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THE LIBRARY
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LOS ANGELES
Gift
From the Library of
Henry Goldman, Ph.D.
1886-1972
■2 S
ESTHETICS.
ESTHETICS
BY
EUGENE VEBON.
TRANSLATED BY
W. H. ARMSTRONG, B.A. (Oxos).
HonUou :
CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1879.
LONDON :
BRADBURY, AONEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WUITEFKIARS.
M
INTEODUCTION.
No science has suffered more from metaphysical dreaming
than that of .Esthetics. From the doctrines of Plato to
those of our present official teachers, art has been turned
into an amalgam of transcendental mysteries and fancies,
finding their final expression in that absolute conception of
ideal Beauty which is the unchangeable and divine proto-
t}'pe of the real things around us.
We have done our best to bring about a reaction against
ontology so chimerical.
Art is nothing but a natural result of man's organization,
which is of such a nature that he derives particular pleasure
from certain combinations of forms, lines, colours, move-
ments, sounds, rhythms, and images. But these combina-
tions only give him pleasure when they express the senti-
ments and emotions of the human soul struggling with the
accidents of life, or in presence of scenes of nature. The
plastic arts, being addressed to the eye, manifest these
impressions by the direct and more or less complete repre-
sentation of objects, forms, attitudes, and of the real or
imaginary scenes that they call up. The other arts, which
▼i INTRODUCTION.
are addressed to the ear, have for their domain, and also for
their instruments, the infinite multiplicity of sounds.
The principles, upon which each of the two groups re-
poses, find their explanation, therefore, in the two sciences
pertaining to the study of the organs of sight and hearing
— namely, optics and acoustics. The explanation is far
from being complete, for a large number of problems still
remain unsolved ; but from what we already know, we may
be allowed to guess at future discoveries. And at least we
can indicate the general directions with a great degree of
certaint} r .
The explanation of the cerebral phenomena of what is
commonly called the moral influence of art, is not so far
advanced, and in most cases we are compelled to content
ourselves with pure empiricism. Upon this point ^Esthetics
is perforce limited to the statement and registration of facts,
and to their classification in the order most probable. So
far, then, it ceases to be a science in the complete sense of
the word.
However, we are able to deduce from the observation of
these facts, a principle of the utmost importance ; which
is, that outside the material conditions that relate to
optics and acoustics, that which dominates in a work of
art and gives it its special character, is the personality of
its author. Ontology disappears to give place to man. The
realisation of the eternal and unchanging Beauty of Plato
is cast aside. The value of the work of art rests entirely
upon the degree of energy with which it manifests the intel-
lectual character and aesthetic impressions of its author.
The only rule imposed upon it, is the necessity for a
INTRODUCTION. vii
certain conformity with the mode of thinking and feeling of
the public to which it appeals. Not that such conformity
can itself add to or take from the intrinsic value of the
work. It is easy to understand that, in theory, a poem may
express sentiments or ideas which, although they are in-
comprehensible to the contemporaries of the author, are
not on that account the less worthy of the admiration of
some more enlightened period or country. But as a matter
of fact, it is certain that such a want of harmony often
causes a work to fall rapidly into oblivion.
Happily cases of this nature are very uncommon, and
the danger is much less to be feared by the artist than by
the thinker. It is very rare, we may even say impossible,
for an artist to be much before his time. Without going
so far as to admit, as some have done, that he must neces-
sarily be a simple echo, an iEolian harp played upon by
every breath of contemporary emotion — it is certain that for
a multitude of reasons which we have not space to enume-
rate, the artist and the poet, above all men, live the life of
those among whom they are placed; and consequently it
is only in exceptional cases that they are exposed to the
danger which we have indicated.
An artist of true feeling has but to abandon himself to
his emotion and it will become contagious, and the praise
that he deserves will be awarded to him. So long as he
shall observe the positive rules that spring from the phy-
siological necessities of our organs, and which alone are
certain and definitive, he need never trouble himself about
academic traditions and receipts. He is free, absolutely
free in his own province, on the one condition of absolute
viii INTRODUCTION.
sincerity. He must seek only to express the ideas, sen-
timents, and emotions proper to himself, and must copy
no one.
As there is no such thing as abstract art, Vart en soi,
because absolute beauty is a chimera, 1 so neither is there
any definitive and final system of ^Esthetics. All the
various formulas by which at various times it has been im-
prisoned — idealism, naturalism, realism, and such like, are
nothing but different ways of looking at art, which is not
entirely contained in an}' one of them. Each of them may
recommend itself to certain individual or national tempera-
ments ; but it is absurd to force them upon natures to which
they are repugnant. It is quite as ridiculous to condemn
Flemish or Dutch art in the name of Greek sculpture, as
to go through the reverse process, and to refuse all praise
to Phidias because he is not Rembrandt. Courbet, too, is
legitimate. We may be allowed to prefer one to the other,
according to our natural attraction and affinities ; but
^Esthetics has no more right to exclude either the one or
the other, than we have to import passion and partiality
into a question of science.
Is this equal to saying, with certain philosophers, that
the freedom of art is the freedom of indifference ; that for it
one system of direction is as good as another ; and that it
knows no law but the infinite variety of individual caprice ?
To answer this question in the affirmative, would be both
an exaggeration and a mistake. The artist, as we have said
1 We shall have to demonstrate that the principle of Beauty, absolute or
relative, is quite insufficient to account for the complexity i £ artistic m i - ba
tions.
INTRODUCTION. ix
before, lives the life of his own time and country, and so
he is naturally led by the inspirations therein existing.
Now, in spite of all the changes in human civilization — it
is obvious that science, so long retarded by the pursuit of
insoluble problems and the ontology of the theologians, has
at last transferred its investigation from things of heaven
to things of earth. It has substituted the direct study of
things, facts, and living beings, for the fantastic explana-
tions of metaphysicians, and of ancient and modern mytho-
logy. After wasting century after century in seeking for
answers to the enigmas that puzzled it in the actions of
gods and imaginary entities, it was obliged, in order to ex-
plain the physical and moral world, to take direct account
of nature and of man. Man became a perpetual subject
of observation for his own sake ; and to have given this
new direction to the investigation of science, is surely one
of the chief glories of the nineteenth century.
Art, also, becomes ever more and more inclined to extend
itself in the same direction. It is gradually withdrawing it-
self further and further from mythology and metaphysics, to
which it was faithful so long as civilization set it an example
of fidelity. This fact accounts for the ever-growing pre-
dominance of expression and of the pourtrayal of the pas-
sions and sentiments, so marked a characteristic of contem-
porary art. It also explains why landscape painting — that
is, the painting of human emotions in the presence of the
works of nature — has, for the last forty years, occupied a
position of daily increasing importance. The same thing,
again, is the cause of the transformation that life and
movement have wrought in contemporary sculpture,
x INTRODUCTION.
making Carpeaux and Dalou the chief favourites of the
public.
All this is as much as to say that art, always human in its
point of departure, which is the manifestation of the ideas
and emotions of mankind, became equally so in its subjects
and in its final aim. Instead of representing the forms of
the gods, or celebrating them in verse ; instead of devoting
itself to a symbolism that could never end in anything
better than a dry subtlety : it applied itself, with visible
effort, to re-enter the pure field of humanity, in which alone
from that time it was able to awaken those sympathies with-
out which neither talent nor genius are preserved from
oblivion ; and which, also, is the only one wherein the artist
draws immediately upon the sincere and profound emotions
that excite his own desire and power to create.
This movement has, of course, found an energetic and
violent opponent in tradition, which, with us, possesses
peculiar power on account of the organization of our
academies and of our official teaching. This retrograde
force exercises a most fatal influence over our art progress,
especially as those of us who are subject to it, are, for the
most part, unconscious of its existence. Young and with-
out any philosophic education, these unconscious students
find the schools and their surroundings impregnated with
a multitude of academic prejudices, that taking hold of
them, stereotype their ideas before they have ever thought
in earnest about such tilings, or have formed any personal
convictions. They unwittingly become enlisted from the
very first in the official phalanx ; and it is only the excep-
tionally independent and powerful intellects that are able
INTRODUCTION, xi
either to resist this pressure at the beginning, or to escape
from it at a later period. Our aim, then, is to denounce
as strongly as our opportunities permit, this crushing of
the future under the past, of liberty under dogmatism. We
refuse to be bound by the narrow and antiquated rules
which frustrate every attempt at emancipation ; we repu-
diate the haughty and contemptuous criticism that, under
pretext of protecting "good taste and calm doctrines," suc-
ceeds in discouraging every attenrpt at independence — a
defensive criticism, which is, as M. Cuvillier-Fleury termed
it, nothing but the open tyranny of academic doctrine and
jealous impotence.
Our intention is to defend and uphold in every possible
way the thesis which M. Eugene Viollet-le-Duc has taken
for the text of all his writings ; namely, that without inde-
pendence we can have neither art nor artis ts.
All the great art epochs have been epochs of liberty. In
the time of Pericles as in that of Leo. X., in the France
of the thirteenth century as in the Holland of the seven-
teenth, artists were able to work after their own fancies.
No aesthetic dogmas confused their imaginations/ no official
corporations claimed any art dictatorship, or thought them-
selves responsible for the direction taken by the national
taste.
In these great epochs, Art was truly national. Men's
intellects, when left to follow their own devices, naturally
worked out the particular kinds of art with which they had
most sympathy; or rather they found them without search,
by their own spontaneous movement, without other guide or
rule than the instinctive preferences of the race as a whole.
xii INTRODUCTION.
This peculiar similarity between instincts when left to
themselves, explains the close sympathy that subsists
between the works produced by different men during the
great periods of art ; whilst, at the same time, freedom is
made manifest by the characteristic whose place nothing
else can supply — namely, individual originality.
Men whose lives belong to the same period are generally
influenced by the same set of facts. The sources of inspira-
tion afford but little variety. Sometimes a single idea or
sentiment is impressed upon a whole generation. But each
man interprets it after his own fashion, after the fulness of
his own personal inspiration, and according to the measure
of his own genius.
This is the source of the infinite variety in unity —
variety of expression in unity of sentiment — which is the
mark of certain periods. In fact, the artist is never
more powerful or more inspired, than when he finds him-
self in perfect accord with the age in which he lives;
and art is never greater, than when it marches with the
ideas and sentiments that influence a whole condition of
society. '
Now this universality of art and of artistic sentiment, at
a certain moment in their intellectual evolution among the
great majority of nations, is of the most capital importance
in the history of the manifestations of human intelligence.
The Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, Chinese, and Japanese,
all possessed spontaneous forms of art, which, springing
from the inmost feelings of the nation, have the appearance
of being equally understood and appreciated by every indi-
vidual of the race. Something of the same kind is to be
INTRODUCTION. xiii
found in France during the Middle Ages, and in Italy during
the period of the Renaissance.
That such a statement should be true of so many dif-
ferent races of mankind, cannot be attributed to mere '
chance. Chance is far too convenient an explanation ;
besides, it has the disadvantage of really explaining nothing.
Chance is not even an hypothesis; it is a mere nega-
tion. There is no chance hi history. Every event, small
or great, is but part of a continuous chain. Some of the
links may escape our notice, but, nevertheless, the chain
exists.
Art, considered from a psychological point of view, is
nothing but the spontaneous expression of certain concep-
tions of things, which follow logically from the combination
of the moral and physical influences to which different
races are subject, with the original or acquired tendencies
and aptitudes of each separate race.
It is an interpretation of the sentiments to which this
melange gives birth ; a more or less literal, or more or less
ideal interpretation, according as the nations in question
give the first place to the material reality of things or to
the habits and predilections of the race. But, whatever the
result of such mixture may be, it is certain that the two
primitive elements, reality and personality, are never want-
ing — in spite of the contrary theories that would reduce
art either to the condition of photographic plagiarism, or to
mere conjectural restoration of so-called ideal types.
We need not here insist upon these considerations, because
we have sufficiently developed them in the pages that follow.
We will content ourselves with saying that every form of
xiv INTEODUCTION.
art has some better raison d'etre than mere accident ; a
remark which applies even to periods of decadence.
When does an art cease to be national — that is, common
to every individual of a race or country ? When does that
universality of taste, which is the dominant characteristic,
of the great art epochs, disappear? — a disappearance which
is one of the chief marks of decadence.
It disappears, when art ceases to be the sincere and spon-
taneous expression of the general sentiments; when, instead
of directly interpreting the impressions and true emotions
of all, or, at least, of the great majority, it attempts to
give an analysis of its own methods of work, and makes
such mere technical methods the ultimate aim of its labour
— losing sight of the vital principle of art, sincerity and
spontaneity of emotion.
Such a sign of decadence is fatal, by reason of the law
that forbids the superior races of mankind to dwell too
long upon any such spectacles. The moment must come
when the sentiments or ideas that have inspired a form of
civilization and an art, lose their useful effect and their fer-
tile powers ; and when the intellect finds itself condemned
for a time to mere imitation and reproduction.
It is no longer the anterior sentiment or idea itself that
is imitated and reproduced; it is its expression, the form by
which it is interpreted, and which is thenceforth empty and
inanimate.
But we soon grow weary of mere imitation, because it
affords no food for our intellect. In order to stir up our
languishing sensations, expression must be exaggerated as
much as possible. Free rein is given to the most aban-
INTRODUCTION. xv
doned developments of individual caprice. Art becomes an
exercise of the same kind and of the same value as the
contortions of mountebanks, who care only to astonish the
public with the exhibition of the suppleness of their
joints.
The public may be divided into two unequal categories :
the dilettanti, who pretend to derive some peculiar and
subtle pleasure from such gymnastics, because they wish,
above all things, to be considered superior to their neigh-
bours ; and those who are not dilettanti — that is to say,
ninety-nine out of every hundred of the population — who,
caring nothing for such subtleties, leave art to take care of
itself, and disregard the efforts it makes to draw their atten-
tion by premeditated singularities.
If, under such conditions, we do come across a small
number of artists who are skilful enough to find yet a few
grains of gold in the exhausted mine ; or who are so far in
advance of their time as to have discovered some new source
of poetry : these stand a good chance of never being noticed
amid the general indifference.
These are but inevitable consequences. We have no
right either to complain of, or to be surprised at them.
But the same law that condemns the progressive races
of mankind to ever-recurring exhaustion of ideas and senti-
ments, in order that they may be continually replenished
and corrected by others newer and more advanced — must,
as the logical result of its application, cause dead forms of
civilization to be followed by living ones ; and, for similar
reasons, must give birth to new forms of art appropriate to
the new forms of civilization.
xvi INTRODUCTION.
This, no doubt, is what would have taken place, were it
not that, beside this law of progress, we find another ab-
solutely contrary to it, that, fighting against it, in most
cases reduces it to impotence. While part of a community
is ever pushing on in its search for the best ; the other
part, under the influence of education, self-interest, habit,
intellectual inertia and fear of the unknown, repudiates
everything that is new.
Now the preponderance must belong, for a tioxe at least,
to those who represent the earlier civilization. They re-
ceive strength from every social, political or administrative
item of organization. Accomplished facts, too — in judicial
language, called " precedents," — tell in their favour, while
their opponents can rest only upon their aspirations, at first
vague and incomplete, and always without the sanction that
comes from experience. Against the intellectual forms of
thought created by the glories of the past, they can only
oppose the more or less uncertain glimmers of a problematic
future. They are condemned to find themselves confronted
with everything in our social systems which is established,
fixed, an "institution."
In France, and, it must be acknowledged, in every Euro-
pean country, modern education is founded almost entirely
upon the imitation of the past; that is to say, so far as art is
concerned. The instinct of progress has always had to fight
I against the organized forces of society, in the Universities
^as much as elsewhere. And, if we should feel any astonish-
ment, it should be excited by the fact that this instinct
possesses sufficient vitality to save it from complete annihi-
lation by the numerous enemies ranged against it.
