a^i P, UU ckJl^^ , A_>— V ftj>^ OA^O ex oUjm. ( SDlkDV ifisrat 7¥& id* mszy ESTHETICS BY KATE GORDON NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Copyright, 1909, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY December, IQ22 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. PREFACE This book is meant for college students, and was written to serve as a text-book for courses in esthetics such as are given in the third or fourth year of the college curriculum. Its first object is to give to students a concise statement of some of the most important facts about esthetic experience and artistic activity. Its second purpose is to stimulate, among students, some interest in the experimental treatment of esthetic prob- lems. The references at the end of the several chapters are offered, not as an attempt at a complete bibliography, but as suggestions for fuller reading. My obligations are, I hope, apparent in the text, but it is a pleasure to make special acknowledgments to Professor John Dewey for the general standpoint adopted in this book, also to Professor James R. Angell and Professor James H. Tufts, and to my father for help of various kinds. K. G. August, 1909. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGH I. Introduction i II. Imagination 8 III. Feeling 28 IV. Origins and Functions of Art 46c V. Rhythm 68 VI. The Dance 84 VII. Music 105 VIII. Color 141 IX. The Character of Simple Lines and Forms 160 X. Some Principles of Design 176 XI. Architecture 195 XII. Sculpture 213 XIII. Painting 228 XIV. Language as an Art Medium 243 XV. Poetry 248 XVI. The Drama 272 XVII. Prose Forms 284 XVIII. General Conception of Beauty and Art 295 Index 311 ESTHETICS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A Definition of Esthetics. If a number of different objects are to be put into the same class, this must be done on the basis of some common quality which every one of them possesses. What, then, can be the common quality by virtue of which one ever classes together things so diverse as a tragedy and a comedy, a gem and a cathedral, a song and a picture? Suppose we say that all these are alike in being beautiful. Then the question is, what is this quality of beauty, if it may or may not be visible, may or may not be audible, may or may not consist in the grace of well-ordered language? Our answer must be that beauty depends upon the taste of the person who observes the work of art as much as upon the work itself, and that the cathedral, the gem, the symphony, etc., are alike in having some peculiar effect upon the feelings of the person who appre- ciates them. There are, in general, two ways of regard- ing a work of art: one of these is from the point of view of the amateur who admires but does not practise art, and the other is from the point of view of the artist or producer. It is the business of esthetics to examine both of these kinds of consciousness. Subjectively, esthetics is the science of the feelings which are con- 2 INTRODUCTION cerned in the production and appreciation of beautiful things. Objectively, it is the analysis and classifica- tion of the beautiful objects which occasion those feelings. Relationship to Art and Science. Esthetics has for its subject-matter the beauty both of art and of nature, but the more important of the two is the beauty of art. We shall see that the appreciation of nature is derived from the appreciation of human art products, and that nature by itself lacks the element of person al expres- sion, which is important in the esthetic experience. Besides, natural beauty is less susceptible of experi- mental management than the work of art and hence less fruitful for the observer. Although, therefore, the beauty of nature is not to be excluded from esthetics, the work of art is the principal theme. Esthetics is a science because it pursues the methods of science: the esthetician gathers specimens, observes and com- pares them, classifies and tries to explain; when possible he examines them under conditions of control. The worker in esthetics has for his specimens emotional experiences, and judgments of "beautiful" and "not beautiful." He observes the person who makes the judgment, observes the object about which it is made, notices attendant circumstances. He compares the judgment of other persons on the same object, and of the same person on other objects; varies one by one the characteristics of the object, takes the subject in a variety of moods, and when he is able to find a con- stant result of any kind, there he has the rudiments of an esthetic law. ESTHETICS AND CRITICISM 3 Esthetics and Criticism. Criticism is the act of pass- ing judgment, and it implies the possession of a standard or test of beauty by which one knows or feels that a given work is good or bad. There is common ground, therefore, between criticism and esthetics, since both tell us about art products, whether they are good and why. The difference between the two fields would seem to lie in the greater attention which esthetics gives to the discovery and