a high public action, a pan Athe- naic celebration. In the dignity of the elders, the respectful, but manly bearing of the young men, the decorous modesty of the maidens, we see em- bodied the spirit of Athens as represented by each class of her citizens. And such bas-reliefs, I may here observe, were the intermediate steps from sculpture to painting. / At the same time, it is quite beyond the power of sculpture, though capable of all this which I have described, to bring out the whole soul, and reveal to us all that man, as a being endowed with feeling as well as mind, is capable of, and all that he aspires to become. The beauty of the statue SCULPTURE. 209 is superhuman and cold ; it does not descend, — come down to our feelings as men; it is too^ elevated for our common and natural sympathies. ' Although the forms in sculpture are not neces- \ sarily modified by the material, as in architecture,/ but the chisel of the artist overcomes the hardness of the stone, so as to give it an appearance of the utmost softness and flexibility ; yet considerable proficiency had already been made in expressing the severer beauties of form before this last perfec- tion was attained. The earliest remains of Grecian art are easily to be distinguished by the hardness and rigidity of their outlines. It was a long time before the arms were separated from the body, or the feet from each other.^ When these limbs were unfettered, the figure did not immediately spring into freedom, but still retained a certain stiffness and restraint, which many ascribe to a conscious purpose of the artist, or to a traditional rule from which he was not at liberty to swerve, rather than to the nature of his material. Both probably had some influence. Among the ancient Persians and Egyptians,^ this character was retained to the last. But from the first, the tendency of sculpture among the Greeks was steadily toward the entire em.anci- pation of the form from the heavy, massive, cum- brous character of the material in which it must be expressed. While the art was employed elsewhere, 1 Mliller, ArchaeoL, § 68 2 xhe same, § 228. J4 210 A THEORY OF ART. I not to represent the human form idealized, but to symboHze some deified power of nature tuider the human form, altered from its true proportions, the same art in Greece constantly strove to represent man's physical frame in its simplicity, so as to be itself the fittest temple and symbol of the Divinity.^ 1 This divinity however, it should be recollected, the expression of which was so remarkably attained to by the Greek sculptors, was simply the ideal perfection of the human form, suited to in- spire neither religious veneration, nor love, but only the reverential adoration with which the mind naturally regards the highest beauty. I may illustrate by a story told by Goethe of himself, in his Italian tour. "In the palace Guistiniani " (in Rome), says he, "there stands a Minerva which commands the homage of my perfect admi- ration. Winckelmann scarcely notices it, at least not in the proper place. For myself, I feel unworthy to say anything about it. While we were admiring and lingering about this statue, the wife of the Custode informed us, that, in the olden times, this was a sacred image, and that the English, who belonged to the same reli- gion, still worshipped it at the present day by always kissing one of its hands ; which as we observed was, in fact, very white, while all the rest of the statue was of a brownish tinge. A lady belonging to this religion, said the woman who waited upon us, came here but a short time ago, and throwing herself on her knees, prayed to the image. At so strange a thing, she herself, who was a Christian, could scarcely refrain from laughing, and was obliged to leave the room, lest she should burst out on the spot. Seeing that I too lingered around the statue, she asked me whether it was that /had some fair one who resembled this marble which so fascinated me. The good woman knew of but two sentiments, those of adoration, and love. Of the pure admiration of a glorious work, of the broth- erly veneration of the human mind, she could form no conception. We were highly delighted with the English lady, and went away with a desire to return ; and I certainly shall soon be back there again." And lie"^^ *''■' = -f^ffffectioii to ^pfer:!^!; "^^f^ ^r: i "rii*^ in ttbc t r tSL canm : ^ . : ; t ; - ' : I^Biims: iHui dueQ® tSoe . /*.' • t/ : and as t; .-fu smme 'i:^ irt - ■ "t^ nt 'm^^r:^: ; .7— cm never an- r;i-M-i ;ii^:^.i ,1 i^ : .j: cmineBIiCc: ^""'^-^ Si>c aits v§bk& it: once emgoi^Bd. Thai: it: cannott sonccesd in tibe sense i^ takings llie ftrsS: iank„ and gBiin^ its own tone toldbeodieraits^as it^din Gdneesx^ is evi&ralt ibr two leasonsu Fiisti^ becaiosse tinecsosltwaid IfcrawfljfY' of Ibnn is no longer idcjGiZri 1 - ^r^idipped as it was amoo^ tbe ancient (decks ; ^^ . . zM^^ ^Becamse ^ f^t"'" r emotion, t^^ f^^icnt presence €Bf soo^ is ' - : ' ^Ms^ ret^L ' 7 tn in tiie cnM raaiMe. jdi e limfd al^ scid^pime,, ^ps OQit of iitts ^jnkh carily pi :r - T -*!5 ccffltmnr, 2' - - " ' mbK . Many : : : r - -^ t~ ~ent paintrtpray i^ . . "i^St. An^e^ : :' -; t - r ttl^eare - xli