INTRODUCTION. xvii
Among such enemies, the most powerful, beyond all con-
tradiction, is the Academie_des-M4iaux^Arts. The talented
men who constitute^ this body, are all the more dangerous
to the cause of art in that they so thoroughly believe that
they render good service. This sincerity is the root of
all then- strength. If they openly proclaimed themselves
enemies of progress, they would very soon be reduced to
impotence. But no — they really do desire above all things
the development of art ; and they devote themselves heart
and soul to the promotion of this end. But, unfortunately,
they believe that such development is only rendered possible
by the diligent study of the art of former days ; and the
reasoning upon which they found their opinions is of the
most specious kind.
Where has Art ever been more brilliant than in the
Greece of Pericles, or in Italy during the Renaissance ?
Nowhere ; there can be but the one answer. Where, then,
can we find better models than the masterpieces of those
two favoured nations ? Why should individual effort be
wasted in looking for that which was found long ago ?
Study, then, without ceasing, the productions of these ad-
mirable geniuses who have never been surpassed; and, when
you have made yourself acquainted with all their secrets,
then you may be able to trust to your own powers, and pro-
duce masterpieces in your turn — if nature has given you
brains enough !
In consequence of simple, easily understood argu-
ments such as these, all the teaching of the Ecole
I des Beaux-Arts is directed to the continual reiteration
of what has been done bv the artists of dead forms of
b
xviii INTRODUCTION.
civilization, until its pupils become almost incapable
to produce anything but more or less unsuccessful pas-
ticcios.
The same reasoning governs the decisions of the juries
at the competitions and the annual exhibitions. Crosses,
prizes and medals are given to those artists who have most
closely followed the orthodox models.
Again — under the influence of the same arguments, the
administration only purchases such works as are got up in
accordance with academic formulas, and gives commissions
only to those men who are known to keep within the same
rules ; the rules of high art, of the " grand style," which
alone receive encouragement from any administration which
would keep itself resj^ectable.
These facts explain how Ingres has become the official
prototype of artistic perfection for the France of the nine-
teenth century; and how M. Cabanel has become its apostle,
and, at the same time, the chief judge of the artists and
• the born president of all the juries.
We see why young men who enter the school with the
strongest instincts of independence and sincerity, rarely
leave it otherwise than cabanellised — slaves to routine,
emasculated, and lost to art. Instead of consulting their
own sentiments, obeying their own impressions, following
the spontaneous lead of their own tastes, preferences, and
aptitudes, by which alone they might come to be artists or
poets — they do all they can to stifle the voice of their own
nature that they may hear that of their masters. They
torture themselves in order to become convinced that pro-
gress consists in galvanizing ancient art ; and that the only
INTRODUCTION. xix
possible originality is to be found in pasticcios after the
Greeks or Italians.
This is the price they p&y for the eulogiums of the juries,
the favours of the administration, the commissions for the
State, and the admiration of the moutons of Panurge ! And
when once they have chosen this path, they are kept tightly
to it b} 7 a series of moral and pecuniary considerations
that never permit them to recover their liberty.
This despotic influence of the State, and of the official
world generally, over art, is very much to be deplored. But
if sympathetic and earnest judges were to be found among
the public, artists might turn to them for support to resist
the terrible pressure from above.
But no ; the public of to-day does not trouble itself about
such matters ; and why ? Shall it be said it is so because
it has become incapable of poetic feeling ? Because art
has no longer any place amid the contending interests of
the time? Because science has killed admiration, and
industry has destroyed imagination and sentiment? Cer-
tainly not. The public of the nineteenth century, which
chooses to consider itself sceptical and blase, is, like
the public of every other time or country, open to every
form of poetry, to every kind of sincere and truthful art ;
but it finds it impossible to feel any enthusiasm for the
composite art which the authorised organs of official taste
commend so loudly. It is quite willing to admire the
Greeks and the Romans, in their proper time and place;
but it does not see any good reason why French ait sin mid
be entirely sacrificed to these ancients. And, gnat though
its respect for the luminaries of the art Areopagus may be,
b 2
xx INTRODUCTION.
it never carries this so far as to find in the facile adaptations
of these gentlemen an equivalent for that art of which it has
a dim foresight ; which would satisfy its latent aspirations ;
and which would open up springs of emotion, the posses-
sion of which it does not now suspect.
Thus it is that the obstinate perseverance of academies
and administrations in tiying to resuscitate the dead, has
had the natural consequence of destroying the living ; and
that their efforts to persuade the public that they are the
promoters of the only true art, have ended in falsifying the
{esthetic sentiments of artists, and in obliterating, for the
time, those of laymen.
Under present conditions these fatal results are inevitable.
Societies that elect their own members, and corporate
bodies, no matter how great the individual merit of the
men who compose them, are inevitably hostile to progress,
for the simple reason that every such society forms a collec-
tive and eclectic set of doctrines for its own use ; and these
in time come to be looked upon as possessed of unchang-
ing truth, exclude every kind of independence and origin-
ality, and oppose themselves in turn and with unshaken
confidence, to all the revolts and manifestoes of individual
genius.
Little improvement is possible so long as there exist
bodies allowed to wield any kind of authority over matters
of intellect.
No further proofs of this are necessary. Every man
gifted with a true perception of artistic requirements, has
been instant in protest against the despotism of academic
classicism. Gustave Planche and Viollet-le-Duc have shown
INTRODUCTION. xxi
that to its baneful influence are to be attributed the great
majority of the evils that beset French art. All artists of
unfettered mind have striven energetically against it. I can
not do better than refer all who desire to acquire an accurate
knowledge, so far as the future is concerned, of this vitally
important question, to the works of these two writers,
especially to those of the latter. I will here quote a page
from Montalembert, which treats of this subject, and which
is doubly interesting, both from the vivid indignation that
has inspired it, and from the fact that the writer of it was
himself an academician.
In an article upon the religious art of France, he places
among those who are chiefly responsible for its debasement
" the theorists and practicians of the classic tradition."
" Were I obliged," he says, " only to take account of the
value, influence, and popularity of their works and doctrines,
I should in truth, have no need to give more than a bare
mention of their names. But, as they occupied nearly all the
official posts and monopolised the influence of government ;
as they entrenched themselves in a citadel, from which they
revenged themselves for the general reprobation poured out
upon such of their number as ventured to do active work,
by affecting to despise the talents of those who had cast off
their yoke, and from which those who produced nothing did
their best to prevent others from doing any more than them-
selves ; and as, above all, the} r were able to control the state
funds devoted to the education of art students : — no hesi-
tation or half-heartedness must be shown in attacking their
stronghold, in breaching a supremacy which is an insult
to France, until public indignation and contempt shall be
xxii INTRODUCTION.
raised to such a pitch that these relics of a former age
be driven from the power they have abused. We have one
consolation in the fact that, although they may still do mis-
chief, ruin many hopeful careers, and destroy the seeds of
many precious aspirations, their reign is inexorably drawing
to a close. They will not be allowed much longer to wither
the blossom of the future with their pernicious breath, or to
warp the genius of youth worthy of a better fate. Publicity
will bring these gambols of expiring classicism to an end ;
gambols which would be grotesque, were it not for their
lamentable effects. The competitions for the prize of Rome
will be their death. We shall not long submit to the
tyranny of men who have gravely announced that the sub-
jects for the competition in this year of Grace, 1837, are
Apollo guarding the flocks of Admetus and Marius brooding
over the iidns of Carthage!"
We need change nothing in this description except the
date.
To sum up : there are but three ways open to art — the
imitation of previous forms of art ; the realistic imitation
of actual things; the manifestation of individual impres-
sions.
The first method is the academic method. It has for its
more or less latent principle, the negation of progress and
even of all intellectual change ; and its practice consists in
compelling young men of the nineteenth century to think
and feel like those of the time of Pericles or Leo. X. Now,
as this is impossible, it follows that the great majority of the
artists who are subjected to such a system, find it much
simpler to give up any attempt either to think or feel, and
INTRODUCTION. xxiii
to content themselves with the study of processes, the
application of formulas, and the elaboration of pasticcios.
Emotion, conviction, sincerity, spontaneity — everything in
fact that constitutes true art, is eliminated at a blow.
The natural and logical effect of university and academy
teaching, except where it here and there finds itself con-
fronted with invincible natures, is to form — not artists, but
translators.
When hatred of such tyranny leads to the opposite ex-
treme, realism is the result ; but neither is this art,
though it leads up to it. The realistic theory, when pushed
to an extreme, reduces the artist to the condition of a mere
copyist. The perfection at which he aims, is that of com-
plete and absolute illusion. The perfect artist, from this
point of view, would be he who sees everything in the same
way as the ordinary run of people ; and who shall succeed
in depicting objects as faithfully as photography would do if
it could reproduce colour as well as form. The final aim of
such a theory would be to give man all the precision of
machinery, and all its indifference.
Fortunately for the realistic theory, such perfection is
impossible. Man puts something of his own nature into
everything he does. However much he may try to render
no more than the visible appearance of things, as it is seen
by all the world, he always adds something which is not
actually before his eyes, which comes from within himself,
from his own personal emotions and impressions. This
intervention is first manifested in his choice of subject;
next in the arrangement and proportion of parts, by the
importance given to some and withheld from others,
xxiv INTRODUCTION.
unconsciously it may be, and though the latter are no less
real than the former.
Now, it is precisely by this latter characteristic, with its
instinctive preferences and the peculiarities of impression
which they convey to the auditor or spectator, that a work
becomes a work of art. Any man can count the branches
of a tree or the features of a landscape ; but an artist alone
can render their effects and general expression. This is so
because it is his peculiar nature to be more sensitive than
other men to such effects and expressions ; he interprets
them naturally when he gives them the particular colours
that appeal to his own nature, temperament, and person-
ality.
It is this that makes Courbet an artist, in spite of the
adverse theory which he upholds. And this also is the
reason that he can only be placed in the second rank, below
Rousseau, Corot, Millet, and Jules Dupre. Whatever may
have been the value of his practice — his personality, besides
being very intermittent, was wanting in the vigorous accent
that distinguished his great contemporaries.
Of these three forms of art — conventional, realistic, and
personal — the latter alone really deserves the name. The
first is the negation and absolute contradiction of art ;
the second generally shows some artistic qualities, because
it is almost impossible for the artist to disappear entirely
behind reality. But the determinant and essential consti-
tuent of art, is the personality of the artist ; and this is as
much as to say, that the first duly of the artist is to seek to
interpret only those things which excite his own emotions.
We need not dwell any longer upon these ideas. We
INTRODUCTION. xxv
have clone enough to clearly point out our principles and
our final aim. We address ourselves only to those who
believe art to be a purely human affair, and that the source
of all poetry is the soul of the poet. As for those who
would substitute a farrago of recipes for the personality of
the artist, and conventionality for sincerity — we can only
look upon them as the worst enemies of art.
CONTENTS
-v
PART I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
'Watt, f nru 4 u ^ ;»^ V ^^
CHAPTER I. r
ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS.
§ 1. Prehistoric Art — The instinct of the best — Analysis and generalisa-
tion — Language ......... 1
§ 2. Imitation — Its part in the formation of written and spoken lan-
guage — Rhythm ........ .9
§ 3. The principal forms of Art grow, by a process of continuous
duplication, from written and spoken language ... 20
CHAPTER II.
SOURCE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF 2ESTHETIC PLEASURE.
§ 1. Physiological Conditions : Sensations caused by the vibration of
sonorous and luminous molecules— Growth of cerebral activity . 33
§ 2. Psychologic conditions : Logical unity — Diversity — Opposition —
Repetition — The straight line — The curve — Oblique lines —
Horizontal lines ......... 37
§ 3. Life — Expression in Greek art — Choice of subject in works of art —
Morality in art 43
Summary. — ^Esthetic pleasure essentially admirative .... 51
xxviii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
TASTE.
§ 1. The diverse and variable character of taste — The positive elements
of appreciation ........
§ 2. Causes of the diversity and variability of taste — Education — Preju
dice — Antagonism of ancients and moderns — Fashion
§ 3. Definition of taste — Taste of the Greeks — Education of taste
PAGE
55
59
65
CHAPTER IV.
GENIUS 70
CHAPTER V.
WHAT IS ART?
§ 1. Glance at the historic development of each of the arts ... 80
§ 2. General definition of art — Mutual relation and analysis of the
different arts .88
CHAPTER VI.
DEFINITION OF AESTHETICS.
§ 1. Beauty — Its insufficiency to explain art — The imitation theory not
more acceptable — Definition ....... 95
§ 2. What we admire in a work of art is the genius of the artist —
Definition of ^Esthetics 102
CHAPTER VII.
DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART.
§ 1. Characteristics of Decorative Art — Decorative Art among the
Greeks 110
§ 2. Expressive art — Grace and beauty are not necessarily found in
expressive art — Expression and abstract beauty . . . .116
§ 3. Resume 126
CONTENTS. xxix
CHAPTER VIII.
STYLE.
PAGE
§ 1. Individual style — Impersonal style — Style in Greek sculpture . 130
§ 2. Style in Italian Painting and in that of Holland — Capital import-
ance of the cpiestion — The Academic style — Official teaching . 13S
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARTS 152
CHAPTER II.
ARCHITECTURE.
§ 1. Architectural symbolism — Modifications of architecture by climate,
nature of its materials, character of political and religious
institutions .......... 167
§ 2. Architecture sprung from the natural aggrandisement of man's
primitive dwellings — The architectural theories of the Greeks . 164
§ 3. The Roman, Byzantine, Arabian, and Romanesque styles of
architecture ... 170
§ 4. Pointed or Gothic architecture— The style of the renaissance . 174
Sj 5. Conclusion 184
CHAPTER III.
SCULPTURE.
§ 1. Symbolism— Services rendered by it to sculpture — The beauty of
the Greek race— Sculptural types — Pure beauty . 1S9
xxx CONTENTS.
PAGE
§ 2. Expression in Greek sculpture — Academic prejudice — In what does
the superiority of antique sculpture consist ? — Oar ability to excel
it in movement and expression . 197
§ 3. Monumental sculpture — Cause of its decadence— Conditions of its
production 207
CHAPTER IV.
PAINTING.
§ 1. Drawing and colour — Colour and chiaroscuro — "Value" . . 221
§ 2. Complementary Colours ........ 228
§ 3. Combination and harmony of colour — Expression by colour and
relief 239
§ 4. Drawing — Irregularities caused by movement — Draughtsmen of
line, and draughtsmen of movement — Physiological demonstration
of the superiority of the latter ....... 250
§ 5. Malformations caused by light — Line and contour — Arabesque of a
picture — Linear and aerial perspective 257
§ 6. Methods of execution : examples from Delacroix, Theodore,
Rousseau and Rubens 263
§ 7. Handling and touch from the point of view of the artist's person-
ality, and the individuality of his objects — Rubens — Franz Hals —
E. Delacroix — Faults of academic teaching .... 276
§ 8. Monumental painting — Its conditions— Its decadence. . . . 2S4
CHAPTER V.
THE DANCE 300
CHAPTER VI.
MUSIC.
§ 1. Brief review of the History of Music 303
§ 2. Music both a science and an art— Signification of sounds . . 310
§ 3. Sound considered by itself 315
§ 4. The musical " arabesque " — Expression in music . . . . 318
§ 5. Personality in music— Union of poetry and music— Melody and
harmony — The special domain of music 323
CONTENTS.
XXXI
CHAPTER VII.
POETRY.