formulation of^the standard. The finding of general laws and building of theories of beauty is the affair of esthetics; whereas the tracing out of these laws in their application to particular works of art is more the province of criticism. Criticism may be called the esthetics of particular cases. Criticism is sometimes itself a work of art: thus in Keats's famous sonnet on Chapman's Homer we find esthetic criticism to be a piece of creative art. Esthetics and Psychology. Psychology is the science of mental processes as such. Among these processes are affections, feelings, emotions and moods, and cer- tain of these have to do with objects of beauty. The science which deals with these latter processes and the conditions of their arousal may be considered a part of the larger science of psychology. We shall regard the esthetician as a psychologist who limits his attention to one branch of his subject and so finds time to investigate that part more elaborately; and shall treat esthetics as a branch of an advanced psychology. Is Esthetics a " Normative Science " ? A norm is a rule or standard to go by. It is quite common to say that there are two kinds of science, positive and norma- 4 INTRODUCTION tive, and that a positive science tells us merely the nature of things, what they are; whereas a normative science tells us also what things ought to be. Not content with the real, the normative doctrine points out the ideal state of things. Thus we hear that psychology is a science which analyzes mental life as it finds it, not caring whether the mental processes are good or bad, rational or irrational, beautiful or ugly. But logic, we are told, distinguishes a false judgment from a true one, and shows the laws of right reason; ethics shows people what their acts should be; and esthetics points out the proper exercise of taste, and tells us what we ought to find beautiful. Now I believe it to be true that logic, ethics and esthetics are in a sense prescriptive, that they do help us in our thinking, our acting and our feeling, and it is certain that they attempt to set up standards or norms; but I cannot see that this is a point in which they differ from other sciences. Every science tries to establish a norm. Psychology is at work determining a "normal" human mind. (Even in abnormal psychol- ogy there are recognized types or norms.) A knowledge of chemistry or biology or even mathematics is the knowledge of what one "ought" to do in order to get results in these fields. To stimulate circulation you "should" apply alcohol in the blood; to get the circum- ference of a circle you "ought" to multiply 2 -;\ From this it would seem that positive science is also normative. It is just as true that normative science is positive. Ethics cannot tell in each particular case what a person ought to do; it can only heap up instances of action which, in the past, people have thought to be good. PURPOSE AND METHODS OF ESTHETICS 5 Logic cannot tell just what conclusion you must draw from certain present circumstances, but it can show in what way valid and useful inferences have been drawn from given data in the past. Esthetics cannot tell pre- cisely which brush-strokes will produce the picture that shall transcend all others, but it can classify and record the elements of beauty in works of art already produced. Esthetics, in other words, is just as practical or norma- tive as other sciences, but no more so. Purpose of Esthetics. To many persons it seems a simple thing to know what they like. They say: "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." This is a great mistake. People know very little about their own tastes, and are as often as not disappointed when they get what they thought they wanted. The chief purpose of esthetics is to help us to clarify and to become conscious of our own tastes. Methods. The methods of esthetics are the methods of psychology, namely, observation, introspection and expjenment. Up to recent years observation and introspection have been the ones chiefly relied upon. Observation may be regarded as the objective method; it is applicable both to the work of art itself and to the person enjoying it. Thus we may note the facial expres- sion, the posture and gestures of the one who sees or hears something beautiful. Or, again, just as in psy- chology one way of arriving at the laws of memory is to observe what things are remembered (the recent, the frequent, the vivid, etc.), so we learn something of the laws of beauty by observing the things that are accepted as beautiful. Under this method comes the study of the 6 INTRODUCTION history of art and the evolution of its forms. Introspec- tion is the subjective method. This must tell what it feels like to find a thing beautiful, and also what the mental process of artistic creation is. Experiment is introspection and observation under controlled condi- tions. Some writers have distinguished experimental methods, as applied to the feelings, into two main classes, which they call methods of "impression" and of "expression." In "impression" the ingenuity of the experimenter is directed upon analyzing and ordering the material to be presented. The result of the experi- ment is the mental state of the subject, usually reported in the judgment "pleasant" or "unpleasant," and in an introspective account given by the subject. In "expres- sion" the experimenter starts with the mental state of pleasant or unpleasant, using a known and constant stimulus, and directs his attention toward the exact outcome, usually in physiological terms, of this state of mind. Progress in the development of esthetics as a science will mean an ever-widening application of ex- periment to the problems of esthetics. Plan of Study. In the study of art one is perpetually discriminating two phases of every art product, namely, feeling and form. The production of a work of art is a progress "from emotion to form" ; it is the discovery and arrangement of images which shall express and convey feeling. The appreciation of art is a process of appro- priating emotion through the medium of the artistic image or form. To produce, one must have feeling and imagination, and, to appreciate, one must have imagina- tion and feeling. The plan of the present book is to PLAN OF STUDY 7 plunge at once into a psychological statement about feeling and imagination, and then to go on with a discussion of the origins and functions of art, and to the consideration of the esthetics of the special fields of art. CHAPTER II IMAGINATION Definition. Imagination is the consciousness of objects or of qualities which have no present sensory stimulus to excite them in the mind. Images depend, however, upon previcus sensory stimulation. We could never get an image of any simple quality of which we had never had a sensation, but, the sensation once expe- rienced, we are able afterward to think it without a stimulus present to sense. So far as elementary quali- ties are concerned imagination is merely a reproductive function; it never invents. But so far as objects or complexes of sensations are concerned, imagination may be reproductive or productive. It is reproductive when the image is a faithful copy of an old experience; it is productive or creative when the image is a rearrange- ment of the old material in new forms. The term "image" means, outside of psychology, a visible like- ness — as a statue or a photograph is said to be the image of a person — but in psychology the mental image is not confined to visual likenesses; it stands for as many kinds of Jikeness as there are kinds of sensation. Hence we have auditory images, touch images, taste images, etc. Images differ widely, not only in sensory quality, but in clearness, accuracy, and amenability to control. 8 VISUAL IMAGINATION 9 Visual Imagination. The power of visualizing or producing mental pictures varies immensely in different individuals, and often in the same person at different times. Occasionally an image is so complete and vivid as to rival a sense-perception, and in this event one has an hallucination. Normally, however, images are less perfect, and are easily distinguished from sense experi- ence. First class visualizcrs call up past scenes or imagine new ones, with great distinctness. The form and the details of objects, their illumination and coloring, are very precisely rendered, and it is possible for such persons, if they have skill in drawing, to sketch from the memory-image a fairly good likeness of the thing which the image represents. Persons with mod- erate powers of visualizing find that a scene is fairly well presented, but that one or two elements are clearer than the rest, the others improving as attention is paid to them. Finally, some persons have very dim and inadequate pictures, and some have none at all. People are said to be of the visual type if they employ visual images to a greater extent than they do auditory, tactile or other kinds. Having a visual mind does not necessarily mean that one has exceptional eyesight — one's eyes may be less good than the average — but it means attending to what one sees rather than to what one hears, touches, etc., and doing one's thinking by means of the material gained through the eyes. Some persons when they listen to a spoken discourse first have to turn the words into verbal pictures, and then grasp the meaning from the mentally seen words. Others find that certain words, syllables, or tone-relationships IO IMAGINATION always suggest colors or spatial forms. In general it is said that scientific and philosophic minds are poor in visualizing, but that mechanicians, architects, and artists are good at it. Women and children, as a rule, excel men. In esthetics I think we may speak of one as having a visual temperament if one has a liking for visual imagery, and a tendency to explain other experiences by it or to translate them into it. Ribot gives these quotations as illustrative of a mind which transposes sound images into visual and motor terms: "The ruffles of sound that the piper cuts out," and "The flute goes up to alto like a frail capital