PAGE
§ 1. What is poetry ? — Qualities ascribed to the poet .... 330
§ 2. Conditions of poetic impression ....... 333
§ 3. Human sympathy — Its influence upon aesthetic judgment . . 339
§ 4. The language of poetiy — Poetry considered separately from versili-
cation — The true province of poetry ...... 342
§ 5. Character of modern poetry ........ 351
§ 6. Moral and psychological development of poetry — Novels . . 354
§ 7. The drama 361
§ 8. Lyric and satirical poetry — The superiority of poetry over the other
arts is to be explained by its mode of expression — Poetry and
science 369
CONCLUSION .... 375
APPENDIX ....:.... .391
INDEX 407
ERRATA.
At folio 81, line 3, for "towards these powers ; tie," read, " with a power
the."
At folio 104 (foot-note). Quotation commences at line 18, "Nevertheless, and
in spite of all."
At folio 130, line 3, for "Mapillon," read, " Massillon."
At folio 185 (foot-note), line 3, for " Utility," read, " Use."
ESTHETICS.
PART THE FIEST.
♦
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN AND GROUPING OP THE ARTS.
§ 1. Prehistoric Art — The instinct of the best — Analysis and
generalisation — Language.
^Esthetics being, as has been said, the science of the beautiful
in the arts, it would seem but natural to begin by explaining
what beauty and art are respectively.
We shall not, however, do so, because we distrust a priori
definitions, and because it seems to us more reasonable and
scientific to search among facts, to see whether they are not able
of themselves to afford us the definitions we want. Facts always
come before theories ; and we are convinced that only by going
back to the first beginnings and following the development of
things through the procession of time, can we arrive at an idea of
them, at once fair, exact, and complete.
This somewhat slow method may be less favourable to elo-
quence ; it lends itself reluctantly to the brilliant amplifications
of which metaphysicians are so fond, when, with a stroke of their
wings, they transport themselves to the ethereal regions where
their imaginations love to soar. But to us it seems all the
more necessary to use it in our inquiry, as, perhaps in the whole
2 ESTHETICS. [part i.
range of metaphysics, there is no subject the literature of which
can show so great an abuse of fine words, resounding periods,
and, above all, crude definitions.
When once we have discovered the origin of art among men,
and have examined its method throughout the series of its
various manifestations, we shall find it easy, first, to comprehend
its exact role, its function and its aim ; secondly, to draw up a
definition, of which the whole subject of ^Esthetics shall be no
more than the development.
As far back as we can trace the history of humanity, there do
we find art. It manifests itself in that still obscure period which
precedes authentic history. By art man has from his first be-
ginning chiefly distinguished himself from the crowd of inferior
animals with which he seems to have so much in common on
some sides of his nature. When as yet he possessed neither laws
nor social institutions, even then he had art. In the dark
caverns which formed his first habitations, because they alone
1 This impulse is so irresistible that the very writers who most deprecate any
approach to declamation, allow it to carry them away, from the moment that they
enter upon this subject. That M. Cousin should declaim under the pretext of
discussing ^Esthetics causes us no surprise, declamation being the natural habit of
his eloquence. It is remarkable, however, that Toppfer himself, in his Reflexions
et Menus Propos, should be unable to keep clear of it, in spite of the
obvious effort to be simple and unaffected. As soon as he attempts to define
beauty, we find him mounted on the tripod and seized by the metaphysical
delirium. " Philosophers," he says, "abandon themselves to their soaring im-
aginations, so far as to say that beauty in its ultimate essence, is God ! Not only
do I conceive this assertion to be of a mystic sublimity, I acquiesce in its truth,
not perhaps by virtue of a reasoned certainty, but impelled by a probability so
strung, as to admit neither doubt nor disproof. In fact, we must here leave the
extreme limits of possible experience, to endeavour to come to some conclusion, as
the result of a bold but not forced induction, from the partial effect to the cause,
from the sunbeam to the sun, from the creature illuminated by one of innumer-
able rays to that Creator who is the Eternal Luminary itself" (Chap. X. 13k. vi.).
And he is so enamoured of his fine phrases that he even repeats thcin a little
farther on (Chap. xi. Bk. vii. ), without reckoning many other equally magniloquent
and empty passages, which he writes with a most diverting seriousness. It is
true enough that all this is to be found also in Plate, and that "tall talk "of
this description has gained &» the Science du Beau of M. Leveque the unanimous
suffrages of three academies.
chap, i.] ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS. 3
could protect him against the attacks of beasts of prey, amid the
piles of bones in which have been found the debris of species
vanished from this earth perhaps a thousand centuries ago, we
have discovered, among flint-formed arrows and knives, objects
which could evidently only have been ornaments, necklets, brace-
lets, rings of stone and of bone — more or less roughly worked and
fitted indeed, but enough to show that art is not, as has been
asserted, the efflorescence of superior civilisations only.
Yes, those frightful savages, who lived dispersed in the holes and
corners of the world, hideous, shapeless, more like apes than men
though they were, already felt the sentiment of art. They strove
after beauty ; they adorned with their best their appalling females ;
they decorated their weapons of stone ; they devised musical
instruments ; by means of gravers of flint they cut upon flat
bones the leading features of many animals, with enough accuracy
to enable us to this day to recognise their species.
Shall we say with Plato, that ever since then man has been
pursuing an ideal, attempting to realise again types which he may
have known in a previous state of existence 1 Such a hypothesis,
in addition to the inconvenience of being very difficult of proof,
accommodates itself but ill to the evidence of ascertained facts.
As the memory of man is so constituted that its impressions are
vivid in exact proportion to the nearness of their causes, the first
men should certainly have been those most able to reproduce
with accuracy the features of the pure ideals which they had not
had time to forget. Logically, then, the art of primitive times
ought to have been the most perfect of all forms of art, and in
its achievements we ought to search for models most in accord-
ance with an ideal type. But we know that all the discoveries
made up to the present time categorically contradict the hypo-
thesis which has served as the foundation for the romantic notion
of the early perfection of the human race. He who was to be the
future king of animals and of the w T orld, began by being himself
nothing but one of the meanest and most miserable of animals,
possessing not the slightest resemblance to the fallen deity of the
4 ESTHETICS. [part i.
legend. His intelligence was no more than equal to the work of
preserving his life among the dangers that encompassed it, which
included that of affording a meal for his future subjects. His
highest industry was the fashioning of stones into the forms of
knives, tomahawks, and axes, and his art was on a par with his
industry.
The important point for us, however, is not the perfection of
these arts and industries, it is enough that they had an existence.
Rude though they were, their bare existence proves that man,
mean, unformed, unintelligent, as we suppose him to have been,
belonged to a race already superior to all others. The intellectual
effort that enabled him to achieve these primitive results, con-
tained within itself the germ of the long series of future deve-
lopments. This fact, once firmly grasped, will rid us of all the
hypotheses of more or less transcendental metaphysicians. Art,
like everything similar, is no more than one of the spontaneous
manifestations of that intellectual activity which is the special
characteristic of man ; and which, applying itself to the pursuit of
different ends, has, by similar means, successively created every
art, every industry, every branch of science.
Why then has so much activity been applied to this end
rather than to another 1 It is easy enough to understand how
the necessities of his life, the obligation to hold his own against
enemies better armed by nature than himself, should have
led man, first to invent, next to perfect his weapons of war.
The instinct of self-preservation being inborn in him as in all
other animals, he naturally was taught by it to exercise his wits
in that direction, and he used his intellectual superiority to pro-
vide himself with instruments which the rest of creation had to
do without.
In applying a similar reasoning to the origin of art, we are
irresistibly impelled to the conclusion, that a taste for art is as
natural to man as the instinct of self-preservation. If, in cave
dwellings, we discover objects covered with ornament, either
modelled or carved, it becomes at once evident that the savages
chap, l] origin and grouping of THE ARTS. 5
•who were our ancestors, from that time preferred certain forms to
others, and experienced a peculiar pleasure in their reproduction.
Man, like all other animals, is born intelligent, and, like them
again, he employs that intelligence chiefly to satisfy his wants
and to avoid pain. This is the mainspring and the aim of his
activity. In this he has nothing to distinguish himself from
other animate beings, and, of all the natural instincts, none has
been more thoroughly investigated. It is equally found among
brutes the most degraded and among the most intelligent animals.
It is common to everything that breathes ; and we may truly
say that this instinct governs and explains, at least in their first
causes, all the manifestations of life. Even the vegetable creation
is subject to this law. It seems to seek for the conditions most
favourable to its existence, and even to possess in some degree the
power of displacement in order to attain them. A tree planted
too near a wall, which deprives it of nourishment and air, throws
itself forward in quest of surroundings more fitted to supply its
wants.
The application of this universal law for the amelioration of
vital conditions, naturally varies with the conditions of existence
of different races and species.
The vegetable seeks after those conditions fitted to stimulate
within it the development of the vegetative form of life. The
animal, w r hich encloses a more complex vital principle, and which
finds itself en rapport with its surroundings through the interven-
tion of a greater number of organs, has, in consequence, wants at
once more numerous and more varied. Besides the mere instincts
of self-preservation and repro duction , it is endowed, like man,
with the fiye_sens es of s ight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell ;
which senses enable their possessor to enjoy certain special grati-
fications, and at the same time subject it to the danger of par-
ticular forms of suffering.
The domain of what we call the moral life is also open to it ;
because, without discussing here those theories which attribute to
animals, with mere differences of degree, almost all the human
6 .ESTHETICS. [part i.
faculties, it is certain that they are capable of nearly all the senti-
ments which we have been prone to look upon as the exclusive
property of man. Observations recently made by eminent natur-
alists prove that even the sense of beauty is not entirely want-
ing among certain species of animals. Darwin has published a
work on this subject, which, although we cannot admit the whole
of his deductions, brings to light a vast array of facts to which
due weight must be given.
The instinct for the best, or for progress, is found everywhere,
and in this particular, man, as compared with other animals, has
only a superiority of degree. Again, it would be fairer to say that
such superiority exists less in the instinct itself, than in the
means possessed for gratifying it. While animals, obliged to
depend upon a dull and incomplete intelligence, of which memory
seems to form the greater part, find themselves, by the total
absence of means of transmission, almost completely enclosed
within the narrow limits of individual experience, and conse-
quently unable to extend the field of progress beyond the bounds
of individual lives — man, better served by the constitution of his
brain, untiringly adds to the accumulated knowledge, which each
generation transmits to its successor increased by the fruits of its
own thought and the sum of its discoveries. The one is con-
demned by its intellectual weakness, to continually recommence
the same course of effort within but slightly varying limits. The
other when he steps into this world, begins by making himself
master of the inheritance left for him by his ancestors, who
gradually built up for him those multitudinous experiences of all
kinds of subjects, which constitute contemporai'y science ; he finds
himself, from the beginning, carried on by the very effect of the
language which they teach him, from point to point in any career
that he may elect to follow. That is, to minister to its desire for
the best, to ameliorate its vital conditions, to at once augment
the number of its joys and diminish its sorrows, each generation
receives instruments perfect in proportion to the number of
generations through which they have descended ; without taking
uhak i.] ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS. 7
any account of the fact that the instincts themselves have been
going through an exactly parallel course of development and im-
provement.
Such is the action in man of that law of progression which has
conducted him from the point where we saw him dwelling in his
prehistoric caverns, to the state in which he exists to-day. To
ascertain the course of this progress beyond the possibility of
doubt, we need only compare its two extremities. The demonstra-
tion which results from the simple collation is so plain that we
can hardly understand how anyone can be found to whom it is not
obvious. The real difficulty, on the contrary, seems to us to be,
how to explain the manner in which such a considerable transfor-
mation has been brought about. The ancients attributed it to the
direct intervention of the deity. The myths of Prometheus and
Orpheus were partly founded upon this idea. Our more complete
knowledge of the original aptitudes of humanity, enables us to
dismiss all explanations of the kind. 1
1 We may affirm that this law of progression is, in its own nature, absolutely
spontaneous and inevitable ; but it is not direct, which fact has always furnished
arguments to those who deny its existence. If the course of progress had been
continuous and direct from its commencement, it would have been quite impossible
to contest it. But both the original variety, and the subsequent intermixture of
the different races of mankind, the divergence of their aptitudes, and the differences
of the surroundings in which they have been developed, combine to throw a
certain amount of obscurity upon the total result. Another cause of error is to
be found in the very way in which the progress of ideas operates. No ideas can
be absolute and final ; they must all go through a process of completion and
renewal which never ends. The intellectual vigour and fertility which are pro-
voked by each idea at some period of its development, by the gratification of more
or less conscious aspirations — which in fact constitute the great epochs of history —
are exhausted by the very effect of the progress achieved, and give place in turn
to lassitude and sterility. Nevertheless it would seem that every stage of pro-
gress, in raising civilisation a degree, would excite in man new wants and
aspirations, and consequently that the life of nations should display a constant
and regular course of evolution towards final perfection. But a crowd of im-
pediments, moral and material, social, political, and religious, too many to
enumerate here, but whose successive destruction it is the special mission of
science to ensure, oppose the regularity of development. From all this it
follows that nations remain bound too long by ideas after their practical
utility has been exhausted, and that they become deficient in the energy necessary
8 .ESTHETICS. [pai:t i.
The real, deep-seated cause of progress is to be found in the
superior faculty of analysis and generalisation khich is possessed
by man. It is this double capability which constitutes the chief
difference between him and other animals. By analysis, he dissi-
pates the clouds of doubt arising from the complex nature of deeds
and things. He, so to say, dissects them, and makes himself
master of their inmost details. He submits ideas to an operation
analogous to that which enables a chemist to ascertain the consti
tuents of bodies, and to determine the points of resemblance or
difference which unite or separate them.
When he has thus decomposed facts and ideas into their first
elements, he arranges these elements into classes, and then, in his
turn, creates out of them new systems by the methods which
specially recommend themselves to his nature, bringing out order
from chance, simplicity from complexity ; which operation is in fact
nothing but science itself. Science, born of analysis and generali-
sation, remains perforce variable and progressive. As fast as analysis
furnishes material for new generalisations, these, while adding to
the sum of previously acquired results, displace and modify all
their mutual relations ; occasionally making havoc of previous con-
clusions and entailing new and higher generalisations, which,
ranging themselves in opposition to prevailing beliefs, mark those
critical epochs in civilisation which we call revolutions.
for the rapid creation or establishment of new and more prolific ideas, to form
the bases of further development. Then, for such nations, begin sad ages of
decay, causing their disappearance for periods of greater or less duration, some-
times even for ever, from the stage of the world, where their empty places are
filled by other forms of civilisation, that is to say, by the expansion of other ideas.
These fatal and irremediable decadences were the rule in ancient times. We
have good grounds for hoping that the future contains no more of them. A true
conception of the laws of progress is alone sufficient to prevent nations from
absolutely despairing of themselves. When the recuperative power of any form
of civilisation begins to decline, another forthwith begins to develop and settle
itself among the more intelligent classes of the community ; and, though the
passage from the one to the other be, even for a long period, fraught with danger,
we may count almost certainly upon its final completion, and this confidence
renders improbable in the future any repetition of such catastrophes as those of
the great civilisations of antiquity.
chap, i.] OEIGIX AXD GROTJHXG OF THE ARTS.
It is clear that we can point to nothing of this kind during the
times the history of which is unknown to us. We may confidently
assert, however, that, if man have succeeded in freeiug himself from
the bondage of circumstances, and have gradually made himself
master of the natural forces which seem to conspire against him,
it is because he has possessed from the first the double faculty of
analysis and generalisation ; that if he have raised himself far above
other animals, of which many seem better armed than he, it is
because, thanks to this same power, more or less latent in him, he
has known how to discern, combine, dispose, and appropriate to
his own use all means of resistance that were to be found within
his reach. The difference between his cerebral formation and that
of other living organisms, a difference almost imperceptible in its
beginning, has sufficed, by the accumulation of the results acquired
by its possession, to make man a being apart, and to open to his
comprehension a field of knowledge to which it is impossible to
assign a limit.
The most important result of this intellectual privilege has been
the creation of language. From the moment when man acquired
the power of separating ideas from things, of discriminating in suc-
cessive events or objects the constituent elements of their natures,
it was but to be expected that he should come to distinguish them
by various appellations, just as he had already separated them in
his mind by the various impressions caused upon the organs of his
brain.
§ 2. Imitation — Its part in the formation of written and spoken
lang uage — Rhythm .
What we have said, howevei*, would not suffice to explain the
ulterior development of human civilisation, or to enable us to
understand the place which the arts ought to occupy in it, were
it not that man possesses in his instinct of imitation perhaps the
most efficacious of all instruments for the realisation of the pro-
gress of which his cerebral construction renders him capable.
Every one must have remarked the power of this instinct among
10 -ESTHETICS. [part i.
children, and those who have had to bring them up know what an
important place it occupies among means of education. Without
it, the bare communication of language would occupy an indefinite
time. One could even believe that, deprived of such help, man
would never have advanced farther than the expression of a small
number of elementary feelings and ideas, and therefore would still
hav r e remained steeped in barbarism.
It is difficult to determine even approximately how much we are
indebted to the instinct of imitation for the first creation of lan-
guage. Some persons have considered that in onomatopoeia, that
is, in the direct imitation of noises, is to be found the universal
source of all language. Such an idea is an obvious exaggeration ;
but, on the other hand, it is sure that many words which corre-
spond to certain classes of facts, have among many races pre-
served forms which connect them with such an origin. The terms
that denote thunder, tempest, the crackling of fire, the rippling of
water, the swish of a thrown stone, etc., have, in a great number
of dialects, preserved forms which recall the impi'essions made
upon the ear by the things themselves. There are many animals
whose names indicate the nature of their peculiar cries. From
the number of such words that still exists, one may fairly infer
that they were considerably more numerous in former times.
It is even not impossible to suppose, that, in modifying themselves
in obedience to more or less apparent connections between sound
and different mental ideas, they may have sufficed for the con-
struction of a vocabulary, almost sufficient for the wants of man
in a certain early stage of his development. We find many such
indications in our modern languages, where we may constantly
notice the interchanging of terms referring to what at first sight
seem very different ideas, — as for example in the case of sound and
colour. A large number of the impressions which we realise
through the eye, can be, and are, most frequently expressed by
terms that seem to have been primarily invented to denote those
appealing to the ear. Such substitutions and extensions must in
the beginning have been easy and frequent, in proportion as
chap, i] ORIGIN AXD GROLTIXG OF THE ARTS. 11
analysis of impressions was more vague. It is certain that the
connections between the two orders of ideas are singularly strik-
ing. Painters know well how to give an impression of noise and
tumult by certain combinations of colours, and how calm and
tranquillity may be manifested by contrary arrangements. What
is more extraordinary still, is the power which music possesses to
express by sounds, the very negation of sound, silence.
It is by the use of connections not less surprising, and the inter-
change of analogous ideas, that a vocabulary of metaphysics has
been formed. Words which originally denoted material, visible,
and palpable realities, arrived, by a series of conventions, at trans-
formations of their sense as complete as could well be imagined.
No one dreams of denying these metamorphoses, because that
would be to deny what is obvious ; but we may find in them a
phenomenon calculated to cause surprise from reasons quite apart
from those which attend the progressive extension of terms that
at first related to the sense of hearing alone, to the impressions
of all the five senses. Among all our sensations, by whatever
organ provoked, it is easy to discover some common or analogous
traits, direct or indirect points of contact, which enable us to
comprehend without much effort how language has succeeded in
passing from one category into others ; but between the transcen-
dental world of metaphysics and the physical world of sensation,
there is, at least in theory, an impassable abyss, since the concep-
tions of the one are literally a negation of those of the other.
During the whole twenty-five centuries which have elapsed since
they first took up their work, the most subtle and cunning meta-
physicians have not been able to hit upon a plausible and probable
explanation of the connection between spirit and matter — in their
language, of the mutual influence upon each other of our moral
and physical natures. The very mode of action of God upon the
world, has ever been and to this day remains a source of great
perplexity in consequence of the insolubility of this problem. All
this, however, has not prevented these very metaphysicians from
creating an entire language, more or less adapted to their ethereal
12 ESTHETICS. [part i.
conceptions. They dip into the common reservoir of the language
of sense, and put the meanings of words through a process of
evaporation analogous to that to which their ideas have already
had to submit.
We shall not stop to ascertain the miracles which that wonder-
ful instrument, metaphor, has in like manner performed. We all
know how far its power of transformation can reach. These re-
marks might be multiplied to infinity ; but we have said enough to
give a glimpse of the fact that the theory which connects, in part
at least, the origin of language with the imitation of sounds and
noises, may not be so completely erroneous as has been sometimes
thought. We must repeat, on the other hand, that while we
altogether incline to admit the influence of imitation for a fixed
and determined portion of existing vocabularies, we do not believe
that its share should be so much amplified as to make us recognise
in it, as some have done, not only one, but the unique source of
language.
The truth is, that the cerebral constitution of man explains the
1 )irth of language, or to speak more exactly, of articulate words.
From the first, as we have already said, language would have been
impossible, if the human intelligence had not possessed the power
to analyse its impressions and to discern their elements. More-
over, the observations of modern science have proved to us that
the brain of man possesses a special organ of language in a very
small division of the cerebral hemispheres, particularly in the left
hemisphere. M. Brorea has ascertained that this organ is situated
upon the superior edge of the Fissure of Sylvius opposite the Island
of JLeil, and occupies the posterior half, probably the posterior
third only of the third frontal convolution.
When the part in question is wounded, a man is still able to
comprehend the meaning of words, which proves that this organ
is not to be confounded with that of analysis ; but he is unable
to speak.
We must, however, assert that the chief effect of this discovery
is to make us acquainted with the physiological origin of the pos-
chap, i.] ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS. 13
sibility of articulate language ; the presence of this special organ
teaches us why man alone possesses the faculty of speech. But
this is not the question which occupies us. Our business is to
find out how this faculty was put in motion, how it became prac-
tically efficient. From this point of view imitation of sounds no
doubt played a considerable part. It, in all probability, furnished
the point of departure from which the organ took its first activity.
We see the proof of this in the total inability of those born deaf,
to create an articulate language for themselves. If man, for the
invention of such a form of language, required nothing but the
faculty of analysis, and the cerebral organs which render possible
the expression of ideas by the production of sounds, how comes it
that the totally deaf man is to this day deprived of all power to
express his thoughts by any language other thau that of gesture 1
It is easy enough to understand that the deaf mute should be
unable, without the use of his ears, to learn the language spoken
around him which he never hears. But if the first men were able,
with infinitely less perfect organs of brain, to form an articulate
language for themselves, without being greatly aided by their
natural instinct for the imitation of the sounds which they were
continually hearing — how are we to understand that, in these times
of ours, the descendants of these very men are quite unable to
create a language in a similar way, for no better reason than that
they are deprived of that sense of hearing, which is, it is pre-
tended, so unnecessary for the formation of language 1 But if, on
the contrary, the possession of this sense was, as we believe, the
determinant cause of language, if men set themselves to produce
sounds because they heard them on every side — how are we to
believe that the sounds uttered by them, in an age when the in-
stinct of imitation must have had extraordinary power, were not
more or less closely copied from those that fell upon the ear?
Again, of all the arts there is none which acts more strongly upon
the sensibilities of man than music, none which arouses sensations
at once so lively and complete. Animals even feel its influence,
as every one can testify. Sound possesses a peculiar vibratory
14 .ESTHETICS. [PART i.
power which never fails to communicate itself to every physical
organism in its neighbourhood, producing by such vibration an
infinite variety of sensations, of sentiments, and even of ideas,
whose logical connexions with the physical impressions from which
they spring, almost elude our powers of comprehension. There is
nothing very astonishing in the fact that sounds and noises per-
ceived by primitive man produced analogous effects upon him, and
that he was, in the beginning, led to denote by appellations more
or less imitated from these sounds and noises, impressions very
different from those originally caused by them.
Imitation betrays itself in the languages of antiquity by other
equally obvious traces. The imitative poetic manner, which makes
use of the material devices of rhythm and of sonorousness to give
an idea of action and of spectacle, holds an important place in
ancient literature. We know, too, that it would not be difficult to
discover instances of the same practice in our own classic authors,
and in the music of modern times.
From this point of view, we might make an interesting study of
the principle which regulates, not the formation of words only, but
even their consecutive arrangement in the dead languages. Every-
body knows the differences that exist in this respect between
French, for instance, and Greek and Latin, to take account only
of the dialects with which we are most familiar. Modern
grammar imposes upon us a rigid and almost immutable disposal
by rules almost purely grammatical. We have thought fit to call
this order a logical order, which seems to imply that the order
preferred by the ancients was illogical. And, in fact, there are
many persons, including a great number of University men, who
imagine that the Greeks and Latins sowed, if we may use the ex-
pression, their words at hap-hazard, leaving to their readers or
auditors the task of putting them back in their proper places.
Such people are ready to believe that it is for no other reason
than to render possible this work of recomposition, that the words
have been provided with regular terminations to answer the same
purpose as numbering.
chap. I.] ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS. 15
The construction of phrases in ancient languages is of course
perfectly regular ; it is imitative construction. Its general law
is to reproduce the very movement of things ; its order is chrono-
logical. The words follow step by step the development of the
action, or of the spectacle as it unfolds itself before the eyes. The
only thing which throws some slight confusion on this fact, is the
more or less unconscious intervention of the personality of the
poet or the scribe, who frequently substitutes, without either
wishing it or even knowing it, the order of his individual sensa-
tions for the chronological order of events. He replaces objective
by subjective imitation. In the deeds or visions which he de-
scribes, some parts will be found that have impressed him more
vividly than others. These parts naturally and spontaneously
present themselves first to his imagination. To them he gives the
place of honour, to them he subordinates other points of his de-
scription, exactly as these hold a minor place in the ensemble of
his impressions. This intervention of man is inevitable. Through
it, he becomes a poet ; by it, are indicated his individual feelings
and the peculiar bent of his genius. An uncle viating respect for
the chronological arrangement would destroy the work of art,
leaving nothing but the proces- verbal.
We need not here insist upon this important statement, in which
is hidden the whole theory of art. We are content for the present
to grasp the established fact, that the influence of imitation, objec-
tive or subjective, is to be found even in the rule which prescribes
the order of words in a sentence.
The art of writing was equally imitative in principle, if not
among all peoples at least among those of the greatest antiquity.
Abel RemusatQin his Recherches mr Vorigine et la formation cle la
langue Ghi/toise, relates that Fore-hi, whom many writers consider
the founder of the Chinese empire, invented the Roua, short broken
lines, which were the elements from which have sprung the written
characters still employed in China. Their various combinations
could denote anything or everything, by certain strokes, recalling
either immediately or by analogy, the form or use of objects, and
16 ^ESTHETICS. [part i.
the orio-in or some other essential characteristic of ideas. A few
examples will facilitate comprehension.
In Chinese one stroke means 1, two strokes mean 2, and so on,
like Roman numbers. A dot over a line means above ; under a line,
it means below. One line cut into two equal parts by another, signi-
fies the middle. Three figures of men placed in file, mean to follow.
Two figures of women face to face, mean dispute. The sun behind
a tree, means the east ; a bird upon its nest, the west. The image
of a dog has served, as radix, for the names of most of the carni-
vora, some forms of particular feature being indicated afterwards.
The bull is the foundation for the names of the greater ruminants ;
the ram, of the numerous family of goats, antelopes, etc. ; the
image of the pig, of almost all the pachyderms ; of the rat, of all
rodents. The figure which means a shell, again, is the root of
all the words that refer to ideas of wealth, exchange, commerce,
etc., proving that the Chinese, like so many other nations, used
shells for their first money. 1
These figurative signs are employed, sometimes independently
and isolatedly ; sometimes they are complex, to render a more or
less complex idea. Thus a representation of water and of an eye
in juxtaposition, indicates tears ; a door and ear express the idea
of listening ; the sun and moon indicate splendour. Chinese
written signs "originate from a true system of imagery; we still
occasionally come across them in their primitive forms upon a few
monuments, and we may even now trace with much accuracy the
regular course of their transformations through successive ages."
In fact, " there was a time when these characters and images
directly awakened — thanks to the accuracy of imitation — the idea
which they were meant to express, but little by little, these artless
and faithful characters lost their original form ; and in the signs
1 As examples of metaphysical transformation, the Chinese word lo, tissue, net,
became in Tonqninese the written sign of the preposition la, which means in ;
yang, worm, signifies care, disquietude. A Chinaman meeting another, calls out :
Wonyanrj, Have you any worries ? Father Cibot, by confusing this word with
another, yang, meaning sheep, thought that the Chinese said: "Have you the
sheep, the himb ! " from which he concluded that they were awaiting the Messiah.
chap, i.] ORIGIN" AND GROUPING OF TEE ARTS. 17
which arc now used to convey the ideas of dog, the sun, the moon,
mountain, it is not easy at first to discover the ancient forms
which evoked these diverse ideas in a more direct fashion." 1
The ancient Mexican, Annamite, and Egyptian characters, were
equally figurative. They only replaced images by phonetic signs
in times comparatively near our day. This undeniable influence
of imitation upon the primitive forms of written character, does
■not permit us to doubt the existence of a similar influence upon
the formation of spoken language. The objections that have
been put forward against such an hypothesis, are founded upon an
easily-understood delusion. It is forgotten that languages, in the
form in which they offer themselves for our study, are the result
•of an intellectual activity which has lasted for perhaps a thousand
centuries before coming to us, and that in such an immense period
of time, they have perforce undergone an infinite series of modifi-
cations, which have effaced most of their original features, and
have ended by making them irrecognisable.
Let us suppose that all ancient records of imitative written
characters had perished, who would ever have dreamed of searching
in the letters of our modern alphabets for traces of direct imitation
of natural objects 1 Assuredly no one. And yet the fact has
iiow been conclusively demonstrated. When we reflect that writ-
ing, complicated as it was, was formerly the exclusive privilege
of a few, at the time when spoken language was used by all,
we shall understand how this latter must have reduced itself,
and become transformed much more rapidly than written cha-
racter. We must add that spoken languages must have been
practised long before the invention of writing, and, besides, that
the forms of sounds could never have been so precise and defined
as those of lines, for whose preservation the most accurate of our
organs, that of sight, was constantly on the watch. Finally, we
should not forget that the articulation of primitive man must have
1 The Science of Language, by Abel Hovelacque (Library of Contemporary
Science, Vol. 1), London, Chapman & Hall.
18 ESTHETICS. [pam u
been like that of children — soft, vague, and irresolute. It is not
astonishing, then, that even at the epoch when the Egyptians were
still engraving their hieroglyphics upon stone, most of the words
of their spoken language had already put on that conventional
form which now hinders us from tracing them directly to their
origin ; a form which written character in its turn was so soon,
to assume.