on a column." In Shelley's "Sky- lark" is this interesting figure: All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. Visual imagination may be distinguished into several varieties according to the aspect or the nature of the visual impressions which are remembered. One person may be more attracted by the motion of objects, and another by the static appearance, form, color, illumina- tion. An imagination made up of the appearance of movements would be stored with gestures, glances, atti- tudes, etc., as well as the motions of natural objects. It would no doubt have something in common with the motor type of which we shall speak later, only in the present case the images have to do solely with the visual VISUAL IMAGINATION II aspect of movement. Such a mind would be apt for the arrangement of dramatic effects. An imagination concerned with forms, masses, lights and colors, the static aspect of things, is more purely pictorial. It is an interesting point to notice that not all painters have the truly pictorial quality of imagination. Many pictures have a literary, or, rather, a narrative char- acter. They tell a story or suggest a sequence of events, and so depend for their interest upon other things than form and color, upon things which cannot be really represented by brush and paint at all. A picture cannot actually present the passage of time, and we should never demand that it suggest a sequence of events, as in a story. It is enough if a picture gives the effect of color upon color, the relationship of line to line, or shows the merely present appearance of some human form; for these are visual stories of the most delightful kind. Professor Van Dyke l has observed that Millet's " Angelus" is not a strictly pictorial conception, for it "leans very heavily on our exterior knowledge of bell-ringing at sunset in France." And he says also: "Whether an idea is pic- torial or not may be tested in the first place by questioning if it will exist of itself and without a title." Pale yellow, bright scarlet, and dusky blue, these do not require a title; sweeping lines and delicate shading are sufficient theme for a picture; and, unless a person delights in mass and line and color for themselves, his temperament is not, strictly speaking, a visual one. Auditory Imagination. Persons of the auditory type do their remembering and thinking in terms of sound. 1 "Art for Art's Sake." Lecture i. 12 IMAGINATION Their image of an acquaintance is not the look of his face, but is the sound of his voice. Their idea of a violin is its timbre rather than its form or color. " Audiles, " as they read a printed page, seem to hear the words sounding in their ears as if spoken by a voice, and in this way they get the full significance of what they read. Dr. Lay 1 writes: "I find the auditory mental imagery in my case to be almost as important a factor in my mental life as is the visual, being a mental reproduction of the sounds I have heard — musical or otherwise. They are comparable with real sounds, not so much in intensity, but perfectly with timbre, pitch and duration. I can estimate a minute with much greater exactness mentally if I listen to the auditory mental imagery of a piece of music which takes about a minute to perform." It is believed by some writers that auditory stimuli are more closely associated with the emotions than visual stimuli are. Music is constantly spoken of in esthetic treatises as being more indicative of mood and sentiment; it is said to be more subjective than the visual arts, and is generally held to be the most emotional of all arts. But we have to remember that music is not merely auditory, and that the tonal part of it, i.e., that which is distinc- tively the affair of the ear, is probably less important than the rhythmic, which is not a distinctively auditory ex- perience. If it could be shown that auditory rhythms are more "moving" than visual rhythms, that would be evidence in favor of the theory; but Miner, who has worked with rhythmical flashes of light, asserts that these visual stimuli are just as stirring an incentive to move- 1 "Mental Imagery." AUDITORY IMAGINATION I 3 merit as sound rhythms arc. Concerning the effect of non-musical sounds, we may mention these few facts: Young children are more afraid of strange noises than of strange visual impressions. Also, in a thunder-storm, many grown persons, even, have more real feeling about the sound of the thunder than about the sight of the lightning. One of my correspondents relates this bit of experience, which has a bearing on the point: "I was dissecting a young pig. It was an unaccustomed occu- pation and somewhat unpleasant, but the distressing element was not so much the sight of the animal, nor even the way it felt to my fingers, as it was the sound of the scissors snipping through the skin. Of course, in a way, it was the idea of the cutting which was disagree- able, but still it was the sound and not the sight or touch which seemed to give the feeling. Whenever I think of the occasion the same feeling