A very important characteristic of ancient languages was
rhythm. The more or less regular recurrence of intonations and
of similar cadences, constitutes for children and savages the
most agreeable form of music. The more the rhythm is accen-
tuated the better they are pleased ; they love not only its sound
but its movement also. An infant knows no sweeter sensation
than when the nurse rocks its cradle to an accompaniment of one
of the monotonous airs whose rhythm accords so well with the
regularity of the movement. Savages who remain quite unmoved
by the music, to us so inspiring, of Mozart and Beethoven, find a
peculiar charm in the rude rhythm of the cymbals and the big.
drum, and are unable to listen to it without keeping time by dance
and gesture. The most civilised nations cannot escape from this-
tyranny of rhythm. Who does not know how great an effect the
trumpets and drums have in exciting the elan of soldiers 1 Animals
are no less affected than men. Rhythm seems, indeed, to contain
some general law, possessing power over almost all living things.
One might say that rhythm is the dance of sound, as dancing is
the rhythm of movement. The farther we go back into the past,
the more marked and dominant is it found in language. It is
certain that at one period of the development of humanity, rhythm
constituted the only music known, and that it was even inter-
twined with language itself.
These considerations, which we have been compelled to give at
some length, bring us back by a series of converging deductions
to a conclusion which we have already hinted at above ; that is to
say, that art, far from being an artificial product of refined and
perverted civilisation, is to be found in the very cradle of
chap, i.] ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS. 19
humanity, and that it marks the first manifestations of man's
cerebral activity.
The existence, which at first strikes us as so strange, of the
ornaments and designs discovered amid the vestiges of the truly
rudimentary civilisation of the stone age, can cause us no further
surprise, as it is in perfect accord with the observations of science
as to the primitive development of man. It is, moreover, now
generally acknowledged that poetry preceded prose, and existed
alone even up to historic times. The works of the more remote
epochs were always in verse, the Vedas, the Iliad, the Odyssey,
the Works and Days, and the Psalms. And we know, on
the testimony of early writers themselves, that, in Greece,
the most ancient treatises upon morality, upon jurisprudence,
upon physical science, even, were also in verse, as well as
the works of those natural philosophers who first attempted to
explain the creation of the world and the cosmic phenomena,
otherwise than by the caprices of the gods and goddesses of an
anthropomorphic polytheism. The prevalence of written prose
dates at most from less than a thousand years before our era,
while poetic rhythm maintained itself in spoken language long
after that time. These facts accord perfectly with the primitive
character of human intelligence, showing it to be completely
governed by the form of objects, by a but slightly modified sensi-
bility, and by the direct impressions of things. The two groups of
cerebral operations which the entologic and fantastic psychology of
official spiritualism has succeeded in dividing into distinct faculties,,
were originally produced in the period of extreme confusion, when
feeling and sense first began to lose their complete authority. We
see man, at this point in his course of evolution, in a moral con-
dition which afforded him but few ideas to express, and ever gave
full play to the organs the preponderance of which produced the
poet or the artist. Poetry and art, as we find them among the
cave men, are very far removed from the condition in which they
existed in those later years, when humanity had attained the
pitch of development of the Greece of the fifth or third century
c 2
20 ESTHETICS. [part i.
before Christ, or of Western Europe after the long and dark period
of incubation of the middle ages. None the less truly can we
say of man that, ever since the first days, that which took the
lead in the manifestation of his cerebral activity, was the germ
of precisely the same faculty as that which, in the develoimient
and progress towards truth of succeeding ages, was to constitute
art, strictly speaking.
We shall now attempt to follow and explain this development.
We have examined the characteristics of language and writing in
ancient times, and are able to say that the arts, in a more or
less latent state, were contained in them. They were then at
least in a potential condition. We shall see how they emerged
from this obscurity.
§ 3. The principal forms of Art grow, by a process of continuous
duplication, from written and spoken Language.
Man, like other animals, possessed from his commencement two
means of expression to make known the feelings of grief and of
joy; namely, cry and gesture. He had then the faculty of
production of sounds and of forms, the material and elementary
conditions of all the arts. But that by which he was distin-
guished from other animals was, first, his faculty, at least poten-
tial, of varying and diversifying these forms and sounds to an
infinite extent : secondly, his desire to imitate, with voice and
■gesture, the noises and movements which he heard and saw. He
is a born mimic ; and we know that even if imitation should not
hold the absolute and almost unique preponderance in the theory
of the arts attributed to it by some systems, still it is a necessary
condition of a great many artistic manifestations.
Besides the variety of intonation, more or less expressive and
lifelike, spoken language was doubtless at first accompanied by a
kind [of mimicry which acted as a perpetual commentary — dis-
course being addressed to the eye as well as to the ear. Such an
uccompaniment is so natural that we still retain it among
our modern habits. In rhetoric it possesses very considerable
chap, i.] ORIGIN AND GROUPING OF THE ARTS. 21
importance ; in the speech of children gestm-e and mimicry long
hold the place of words.
As we have already explained, the same characteristic is to be
found in primeval writing. To convey the idea of objects, men
began by giving images of them. This figurative written charac-
ter, necessarily very ancient, has, as one of its never failing
features, an extreme complexity. All analysis is wanting in it,
except so much as suffices for the distinction of objects. Such a
mode of writing should be looked upon as conclusive evidence of
the nature of any languages which could be expressed by it.
Each object was denoted by a phonetic sign more or less imita-
tive : these signs were arranged in sentences, as in the ancient
hieroglyphic monuments. Thought, always concrete, expressed
itself by emitting the signs in speech, as well as in writing, in the
exact order in which they were disposed in the memory. The
auditor or reader determined the connection of the ideas as well
as he could, without other data than the succession of the terms,
that is, of the images.
Nevertheless, he generally succeeded, because the amount of
precision possessed by such a language exactly coincided with that
of contemporary intelligence. What causes us some difficulty is
the infinite number of possible connections, which the analysis of
our impressions has taught us to discover between things, as well
as the nearly inexhaustible multitude of the different points of
view from which we are able to consider every object or even part
of an object. We do not know where to stop, and often the
explanations which in the present state of our cerebral constitu-
tion, seem to us the most natural, are exactly those which could
never have been foreseen by the unsophisticated authors of the
enigmas that puzzle us. Our intellects, in modifying themselves,
have concurrently changed all other things. The causes of doubt,
which make hieroglyphics so difficult for us to decipher, did not
exist for the ancients. Their minds, themselves vague and con-
fused, were satisfied with what was vague and confused. Also, in
the primitive form of languages, the general connection of mere
22 2ESTHETICS. [part i.
succession was enough for all purposes. Other connections were
not indicated in the representative signs of things, because they
were not perceived between objects, but were thought to form part
of the objects themselves. 1
1 This conception, which has set an indelible mark upon language, is the
foundation of Aristotle's doctrine of ideas. According to him, all things exist
with natures and individual characteristics of their own. These characters are
communicated from the things to man, as life is communicated from God to the
world. The impression which I receive in the presence of an object is a part of
the object ; the idea which I conceive in looking at it is derived from it and
belongs to it. A sight that frightens me does not produce this effect in virtue
of a certain predisposition of my temperament, which, indeed, may be quite
different. It is the sight itself that is terrifying. The aspect is part of its
individual nature, nor will it cease to be terrifying when it is no longer seen by
any one. The terror which I feel is but a species of contagion spreading from the
object to me. Thus it was that, according to ancient belief, the sight of a crime
polluted all bystanders and rendered them, too, criminals. The crime is in the
act, not in the agent, and the criminality is communicated from the act to the
agent, whether he is a voluntary one or not. It was in virtue of such a belief
that the crime of one man, even when committed in ignorance, as in the case of
the myth of (Edipus, was thought to enfold in the same culpability, not only him-
self, but his family, his city, and his native country. It was thought necessary
that some subsequent act of a contrary nature should by its beneficent influence
annul the dire consequences of the first. Hence arose purifications and expiations.
This was the foundation of all the religious and moral doctrines of antiquity.
According to Aristotle, the mutual relations of generalisation and universality
are comprised in each individual, and in virtue of them the individual merits the
attention of the philosopher and artist, of which he would otherwise be quite
unworthy. This is as much as to say that the human intellect is reduced to play
a purely passive part. All the philosophers agree on this point. According to
Plato it is the ideal, the divine types of things which domineer over us ; according
to Aristotle it is the things themselves. Whether we grant that the intellect
takes its impression of things from their prototypes, or receives it as a species of
contagion from the things themselves, in either case the intellect is no more
than a mirror to reflect images in whose manufacture it has had no share. It
gives but a reflection of objects and ideas, whose character, to it, is essentially
change. By similar reasoning we must consider an idea to be immutable and
irresistible ; and, as it is impersonal, it is therefore universal and eternal. Every
man placed in any given situation, would receive the same impression, the same
idea, and come to the same judgment, as such impression, idea, and judgment are
not the outcome of different intellects, but simply the repeated echo of the same
thing. Hence arises the necessity for uniformity, imposed upon all intellects
under the name of common sense, as if it were a law, the number of suffrages
which it receives being deemed a proof of its truth. From this comes the
er cost him still greater labour.
It is true that Rubens gave himself no such trouble. But in
reality such a matter is not a question of time at all. It is
rather one of method. Gustave Planche explains this very neatly
in his essay upon the Chasse au Tigre of Barrye. "Ignoramuses,"
he writes, "are very fond of saying, whenever they have the chance,
that inspiration can never co-exist with accuracy of detail : such
a maxim recommends itself to idle habits. . . . But what need is
there of pressing the point] Has it not been long proved that
the boldest art can very well be reconciled with the most profound
science'? Those who sustain the opposite theoiy have good reasons
for persisting in their opinion, or rather in their assertion. When
they have begun to work before having completely mastered all
the details of their profession, they find it easy to accuse science
of sterility. But if they would only consider w T orks sanctified by
long unbroken admiration, which have resisted every caprice of
fashion, they would understand that science, far from being an
embarrassment to the play of fancy, renders it freer and stronger,
affording it more apt and numerous means of expression. . . .
Nothing is left incomplete, everything is unflinchingly rendered
and life like. The author has divided his task into two parts :
after having freely thrown together the scene which he has con-
ceived, and having arranged with due jxidgment his lines and his
grouping, he gives to its execution as much patience as he has
exercised in its invention. This is the only way to produce works
worthy of attention. Whenever, in fact, an attempt is made to
simultaneously accentiiate these two parts of the work, to invent
and model at one and the same time, it is almost impossible to
hit the mark. Although this truth is so evident as to be hardly
worth mentioning, it may be useful to bring it forward ; because a
great many artists, who, without possessing any very eminent
chap, iv.] GENIUS. 70
powers might, nevertheless, manage to produce works of some
value if they would but consent to divide their task, condemn
themselves to perpetual mediocrity by wishing to achieve both
at a single coup. They sketch at the same time as they invent,
and their courage fails to interpret their conceptions in a more
accurate form. Frightened by the slowness of their work, they
content themselves with an incomplete truth; or starting in a still
worse direction, they neglect all invention as superfluous and copy
servilely, I would even say mechanically, sometimes the living
model which they have before them, sometimes fragments brought
from Rome or Athens. Free invention, patient execution, that is
the rule of all masters worthy of the name. In genre, as in
monumental sculpture, there is but one road to success ; it is to
frankly accept these two conditions and to strive without inter-
mission to realize boldly conceived ideas in pure and well under-
stood forms."
More than one self-reliant genius, as Gustave Planche confesses,
has disregarded these rules ; but not the less for that they are in-
contestably necessary in most cases.
80 /ESTHETICS. [part i.
CHAPTER V.
WHAT IS ART?
§ 1. Glance at the historic develop?nent of each of the arts.
Art, as we have seen, was bom with man ; it is found in nearly
all his acts and thoughts. It is so natural and even necessary to
hirn, that it rules the formation of his ideas, and determines the
cadence of his language. At the epoch, when the only industry
consisted in the shaping of flints into arrow-heads, knives, and
tomahawks, man already possessed an art, which indirectly made
manifestation of itself in his manner of cutting these stones, and
in the forms which he gave to his arms ; and directly, by the exe-
cution of various ornaments, and also by designs complete enough
to enable us still to recognize their models. Music was no more
strange to him than the arts of design. Instruments found in his
cave dwellings prove the fact. As for poetry and the dance, we
can only form conjectures. These, however, acquire substantial
probability, when we reflect that among savage tribes, who have
never been gifted by nature as the white race has been from its
beginning, these two forms of art always exist in some degree,
even when the arts of design have remained in a purely elementary
state.
Spontaneous art, which is but the unconscious manifestation of
a natural and innate aptitude, is found at the very commence-
ment of historic times. The oldest Vedic hymns, by which Arian
shepherds camped on the banks of the Indus, invoked the gods
chap, v.] WHAT IS ART? SI
of their luminous heaven to guard them against the demons of
the night, have as their chief characteristic the expression of the
sentiments of fear or of hope towards these powers ; the more
remarkable because their collective poems are free from any pre-
occupation with deliberate and laboured art. They show neither
study nor effort. Their poetry springs from the simple sincerity
of the emotion which it breathes. Absolutely subjective by the
character of its sentiments, it is often objective enough by the
form under which these find interpretation. This form is de-
scriptive, and is perfectly adapted to those poems which deal
with astronomic or meteorologic phenomena. But these descrip-
tions develop spontaneously into animated and living dramas, by
the simple fact that such phenomena seemed to the Arian but the
manifestations of hostile or benevolent forces. For him, heaven
and earth, the light, sun, moon, winds, dawn, night, clouds, fire,
libations, sacrifice, hymns themselves, are all divinities ; that is,
active and deliberate beings, whose power, free from all law and
far above that of man's creation, menaces him with all evil, or
assures him every good, according as he has succeeded or not
in gaining their protection and disarming their hostility. From
these anthropomorphic ideas springs a cloud of legends, the
meaning of which has grown ever more and more obscure. These
celestial dramas in time became transformed into heroic tales,
whose nature modified itself from generation to generation, and
finally resulted in the production of the great epics of anti-
quity.
These collective outpourings of a race naturally bear its cha-
racteristics and express its sentiments. It is impersonal art, in so
far as it belongs to no one poet in particular ; it is in fact national
art.
After this arose a new art, or rather, a new form of art, which
is the art of modern times. It became self-conscious, and is chiefly
to be distinguished from previous forms of art by this character-
istic. The personality of the artist asserts itself more and more,
and sometimes goes so far as to become the negation of art, until
c
82 .ESTHETICS. [part i.
it arrives at a pitch of impertinent vanity which substitutes for
the sincere and spontaneous expression of feeling, the interested
prejudices of the poet anxious for success.
The naive and instinctive art of early days ended by giving place
to a reflective and considered art, which, too limited to give itself
free rein because its emotion was either superficial or fictitious,
fell from one degree of decadence to another to the final depths of
academicism. But poetry could never die. To obtain new life it
had but to drink fresh draughts at the fountain of truth ; and so
to pei*iods of debasement have ever succeeded splendid epochs of
revival. The period of De Musset, and of Hugo, follows that of
Luce de Lancival and Delille.
The great personal form of poetry arose from the development
of the spirit of analysis, which, however, also contained the seeds of
death. From the moment that man began to examine his own
nature, he applied himself to never ceasing investigation ; and the
satisfaction of his own curiosity, began to obtain the mastery over
artistic interest. In consequence of the exclusive spiritualism of
so-called philosophic doctrines, which tended more and more to
separate moral phenomena from their physiological causes, and to
isolate them in an imaginary world of their own — psychologic theories
progressively invade the whole domain of poetry, and end by re-
ducing its creations to inanimate phantoms, to pure abstractions
which have no reality outside the ethereal spheres haunted by
metaphysicians. Such psychological exaggeration coiild not long-
endure. It might be strictly adapted to a super-refined state of
society, accustomed to an artificial atmosphere and eager for aris-
tocratic subtleties, like that which marked the end of the 17th
century. But from the day that literature, instead of confining
itself to the special class of which it had been the mirror, began to
address the world at large, a transformation became necessary, in
order to bring it into conformity with the sentiments and taste of
its new public. This change is taking place in spite of the efforts
of the fetish woi shippers of the past, who try hard to keep it bound
in the fetters of a tradition unintelligible to most men.
chap, v.] WHAT IS ART? 83
Art for the multitude must be sincere and life-like, true and
tangible. This necessity explains the prodigious development
which the theatre has undergone in our day. We must not let
the names of Corneille, Racine, or Moliere delude us on this
point. In our time only has the theatre become part of public
manners. We must say the same of fiction in literature.