seems to come up in connec- tion with my memory of that muffled snipping sound." It has also been pointed out in support of the emotional nature of sound that the cerebral connection is closer between centers of hearing and centers of movement than between centers of vision and centers of movement; and that the reflex centers of hearing are closer than those of vision to the nerves which govern circulatory changes. Notwithstanding these facts I doubt whether one is justi- fied in the unqualified statement that auditory impressions are more emotional than visual impressions. Some al- lowance should be made for differences in mental type. It seems to me fair to say that, for a person of visual temperament, emotion centers around visual sensations and images, and that, for a person of the auditory type, 14 IMAGINATION emotion is more closely allied with auditory sensations and ' images. For the audile mind it is the sonorous quality of exper- ience that is attended to and retained. The expression which such a mind naturally seeks is music, or lan- guage addressed to the ear. It is said 1 of Schumann: "From the age of eight, he would amuse himself with sketching what might be called musical portraits, draw- ing by means of various turns of song and varied rhythms the shades of character, and even the physical peculiari- ties, of his young comrades. He sometimes succeeded in making such striking resemblances that all would recog- nize, with no further designation, the figure indicated." The two great varieties of auditory imagination in the realm of art are the musical and the poetical. The fol- lowing verses from Beattie are a good example of audi- tory imagination; every line suggests an image of sound: But who the melodies of morn can tell ? The wild brook babbling down the mountain-side; The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell; The pipe of early shepherd dim descried In the lone valley; echoing far and wide The clamorous horn along the cliffs above; The hollow murmur of the ocean tide; The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark ; Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and hark! Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings; Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs; 1 Quoted by Ribot, " Essay on the Creative Imagination." MOTOR IMAGINATION 15 Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower, And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower. Motor Imagination. Persons of the motor type do their thinking in terms of images derived from move- ments. Our experience of movement is made up of sen- sations from muscles, tendons, joints, and skin, and, since these are pretty constant elements in all perceptions, es- pecially the perceptions of sight and touch, the motor imagination should be richly supplied. A motor or " motile " mind would think of a picture in terms of the movements necessary in drawing it or in imitating its lines. The idea of marching or running would mean, not a picture of the act, nor the sound of the regular tread, but the feel of it in one's own legs. The memory of any act would be the memory of tension, the feeling of the twisting, pushing, and pulling in the parts of the body involved in the act. Helen Keller's imagination is largely motor and tactile; she says that the act of shaking hands gives her the impression of a friend's character, and she remembers the character in those terms (i.e., motor and tactile ones). Professional athletes and dancers probably do a good deal of their thinking in motor images. Bain says, 1 discussing muscular ideas: " Take first the memory of feelings of energetic action, as when reviving the exploits or exertions of yesterday. It is a notorious circumstance that, if there be much excitement attending the recollection of these, we can only with great difficulty prevent ourselves from getting 1 " The Senses and the Intellect," p. 339, 3rd ed. 1 6 IMAGINATION up to repeat them. The rush of feeling has gone on the old tracks, and seizes the same muscles. ... A dog dreaming sets his feet a-going, and sometimes barks." And again: " Thinking (in motor terms) is restrained speaking or acting." Verbal Imagination. Before going on to the images of the lower senses, it will be in place to speak of verbal images, as they come under the head of the three types just considered. Words are the indispensable symbols which assist most of our consecutive thought, and all of it that is very abstract and complex. A word-image may be either visual, auditory or motor, since language is both seen, heard, spoken and written. The facts of aphasia and of agraphia have brought it out that the " cue " to speech and to written words is visual with some persons, auditory with others, and motor with yet others. It is not uncommon, either, for one to use a mixture of the three. Bain's 1 description of the motor speech-image is often quoted. " When we recall the impression of a word or a sentence, if we do not speak it out, we feel the twitter of the organs just about to come to