These two branches of art are undergoing a process of change
which grows more marked every day, as they become more
popular. To the aristocratic romances and dramas of the 17th
century, have gradually succeeded others appealing to the tastes
of the middle classes ; while social and political movements have
been taking a similar direction. Our dramatists and novel writers
now go upon a really human system, appealing to society as a
whole. Their field is enlarged simultaneously with their human
sympathies. Their processes, too, are transformed. Description
and pedantic dissection give place to action. Characters are
delineated by their acts, making poetry follow the example of real
life. This is veritably a new art rising amid the startled clamours
of the lover of classic literature. It is easy to see that its future
is henceforth assured, and that the tyranny of academic convention
is about to be subjected to new and pi-ofound discredit.
The dance began by being the simple and spontaneous effect of
that desire for physical exertion which results from certain emo-
tions of the soul. It became an art by the effect of rhythm, which
regulated the cadence of its movements in accordance with a more
or less slow or lively measure, and enabled it to interpret the prin-
cipal occupations of life by gestures and attitudes. There were
war dances, dances of religion, dances at harvest and at vintage.
It even got so far as to imitate the movements of the stars, and
the chief scenes of the great cosmic and heroic legends. Hence
the spontaneous dancing of the earliest times ended by becoming
essentially a spectacle, as in the theatre of the Greeks and the
opera of modern Europe.
Music springs from an analogous source. Its first germ is to
be found in the spontaneous cry of joy or pain, love or anger,
q 2
84 ESTHETICS. [part i.
enlarged and diversified by rhythm, and subjected to rules of com-
bination and harmony enforced by the ear. Its domain grows as
observation teaches us to recognize the connections that exist
between sounds and the emotions of the human soul. The song
of primitive times, which as the expression of a unique and well-
defined sentiment was slender and monotonous, grew till it gave
birth to modern melody, with all the variety and subtlety of
intonation that cause the soul to pass through a succession of
unexpected modifications. Then, as psychologic analysis progressed
and the ear became accustomed to multiplicity and diversity of
sounds, harmony was added to melody, bringing the effect of
simultaneity of tones and notes, to reinforce that of their succes-
sion. Finally, the simultaneity of different tones was united with
that of different notes, so that we may well ask what limit is to be
placed upon the comprehension of the ear.
The arts that appeal to the eye follow a similar course. Sculp-
ture, the direct embodiment of complete forms with their dimen-
sions, appears to have been the earliest, even before drawing.
Arms, instruments, ornaments of carved stone must be classed as
sculpture. The cave-dwellers sought after elegance of form and
variety of aspect ; such search, too, was so spontaneous that it is
difficult to allot any share in it to imitation. Imitation only came
in later. Then began attempts to reproduce the forms of vege-
tables, animals and man. These imitations, more or less rough at
first, became gradually complete as the eye acquired experience,
and the tools, perfection. The oldest monuments that remain to
us of Egyptian and Assyrian sculpture are remarkable for the in-
telligent choice of characteristic traits, often excelling, in this
point, those of later epochs. The Greeks, passionate lovers of the
beauty of living and especially of human forms, never troubled
themselves to reproduce them in all their aspects. The former,
having no other aim but imitation, copied with a fidelity and
accuracy which prove realism not to be so modern a discovery
as we sometimes imagine ; the latter, seeking in sculpture the
interpretation of their religious or heroic legends, were logically
chap, v.] WHAT IS ART? 85
driven to find a type like their epic and dramatic poets ; not on
account of an d, priori theory, as metaphysicians would have us
believe, but simply because their aim was to represent the quality
or special attribute of any divinity whose statue they had to
produce. The gods of Phidias and Polycletus are majestic and
impassive, yet the serene immobility of visage and attitude does
not prevent the bodies from being full of life. Their flesh pal-
pitates, the blood courses in their veins, all the appearances of life
are so marvellously rendered, that one is tempted to assure oneself,
by touch, that they are but marble. The generation that suc-
ceeded these great artists was distinguished by a decided leaning
towards the expression of human sentiments ; as in tragedy, this
tendency becomes rapidly accentuated. Some have seen in it the
commencement of decadence. We believe this erroneous idea to
be explained by the obstinate self-will of those who judge every-
thing from the platonic ideal point of view.
Modern sculpture can bear no comparison with that of Greece in
perfection of form. We will explain why, later. But the latter
has another kind of superiority ; expression of character and in-
tensity of moral life.
It is impossible to trace the origin of painting with any certainty.
However, the carving of certain prehistoric objects is sufficient
proof that man, from the first, has been always sensitive to the
beauties of varied colour and the play of light. The pleasure ex-
perienced by the most savage tribes in the contemplation of cer-
tain colours, their habits of tattooing and tinting the skin, teeth,
and hair, conclusively demonstrate such a taste to have been in-
stinctive. We may then conclude, without over-much hardihood,
that painting is a scarcely less ancient art than sculpture; although,
for reasons easily to be imagined, no equally ancient remains of its
productions have come down to us. The point, however, is not of
great importance to our definition of art. Painting rests upon so
complete a structure of convention, and its processes necessitate
so great a multiplicity of information, that it is easy enough to un-
derstand why it arrived comparatively late at relative perfection.
86 .ESTHETICS. [part r.
We have many reasons for believing that, at the culminating
point of Greek art, painting was little else than painted sculp-
ture.
To-day we see a very different state of things. Painting, though
it is but a convention, has become, of all the arts, that which is
most able to grapple with reality. It is a creation which has
emerged piece by piece from the human brain, and which is now
found to be the most perfect mirror of facts and objects, and the
most complete expressive medium for the interpretation of the
feelings which rise in the soul of man in presence of the pheno-
mena of nature. Its whole history is explained by this double
character. On the one hand, we have those who, seeing nothing
but its imitative power and enchanted by its marvellous effects,
would confine its functions to the literal reproduction of visible
facts, and in the result eliminating emotion, poetry, and all that is
human from arts, would leave nothing but execution. On the other
hand, are those who, struck by its power of expression, have gradually
brought themselves to consider it a mere supplement of written
or spoken language ; and have therefore been led to impose upon
it those simplifications, abbreviations, and conventional shifts,
which use and necessity have, at one time or other, introduced into
every kind of language.
The greatest painters are those who have best resisted these
two temptations, and have united the double characteristic of
their art in supreme harmony. At present the public, after
frequent oscillations between the two extremes, is equally tired
of the ideal abstractions of the academic schools, and of the
artificial enthusiasms of the romanticists ; it has returned to the
search for truth and demands sincerity.
We discover in the painting of our day, the same signs of
strife which we have already noticed in poetry, and which are
the root of all contemporary thought. Everywhere and in every
pursuit, truth has become a sine qua non. Painting, in obedience
to this tendency, has entered more thoroughly than ever before,
into the study of nature and reality ; searching there for new
chap, v.] WHAT IS ART? 87
and powerful means of expression, appropriate to the require-
ments of modern intellect.
Architecture is now one of the arts, but in its commencement
it was merely a fact. The first man who thought of digging
himself an underground hovel or of constructing a hut, certainly
never thought of producing a work of art. He obeyed a desire
with which no aesthetic feeling had any concern, just as when he
shaped his first hatchet of flint.
Architecture, then, arose from a purely physical want. But
from the simple fact that the rudest hut presented to the eye a
collection of lines and surfaces, it might have been foreseen that
the innate sentiment of art would end by manifesting its prefer-
ences, and would give to those lines and surfaces such form and
arrangements as would be most pleasing to the sight.
Such preferences found natural opportunities for their exercise
in the construction of dwellings destined for gods or princes.
Temples and palaces, to be worthy of their inhabitants, had to bj
distinguished from the huts of the commonalty by size, magnifi-
cence, and decorative character. Here we have the germ of all th at
has followed. Construction and decoration, subordinated to the
nature of the materials and the destined purpose of edifices, have
produced of themselves the various styles of architecture, as
estimated by their general features. Then, by a logic il course of
concentration and assimilation, analogous to that which has been
remarked in the formation of the great legends and epics of anti-
quity, each of these styles has been completed in everything
that could assist the interpretation of the idea which might be
regarded as the centre and kernel of the whole combination. This
combination is at first, as in the epic poem and in music, only a
progressive harmony of signs more or less interpretive of ideas
and sentiments — with this difference : the signs made use of
and combined in the epic and in music are words and notes, while
in architecture, just as in sculpture and painting, they are lines,
forms, and colours. We might even say that architecture is no
more than an extension of sculpture. The analogy between them
88 .ESTHETICS. [part i.
becomes striking when we remember the subterranean temples of
India, carved, as they stand, from the single and solid rock. There
is this difference, however : sculpture imitates the most common
forms of nature, while the architectural model exists, as a whole,
nowhere but in the brain of its author.
The more obvious characteristic of each of the arts being now
determined, we can at last attempt a general definition of art.
§ 2. General definition of art — Mutual relation and analysis of the
different arts.
We have seen that art, far from being the blossom and fruit of
civilization, is rather, its germ. It began to give evidence of its
existence so soon as man became self-conscious, and is to be found
clearly denned in his very earliest works.
By its psychologic origin it is bound up with the constituent
principles of humanity. The salient and essential characteristic
of man is his incessant cerebral activity, which is propagated and
developed by countless acts and works of varied kind. The aim
and rule of this activity is the search after the best ; that is to say,
the more and more complete satisfaction of physical and moral
wants. This instinct, common to all animals, is seconded in man
by an exceptionally well-developed faculty to adapt the means to
the end.
The effort to satisfy physical wants has given birth to all the
industries that defend, preserve, and smooth the path of life ;
the effort to satisfy the moral wants — of which one of the most
important is the gratification of our cerebral activity itself — has
created the arts, long before it could give them power sufficient
for the conscious elaboration of ideas. The life of sentiment pre-
ceded the manifestations of intellectual life by many centuries.
The gratification, in esse or in posse, of either real or imaginary
wants, is the cause of happiness, joy, pleasure, and of all the
fillings connected with them ; the contrary is marked by grief,
sadness, fear etc. : but in both cases there is emotion, whether grave
or gay, and it is the nature of such emotion to give more or less
chap, v.] WHAT IS ART? 89
lively evidence of its existence by means of exterior signs. When
expressed by gesture and rhythmic movement, such motion pro-
duces the dance ; when by rhythmic notes, music ; when by
rhythmic words, poetry.
As in another aspect man is essentially sympathetic and his
joy or pain is often caused as much by the good or evil fortunes
of others as by his own ; as, besides, he possesses in a very high
degree the faculty of combining series of fictitious facts, and of
representing them in colours even more lively than those of
reality : it results that the domain of art is of infinite extent for
him. For the causes of emotion are multiplied for every man — not
only by the number of similar beings who live around him and
are attached to him by the more or less closely knit bonds of
affection, alliance, similitude of situation or community of ideas
and interests ; but, also, by the never-ending multitude of beings
and events that are able to originate or direct the imaginings of
poets.
To these elements of emotion and moral enjoyment, must be
added the combinations of lines, of forms and of colours, the
dispositions and opposition of light and shade, etc. The instinc-
tive search after this kind of emotion or pleasure, the special
organ of which is the eye, has given birth to what are called the
arts of design — sculpture, painting and architecture.
We may say then, by way of general definition, that art is the
manifestation of emotion, obtaining external interpretation, now
by expressive arrangements of line, form or colour, now by a
series of gestures, sounds, or words governed by particular rhyth-
mical cadence. 1
1 There", in his Salon de 1847, speaking of Delacroix, gives a definition very like
our own. " Poetry, to speak generally, is the faculty of feeling internally the
essence of life (?), and art is the faculty of expressing the same thing in external
form. Artists, litterateurs, painters, sculptors, musicians, really invent only the
form to be taken by the poetic sentiment breathed into them by nature or by life.
.... Nature is the supreme artist who in her universal gallery offers to a
favoured few the principles of all perfection ; the object is to develop some sort of
individuality, to give a second creation, with its own distinct and original signifi-
00 .ESTHETICS. [part i.
If our definition is exact, we must conclude, from it, that the
merit of a work of art, whatever it may be, can be finally measured
by the power with which it manifests or interprets the emotion
that was its determining cause, and that, for a like reason,
must constitute its innermost and supreme unity. We have here
a point to which we must return when we have explained the theo-
retical consequences of the definition which we have given. At
present we wish to make it complete and accurate, by showing
some of the points of connection which bind the different aits
together.
The domain of poetry is almost without limits, because it em-
braces all the feelings without exception, and because most ideas
are equally accessible to it. Moreover, thanks to the peculiar con-
stitution of man's imagination, it is enabled in a certain measure
to exercise the functions of each and every art. Not only can it
communicate to us impressions of line, form, and colour, in de-
scribing a spectacle or object with sufficient relief to create almost
optical illusion ; but, by variety of rhythm and intonation, by
choice, arrangement, and harmony of the words employed, it pos-
sesses sufficient musical power to charm the ear, apart from the
thotight or feeling expressed.
Nor is this all. By arrangement and proportion of parts, by relief,
by intonation and expression of verses, by variety and precision in
phrase, and by contrasting images, it is possible to excite in an
auditor general impressions only to be described by terms borrowed
cation. Art, being the form or image of a thought, or, if you will, the human
interpretation of the appearances presented by nature, should be as human as
possible. The more the artist has transformed external reality, the more of him-
self has lie put into his work, the more has he raised his representation
towards the ideal concealed in the heart of every man, and the farther has he
penetrated into the world of poetry. On the other hand, if he has added nothing
to the common physiognomy of nature, has he produced an industrial, but not an
artistic work. Such work would be worthy only of a mechanic. To copy nature,
as most people mean it, is folly. Take your dark room and your daguerreotype."
We need not pause to consider the phraseology, which is out of date. In the main,
the ideas are true.
chap, v.] WHAT IS AET? 91
from the arts which appeal to the eye. Truly we may say of a
great poem, that its versification recalls architecture by making a
similar impression upon the intellect ; that in strength and vigour
of contour it may be compared to sculpture : while in colour it
equals the works of the greatest painters.
The power of music, being mainly concerned with the concord
between rhythm and sound and the auditory fibres which they
put in motion, is also bound up with the other arts by singular
analogies, whose nature science is now just beginning to under-
stand. Thanks, then, to the mutual relations of the numbers which
constitute notes, which have at last been accurately determined,
music may be called an architecture of sound, in the same sense in
which architecture may be said to be the music of space — and in
both an equal respect for necessary proportion and harmony must
be observed. Again, it is by the connection between sonorous and
luminous vibrations that we account for the resemblance that
exists between sensations of sound and colour. Language had
long established and consecrated these resemblances, before science
had explained their cause. 1
The hattements caused by discords with their intermittent
silences, fatigue and irritate the auditory nerves precisely in the
1 Light is produced by the atomic vibrations of the ether which transmits it,
just as sound is produced hy molecular vibration of the air. Sonorous vibrations
are longitudinal ; luminous ones are transverse. This fact is proved by the
phenomenon of polarization. We cannot calculate directly the length o& luminous
waves, but we have succeeded in doing so indirectly, but accurately, by their
effects. Diversity of colour is caused by the varying lengths of these waves.
They diminish gradually from red to violet. The length of wave which produces
red, the middle of the prismatic colour, is 620 millionths of a millimetre. The
colour of light depends upon the number of luminous waves that strike upon the
retina in a second ; the sharpness of sound depends upon the number of sonorous
waves that strike the tympanum in the same space of time 514 trillions of
shocks make red ; 751 trillions, violet, and so on. The parallelism of optic and
acoustic phenomena has been established by the labours of Thomas Young and
Augustin Fresnel. Recent experiences and, notably, the essays upon /< sinter-
ftrences, have placed these results beyond question. We can do no more than
mention them here, referring those who may wish for more detailed information,
to the work upon light of Professor Tyndall.
92 ESTHETICS. [pakt r.
same manner and for the same reason as the oscillations of a
lamp worry and tease the eye by intermitting light and shade —
compelling the optic nerves to continuously accommodate them-
selves to over-abrupt variations. We are equally fatigued by loud
sounds or even colours ; though in a different way, viz., by the
continuation of an exaggerated effort or too lively sensation. If
we employ instruments which only give out fundamental sounds,
we produce spiritless, or, so to speak, neutral tinted music ; colour,
on the other hand, is obtained by the free vibration of chords,
emitting a fundamental with its accompanying harmonics, and
causing the multitudinous fibres of the auditory apparatus to
vibrate and simultaneously communicate a large number of con-
cordant sensations.
But music, if it were content to invariably ascend and descend
the scale of sonorous vibrations by insensible gradation, would
soon become wearisome, enervating, and somniferous. The con-
tinuity of a movement without variety of change of meaning,
would have, in music, just the same artistic value as the infinite
prolongation of a straight line in painting, or of a blank wall in
architecture. Uniformity and monotony are in direct and absolute
contradiction to artistic effect, the essential characteristics of which
are, indeed, variety of movement and exaltation of brain activity —
in a word, intensified vital action.
The first duty of music, which is the result of sound movement,
is, therefore, to vary its movements just as the motions and atti-
tudes of the body are varied in dancing. Looked at from this
point of view, we might call music the dance of sounds. 1
1 M. Helmliolz has just succeeded in demonstrating that this is something more
than a mere metaphor. This physicist, passing his observations upon the fertile
principles of modern dynamics, which sees in the world nothing hut force and
movement, has proved by the aid of certain ingenious instruments that sound is
simply a peculiar kind of molecular movement. It is produced whenever the
constituent molecules of a solid, liquid, or gaseous body leave their places and
enter into vibration. The molecule drawn by such vibration to a greater or
less distance from its original place, really executes a dance, and produces a
sound the intensity or shrillness of which is proportionate to the amplitude of its
movement or the rapidity of its vibrations.
chap, v.] WHAT IS ART? 93
This similitude, which is ever present, was more striking when
the fugue style of composition was in vogue. " This melodious
theme," says M. Laugel, " which goes through constant series of
repetitions, at varying heights, voices succeeding each other,
mingling with, and alternately dominating over each other,
phrases unfolding themselves in tumultuous succession, advancing
and retiring in rhythmic order, gradually entangling and as gradu-
ally disengaging themselves, gave rise to a kind of continuous
and unbroken playing, whose peculiar and agreeable movements
infallibly suggested the idea of groups advancing to produce their
assigned effect, and then gradually disappearing."
Notes are the raw material of musicians, as stones, of architects,
or colours, of painters. Melody, which is caused by the succession
alone of notes, arranges these materials as after a design, easily
recognised and determined by the intellect to which it appeals ;
and harmony, which consists of the concord between notes or
groups of notes, imparts a sensation similar to that resulting from
the colouring of a picture.
The visual arts confine themselves less strictly to the sensations
produced on the eye by combinations of form, line, and colour.
Doubtless such impressions remain the dominant ones, as is but
natural, seeing that they are the raison d'etre of the said arts.
Any sculptor, architect, or painter, who would despise proportion,
correctness, or harmony, would cease to deserve the name of
artist ; just as would a poet who wrote verse that would not
scan, or a musician who neglected the laws of harmony. The
antecedent condition of these arts is an eye peculiarly sensitive to
the pleasiires which spring from the mere sight of things. The
next condition is, a special faculty to give to these visible appear-
ances all the eloquence of which they are capable, and thus
outwardly to manifest the impressions that they have caused upon
the soul of the artist.
The painter is, before all, a man who, having received from
nature the gift of extraordinary sensibility in his optic nerves,
enjoys life mainly through the eye ; just as the pleasures of the
94 ESTHETICS. [PART I.
gourmet all arise from the exceptionable irritability or develop-
ment of his nerve tufts and buccal papillse. He finds a charm in
combinations of line, form, and colour, which nothing else can give
in equal degree. This attraction determines his vocation, and is the
source of all his emotions. To obey his unconquerable desire for
the external manifestation of his feelings, he applies himself to the
reproduction, in ideal or realistic form, of the combinations of
shape and colour which entrance his soul.
To the fundamental note, resulting from the vibration of the
optic nerves, must, however, as in other cases, be added the cortege
of accompanying harmonics. The direct impression received by the
eye is combined with a crowd of secondary impressions, the more
or less simultaneous appearance of which is to be explained by the
constitution of the human brain ; their number and importance
increasing in direct proportion with its intellectual power and
development. There is, between the purely artistic faculties,
and those which cannot be so considered, a scarcely conceivable
multitude of harmonies or discords, constituting a corresponding
multitude of actual and potential artists of different degrees of
merit. Thus sculpture, painting, and architecture, afford an
illimitable power for the expression or suggestion of a more or less
considerable number of feelings, or even of ideas. The domain of
sculpture, without being so narrow and confined as the exclusive
admirers of classic art would have it, cannot be made to embrace
so much as that of architecture ; which is more varied in its
methods, and able to press all beautiful shapes into its service.
Still less can its scope be compared to that of painting ; which is,
by far, the most expressive of the arts which appeal to the eye.
We see, then, how difficult it is to make good any absolute wall
of division between the different arts. Notwithstanding their
varied modes of procedure, they are for ever making little raids
upon each other, because each have the same point of departure
and ultimate aim — man, the common centre round which they all
revolve, and whose complex nature is to some extent reflected in
everything that emanates from him.
chap, vi.] DEFINITION OF ESTHETICS. 95
CHAPTER VI.
DEFINITION OF .ESTHETICS.
Beauty — Its insufficiency to explain art — The imitation theory not
more acceptable — Definition .
We have defined art, and we must now attempt to explain what we
mean by the word ^Esthetics. Define your terms, is the advice of
Voltaire, who, after having passed all his life in various branches
of polemics, knew by personal experience how impossible it is to
have any serious discussion unless both parties to it thoroughly
agree, from the first, as to the exact meaning of the words to be
employed. This precaution, useful in every case, is more than
ever necessaiy' when we attack questions that have been thrown
into confusion by metaphysicians. We may place aesthetics in the
very first rank of subjects so obscured — What is aesthetics 1 ? Ety-
mologically, the term comes from a Greek word signifying sensation
or perception.''' .^Esthetics, then, should be that science which
treats of sensations and perceptions. All of them, or only some
particular ones 1 The word alone does not tell us.
In the former case, we should have a complete system of
philosophy ; because there is haruly a circumstance of humanity
which, philosophically speaking, cannot be referred either to a
sensation or a perception. In the latter case, the term is wanting
in precision ; because it does not tell us with which perceptions or
sensations it is concerned. The word, in fine, is ill-made. But it
has passed into use, and we must put up with it for want of a
better.
96 ESTHETICS. [rART i.
^Esthetics has been defined as the " Science of theJB^autifHl/'
which may seem, at the first glance, intellectually sufficient ; but a
moment's reflection will show that the definition would gain by
itself being defined.
1 The science of the beautiful be it, but then, what is beauty 1
This abstract term ha s an air of Platonic entity which, like
everything touched by metaphysical philosophy, refuses to submit
to analysis. From ancient days down to our own, almost all the
aesthetic doctrines founded upon the " beauty " theory, have con-
sidered it as something abstract, divine, with an absolute and
distinct reality quite apart from man. The small number of
metaphysicians who have held a different view has exercised a
very restricted influence over art, to which we need not refer
here.
Plato, Winckelmann and the academic school of our own day,
consider abstract beauty to be one of the attributes of divine per-
fection; a thing absolute, one and indivisible, consequently unique
and universal ; unchanged and unchangeable, dominating all
peoples and all art in all times.
To apply their theory, beauty is the essential form of all
\ creatures before they took actual bodily shape ; it is, in fact, the
'prototype of creation such as it must have presented itself in the
brain of the Divine Creator, before the degradation consequent on
(its material realisation had taken place.
- So soon as the mind has been induced to form a conception of
the beautiful divorced from any connection with material reality,
the definition and determination of metaphysical beauty, which
must be universal and unchangeable, becomes a mere matter of
logical induction. The starting point or premises may be
utterly absurd, but this has never troubled metaphysicians, as
they succeeded in establishing their conclusion by regularly
formed syllogisms. Beauty, as understood by them, naturally
became the unique and supreme aim of all the arts, the eternal
model for every effort of man, and the goal of all his aspirations.
Considered from this point of view, it calls itself the ideal, though
chap. VI.] DEFINITION OF AESTHETICS. 97
it is nothing but a feeble reflection of truth, 1 only existing in the
world of the iutellectualists and their abstract ideas.
This conception of beauty is certainly the most wide-spread. It
is propagated by university teaching, and has, therefore, peculiar
prestige and influence in the official world.
Its principle rests upon an abstract hypothesis which is abso-
lutely without justification, and has no show of reality beyond the
mere existence in the dictionary of the word from which it takes
its origin, like every other metaphysical entity of a similar kind.
It is true, indeed, that either from early inability to analyse sen-
sations and to distinguish between cognate perceptions, or from
the later necessity for simplification and generalisation, language
has summarized in the expression " beauty " the ensemble of all
admirative impressions. All this, however, does not give meta-
physicians any right to deduce the fundamental and substantial
unity of the cause from results which are actually so various.
Unless we are prepared, either to withdraw from the domain of
art a large number of works which have given honour to the
genius of man, or to make violent changes in the meaning of words,
we shall find it quite impossible to make such an idea of beauty r
suffice for the gratification of all artistic aspiration. Art, in truth,
addresses all the feelings without exception ; hope or fear, joy or
grief, love or hatred. It interprets every emotion that agitates the
human heart, and never troubles itself with its relation to visible
or ideal perfection. It even expresses what is ugly and horrible,
without ceasing to be art and worthy of admiration. The battle
field of Eylau, the hideous and awful tortures of the damned, the
crimes and ignominies of those ferocious beasts who under the
name of Csesars struck so great horror into Roman civilization —
have not these afforded to Gros, to Dante, to Tacitus, opportunities
for magnificent works whose models would hardly be found in the
world of the intellectualists 1 What beauty is to be found in a
1 And not the splendour of truth, as those who endow Plato with the fancies
of their own imagination believe him to have said. Such beauty as can be con-
ceived by man is, by his teaching, but the obscure shadow of divine perfection.
n
93 .ESTHETICS, [part I.
battle field strewed with dead and dying 1 What in a vision of
Ugolino devouring the head of his enemy, or of Tiberius at
Capri |
Such examples as these we have given are to be found every-
where, in all the arts. The most classic poems are full of them.
From the very beginning of the Iliad Achilles and Agamemnon
abuse each other with an abandon and in a style that must
please the most daring realist of our day. The corpse of Hector
dragged round the tomb of Patroclus, the portrait of Thersites,
the scenes of massacre which succeed each other without inter-
mission, (Edipus tearing out his eyes and coming in his blood to
recount his woes, Hercules destroying his children in a fit of mad
folly, Medea cutting the throats of her sons to revenge herself
upon a rival, the furies pursuing Orestes, and a thousand similar
passages — amply prove that the Greeks themselves, in spite of
what Plato may say, did not confine their art to the search for
beauty.
What beauty lurks in the more or less odious and shameful
vices of that great multitude of wretches which peoples the litera-
ture of all times and countries 1 Where is it to be found in such
men as Nero, such women as Agrippina, in Madame Bovary or La
Marneffe 1 Whence comes it that the description of basenesses
and degradations, themselves horrible to us, can produce, in
works of art, so different a feeling 1
S This strange effect is explained as being the natural result of
. imitation. Boileau, who can hardly be suspected of realism, said
without meeting with any contradiction :
V*
i
II n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l'art imite, ne puisse plaire aux yeux.
Long before him Aristotle said : " Imitation always pleases. The
productions of art prove that it is so. Objects that we could
not see in propria personti without discomfort, hideous animals,
for instance, or corpses, afford us pleasure when viewed through
chap, vi.] DEFINITION OF AESTHETICS. 99
I exact representations." Pascal states the same fact, though from
a veiy different point of view. " What vanity is painting," he
says, " which arouses our admiration for objects whose originals
we never admire." We are thus compelled to refuse acquiescence
in any theory which describes beauty as the result of perfection.
The examples we have given imply also a duplication of the ques-
tion at issue, and prove that an essential distinction exists between
the beauty of nature and that of art. The former alone has to do
wTEhTdeal perfection, while the latter arises from a purely human
and accidental circumstance, imitation. We shall return by and
by to this distinction, and shall endeavour to estimate its value ;
at present our only concern is with artistic beauty.
Is it true that a spectacle which is frightful in propria persona
becomes beautiful when imitated % Is it, in fact, the excellence of.
the resemblance which gives beauty to a work of art 1 Certainly
not. Aristotle, Boileau, Pascal, and all the partisans of the imita-
tive theory, have been deceived by a superficial notion which will
not bear examination.
Get the most able of artists to paint the portraits of Thersites
or Quasimodo. Their frightful forms would become no less
horrible as figures, and we should not be deluded by the painter
into thinking so. The portrait of an ugly man remains ugly if
the representation be faithful ; just as the exact delineation of the
features of an Antinous or an Adonis would of course give us the
impression of a fine physique. At the same time it is quite pos-
sible that we may consider the portrait of Quasimodo, hideous
though he be, infinitely superior as a work of art to the Antinous,
although it, too, may be an exact resemblance.
This fact has escaped the notice of those who hold that imita-
tion is the supreme aim of art, and its exactitude the infallible
measure of the merit of a work.
It is, however, a most important fact, because it enables us to
arrive at the very essence of art, and to understand how it lia3
come to occupy so high a place among the manifestations of
human genius.
ii 2
i
1
100 ESTHETICS. [part i.
To begin with — if all artistic effort were confined to the mere
imitation of objects, we should be perforce obliged to acknowledge
that the role of art has now come to an end, so far at least as the
yfeproduction of linear form is concerned ; as, from such a point of
view, no imitation could reasonably pretend to greater accuracy
than that of photography. The sole advantage remaining to the
painter would be the power, which the mechanical process is as
yet without, of reproducing colour. But if, as seems probable,
chemistry should one day achieve this last triumph, art, its occu-
pation gone, would have to surrender its place — just as in industrial
labour, machinery tends daily more and more to supersede haud-
( work.