that point. The articulating parts, — the larynx, the tongue, the lips, — are all sensibly excited; a suppressed articulation is in fact the material of our recollection, the intellectual man- ifestation, the idea of speech." A way of testing the presence of a motor word-image is to open the mouth wide and then try to think words like bubble and mumble. If this performance interferes with thinking the words clearly, then the images are probably motor. Verbal imagination may be divided into different kinds, accord- 1 Loc. cit. IMAGES FROM LOWER SENSES 1 7 ing to the literary quality of remembered words and phrases, as dramatic, lyric, philosophic, and also accord- ing to differences of individual style. Images from Other Senses. With some persons the imagery of smell plays a very important part, charac- teristic odors being associated with many objects and localities which to the ordinary observer have no per- ceptible odor. This type is uncommon and even perhaps abnormal. There remain to be mentioned the images of warmth, cold, pain, passive touch, of taste and of organic sensations. None of these latter play the im- portant role in our thinking which the visual, auditory, and motor images do, but when they are present they contribute very materially to the vividness of our reflections. Affective Images. Is there such a thing as an image of an affection or emotion? Ribot thinks there is. He maintains that there is an affective as well as a cognitive memory, and hence an affective as well as a cognitive imagination. The dissenting view would be this: we remember or imagine the fact that we were pleased or * sorry or afraid, but this is merely a cognitive act, and, if we were actually to reinstate or produce the feeling itself, we should have, not a memory-image, but a fresh new feeling which would be on par with a new percept in the cognitive field. Which Are the Esthetic Senses? Hegel said that in art the idea must be manifest to sense, and the kinds of sense which he appears to have had in mind are the visual and the auditory. Must we take this to mean that the other senses have no part at all in esthetic experience? 1 8 IMAGINATION If we name over the various arts and skills which appeal to the different senses, we find that there are: (i) for vision: architecture, sculpture, painting, decorative arts, arts of acting and of dancing; (2) for hearing: music, poetry, oratory; (3) for smell: perfumery; (4) for taste: cookery; (5) for touch and the muscle sense: dancing and gymnastics. Out of this list we see that it is only the arts which appeal to the eye and ear (dancing, only in its visual aspect) that are recognized as esthetic. Allowing, however, that the beautiful or esthetic object must be something which makes a direct appeal to the eye or ear — that it is primarily either visible or audible — we may still insist that the other senses are often involved in furnishing attendant imagery to the esthetic conscious- ness As elements of beauty, we often speak of warmth, coolness, softness of a color; sweetness of a tone; smooth- ness, strength, vigor, elasticity in line. Of course these terms are metaphors, but the qualities which they refer to call up imagery of the cutaneous, gustatory and muscular kinds. Again, our motor apparatus is " taken in" by the rhythms and tempos in music; and the stimulation to movement often makes up the larger part of the enjoyment both of music and the visual arts. Finally, we may argue that esthetic consciousness includes organic sensations when it includes strong emotion. The beautiful object, then, does make a reference to other than the visual and auditory senses; the imagery of these other senses is pres- ent as a fringe, a background, or a cloud of associations. Indeed, the more senses there are involved in observing the object, the more the subject is absorbed in the object (one of the criteria of esthetic feeling). If the sensuous IMAGE AND IDEA 19 appeal is profound and elaborate, we are all the more captured by the work of art. Image and Idea. That which an artist has to convey is sometimes referred to as his " idea," to distinguish it from the exact form which he adopts as its vehicle. It would be better perhaps to call it his meaning or " emo- tional theme". Now, ideas and emotional themes never appear in consciousness without some kind of sensuous accompaniment or label attached to them. This sensu- ous accompaniment is the image, it is the stuff or filling, the visual, auditory, tactile quality or aspect of con- sciousness; whereas the idea or theme is that for which the image stands, is its meaning or signification. Logical Function of the Image. For logical and practical purposes, mental images are merely means to some further end, and the precise look or sound of them is less important than the precise meaning. The same piece of work may be done, or the same logical conclusion reasoned out, by quite different sorts of mental imagery. In a quotation given above, Dr. Lay says that he can estimate a minute if he imagines a piece of music,