Accuracy of imitation may, we allow, have a certain utility and
importance, when, for instance, it is employed to reproduce the
features of some famous man occupying a place in history, or to
delineate a particular passion or character. In such works we
must have accurate resemblance and precise detail. Portraits of
Richelieu, Louis XIV., and of Napoleon rank among our historic
documents. We should not tolerate their representation in poetry
or painting with features other than those historically belonging
to them. Why do the moral portraitures of La Bruyere, of
Moliere, of Balzac, create so lively an interest 1 Is it not, partly
at least, because they are so true ; permitting us to penetrate,
under the guidance of these great spirits, into mysteries of the
human heart which we should otherwise never have known so
thoroughly 1
But the importance of faithful imitation must not be exagge-
rated. We must point out one essential distinction. The historian
and moralist naturally attach great value to accuracy of reproduc-
tion. From their special point of view there is immense interest
in tracing, in historic portraits, the features of men who had in
their lives great influence over the fate of their fellow men ; and,
in observing in pictures of manners, the traits which help to
explain and elucidate the passions, caprices, and vices of humanity.
They love to feel themselves upon sure ground, and are very
chap, vi.] DEFINITION OF .ESTHETICS. 101
grateful to the painters, poets, and other observers who serve
them by facilitating their researches.
But from the aesthetic standpoint, which indeed is ours, the
value of a work must not be estimated by the number of services
that it can render. Such a criterion may be fitly applied to
science or industry, but not to art.
Look, for instance, at the portraits drawn with such rare vigour
and powerful relief in the memoirs of St. Simon. Why are they
so telling 1 Is it because they are so like 1 Of that we cannot
judge, as we have not the models before us. No ! it is the
diabolic verve of the man which fascinates us ; the concentrative
power with which he grasps and renders in a few words the
essential characteristics of a physiognomy ; the passionate gusto
with which he lets loose the hatred or contempt that most of
the originals of his portraits inspire him with, as if to justify the
evil he has spoken of them. Such being his character, it is hardly
probable that he should be capable of displaying the necessary
impartiality for the production of portraits with any pretensions
to be considered historic documents ; and, in any matter not
illustrated by other sources of information, we may always take
it for granted that he has not hesitated to maliciously accentuate
certain traits and leave others in the background.
None the less do his memoirs constitute a gallery of the first
order from an aesthetic point of view ; because, in default perhaps
of resemblance, his pictures are full of movement and life. We
feel that their author has wished to make them truthful, and
has believed that they really were so ; but nevertheless he has
depicted men and women such as they seemed to him through the
lens of his own feelings. Sin cerity in art takes the place of/
truth.
The degree of realism possessed by a work of art has, then, no
aesthetic importance, except in so far as it enables us to estimate
the power of penetration necessary for its grasp, and the force of
imagination required to reproduce an object in such relief as to
excite our admiration.
102 ESTHETICS. [part i.
But we must recognize that the conditions are different when,
instead of the portrait of an individual, we have to do with the
delineation of passion or character. True and well understood
features then acquire much greater aesthetic value. But, in this
latter case as in the former, the intrinsic beauty of the model
possesses but secondary importance.
§ 2. What ive admire in a rvork of art is the genius of the artist. —
Definition of ^Esthetics.
While we watch the development of the character of Tartuffe,
of Harpagon, of cousin Bette, of La Marneffe, the aesthetic interest
that we feel is caused neither by Tartuffe, the miser, Bette, nor
La Marneffe, but by the profound powers of observation which
have enabled Moliere and Balzac to penetrate to the inmost depths
of these characters ; and, above all, by the ability shown in creating
an external embodiment of their accumulated observation, and
placing living beings in the searching light of the stage or of
fiction. What we admire in these characters is, not themselves,
but the genius which created them, which gave them movement,
which gave them life so peculiar and so intense that, once installed
in our memory, they can never be uprooted, but remain inefface-
able visions. When we hear them speak and act, whether in
the pages of a book or on the boards of a theatre, we marvel at
the wonderful magic, the miracle of intuition that has enabled
their authors to render the perceptions of their brains visible
and palpable to all ; to construct complete images more lively
than their models \ and to animate their phantoms with an inner
and communicative vibration that the real persons never possess
in the same degree, and which has given them the right of
equal entry into that superior world where dwell the immortal
types created by the imagination of man. Never ceasing to be
true, they excel the reality from which they spring; they condense
and complete it by the most significant features, free from trivial
detail which would obscure our clear perception of them : and
chap, vi.] DEFINITION OF ESTHETICS. 103
attain, by such condensation, an intensity of effect that we do not
meet in nature. This is the true mission of art, thanks to which,
its creations become models in their turn.
Now what do the above-named types represent to us ] Hypo-
crisy, avarice and envy ! Who would say that the beauty which
we find in the portrayal of these hideous vices exists in the vices
themselves 1 Obviously not — it ljga_en.tir.ely— in the art and per-
sonality of the poets who had power to create such lively images.
It is, then, not only accuracy of imitation which fascinates us, but
chiefly the art that has evolved these perfect ensembles from the
materials furnished by real life. We do not admire the vices
represented to our view, but the genius of the men who have so
thoroughly understood and delineated them. In sum, what seems
so fine to us is, not the originals, but their portraits ; and, for a
similar reason, the portrait of a Quasimodo may be a beautiful
work of art.
To give other examples — what is it that strikes us in the fresco
of the Sistine chapel, where Michael Angelo has represented the
separation of light from darkness 1 Evidently imitation has
nothing to do with it. No man, Michael Angelo no more than any
other, saw the creation of light. The imagination of the artist
had absolutely free scope. The arrangement of his work was com-
pletely subordinate to the power which he could put into the
interpretation of his idea of a spectacle, whose elements were only
to be found within himself. The Bible, even, could be no guide to
him, so far as imitation is concerned. Jehovah said : " Let there
be light, and there was light." How is the energy of these creative
words to be represented in painting] It would be madness to dream
of it. The resources of the painter are not those of the poet. The
one addresses the mind through the ear, the other through the
eye. This the artist understood. He replaced words by a gesture ;
and succeeded as well as Moses himself in communicating the
impression of sovereign grandeur and power produced upon his
imagination by the act which he wished to represent. When
Ruysdacl shows us a thicket struck by the wind, is it the indi-
104 .ESTHETICS, [part i.
viduaJity of its form which interests us 1 l Need we, to excite
our emotion, make sure that a forest, as painted, accurately re-
1 Of every work of art we may truly say that its chief value consists in the
personal character of its author ; and this is, perhaps, more true of Euysdael than
of any other man. E. Fromentin, who has studied the Dutchmen and Flemings
in their native country with admirable care and sagacity, asserts that Ruysdael,
judging from details alone, is inferior to many of his compatriots. "He was
wanting in skill at a time and in a school where every one possessed consummate
skill. He fails in being what we call facile. He seems slow of intellect, his
motives are all on the surface, he has but little vivacity or archness. His draw-
ing has not always the incisive, clear, even fantastic character visible in some of
Hobbema's pictures. He never succeeded in placing figures in his pictures.
(There is a fine Ruysdael in the National Gallery in which figures are introduced,
a very rare practice with the painter. — Trans.) He is without the fine atmosphere
of Cuyp ; in modelling he is far inferior to Terburg and Metsu. He is wanting
in subtlety and insight, and the intellectual finesse of his rivals makes him appear
a little morose. His pictures are very like one another ; and when we see many
together, they soon become monotonous. His colour is wanting in variety and
richness. It has but little splendour, is not always even pleasing, or of good
quality. Nevertheless, and in spite of all, Ruysdael is unique. Of this we are
soon convinced in presence of his pictures in the Louvre, — ' Biussonj 'La
Tempete,' ' Le petit Paysage,' (No. 474) At the exhibition of old
masters held for the benefit of Alsace and Lorraine, Ruysdael assuredly held un-
disputed sovereignty ; in a collection, too, very rich in the works of Dutch and
Flemish masters I appeal to the recollections of all those to whom that
assembly of excellent works was a real enlightenment — did not Ruysdael prove
himself a great master, and, still better, a great intellect ? At Brussels and
Antwerp, at the Hague and Amsterdam, the same effect is produced. Wherever
Ruysdael appears, it is with a way of his own; self-contained, imposing, demand-
ing respect and attention, telling us that we have before us the mind of one
who comes of a great race, and who can always tell us something worth knowing.
Such are the grounds of Ruysdael's reputation, and they are enough. In him
wo see a man who thinks, and each of his works contains an idea. As thoughtful
in his way as the most thoughtful of his compatriots, with natural gifts similar to
theirs, he is, at the same time, more prone to reflection and emotion. More than
any other Dutchman did he possess that equilibrium which adds perfect unity
to other excellencies. In his pictures we find an air of plenitude, of serene certainty
and profound repose, which are the distinctive characteristics of his personality,
and prove that harmony never for a moment ceased to hold its sway over his fine
natural powers, his great experience, his lively sensibility, and his unwearied
thoughtfulness. He paints as he thinks, calmly, forcibly, and largely." We
could not put more clearly the influence of man's personality upon his work;
and this is the proposition which we sustain, and which, as we understand the
subject, is the unique and solid basis of all [esthetics.
chap, vi] DEFINITION OF ESTHETICS. 1C5
sembles the real one which served as model 1 What does that
matter ] Enough for us that it is a forest ; we only care about
that character, which, impressed upon the work, brings to us the
identical feeling of its author. We may say the same of the
Iliad, the Odyssey, the tragedies of iEschylus, of Sophocles, of
Euripides, of Corneille, of the dramas of Shakespeare and Victor
Hugo, of the Divine Comedy, of all the great achievements of
human genius. Who ever thinks, when reading these works, of
asking whether they are strictly in accord with the truth of
facts 1
Imitation is no more the aim of art, than a mere collection of
letters and syllables is the aim of a writer who wishes to express
his thoughts and feelings by the aid of the words which they form.
The poet arranging his verses, the musician composing his airs
and harmonies, are well aware that their real object lies beyond
words and notes. This distinction, as we have here explained it,
is perhaps less clear in matters of painting and sculpture. Some
artists, and these not the least capable, are quite convinced that
when they have a model before them, their one duty is to imitate
it. And indeed they do nothing else; and, by virtue of such
imitation they succeed in producing works of incontestable artistic
value.
Here we have simply a misunderstanding. If an artist were
really able to reduce himself to the condition of a copying
machine; if he could so far efface and suppress himself as to
confine his work to the servile reproduction of all the features
and details of an object or event passing before his eyes : the only
value his work would possess, would be that of a more or less exact
l>roces verbal, and it would perforce remain inferior to reality. Where
is the artist who would attempt to depict sunlight without taking
refuge in some legerdemain, calling to his aim devices which
the true sun would despise 1 But enough of this. Just because
he is endowed with sensibility and imaginative power, the artist,
in presence of the facts of nature or the events of history, finds
himself, whether he will or not, in a peculiar situation. However
106 ESTHETICS. [part i.
thorough a realist he may think himself, he does not leave himself
to chance. Now, choice of subject alone is enough to prove that,
from the very beginning, some preference has existed, the result
of a more or less predeterminate impression, and of a more or less
unconscious agreement between the character of the object and
that of the artist. This impression and agreement he sets to work
to embody in outward form ; it is the real aim of his work, and
its possession gives him his claim to the name of artist. Without
wishing or even knowing it, he moulds the features of nature to
his dominant impression and to the idea that caused him to take
pencil in hand. His work has an accidental stamp, in addition to
that of the permanent genius which constitutes his individuality.
Poet, musician, sculptor and architect, all pay more or less strict
obedience to the same law. To it, point all those rules of artistic
composition which pedantic academicism has subtly multiplied
until they contradict each other.
The more of this personal character that a work possesses ; the
more harmonious its details and their combined expression ; the
more clearly each part communicates the impression of the artist,
whether of grandeur, of melancholy or of joy ; in fine, the more
that expression of human sensation and will predominates over
mere imitation : the better will be its chance of obtaining sooner
or later the admiration of the world — always supposing that the
sentiment expressed be a generous one, and that the execution be
not of such a kind as to repel or baffle connoisseurs. It is not of
course impossible, that an artist endowed with an ill-regulated or
morbid imagination may place himself outside all normal con-
ditions and condemn himself to the eternal misapprehension of
the public. Impressions that are too particular, eccentric feelings,
fantastic execution or processes, which do nothing to raise the
intrinsic value or power of inspiration of a work, may give it so
strange and ultra-individual a character, that it may become
impossible for us to arrive at its real merit. The best qualities,
when exaggerated, become faults ; and that very personality or
individuality which, when added to imitative power, results in a
chap, vi.] DEFINITION OF .ESTHETICS. 107
work of art, produces when pushed to extravagance nothing but
an enigma.
We see, then, if we have succeeded in making ourselves under-
stood, that the beautiful in art springs mainly from the interven-
tion of the genius of man when more or less excited by special
emotion.
A work is beautiful when it bears strong marks of the indi-
viduality of its author, of the permanent personality of the artist,
and of the more or less accidental impression produced upon him
by the sight of the object or event rendered.
In a word, it is from the worth of the artist that that of his
work is derived. It is the manifestation of the faculties and
qualities he possesses which attracts and fascinates us. The
more sympathetic power and individuality that these faculties
and qualities display, the easier is it for them to obtain our love
and admiration. On the other hand, we, for a similar reason,
reject and contemn bold and vulgar works that by their short-
comings demonstrate the moral and intellectual mediocrity of
their authors, and prove the latter to have mistaken their vocation.
Consequently, then, beauty in art is a purely human creation.
Imitation may be its means, as in sculpture and painting ; or, on
the other hand, it may have nothing to do with it, as in poetry and
music. This beauty is of so peculiar a nature that it may exist
even in ugliness itself; inasmuch as the exact reproduction of an
ugly model may be a beautiful work of art, by the ensemble of
qualities which the composition of it may prove are possessed by
its author.
The very theory of imitation is but the incomplete and super-
ficial statement of the ideas which we are here advocating. What
is it that we admire in imitation 1 The resemblance ] We have
that much better in the object itself. But how is it that the
similitude of an ugly object can be beautiful 1 ? It is obvious that
between the object and its counterfeit some new element inter-
venes. This element is the personality, or, at least, the skill of
the artist. This latter, indeed, is what they admire who will have
103 ESTHETICS. [part i.
it that beauty consists in imitation. What these applaud, in fact,
is the talent of the artist. If we look below the surface and
analyse their admiration we shall find that it is so ; whether they
mean it or not, what they praise in a work is the worker.
This was the opinion of Burger, who, in his Salon of 1863, says :
" In works which interest us the authors in a way substitute them-
selves for nature. However common or vulgar the latter may be,
they have some rare and peculiar way of looking at it. It is
Chardin himself whom we admire in his representation of a glass
of water. We admire the genius of Rembrandt in the profound
and individual character which he imparted to every head that
posed before him. Thus did they seem to him, and this explains
everything simple or fantastic in his expression and execution."
After all this, we need not stop to refute the theory which would
found artistic beauty upon the imitation of "beautiful nature."
In spite of the brilliant reputation that its triumph in three
academies has given to M. Ch. Seveyne's book upon the science of
beauty, it does not seem to us to be founded upon arguments
worthy of respect j it has not shown us where " beautiful nature "
(la belle nature) is to be found in Le Pouilleux, in the Raft of the
Medusa, in the Battlefield of Eylau, in the character of Tartvffe, or
of La Mameffe.
The only beauty in a work of art is that placed there by the
artist. It is both the result of his efforts and the foundation of his
success. As often as he is struck by any vivid impression — whether
moral, intellectual, or physical — and expresses that impression by
some outward process — by poetry, music, sculpture, painting or
architecture — in such a way as to cause its communication with
the soul of spectator or auditor ; so often does he produce a work
of art the beauty of which will be in exact proportion to the
intelligence and depth of the sentiment displayed, and the power
shown in giving it outward form.
The union of all these conditions constitutes artistic beauty in
its most complete expression.
With a few reservations, then, we may preserve the definition of
to
chap, vi.] DEFINITION OF ^ESTHETICS. 109
aesthetics which usage has sanctified — The Science of Beauty. For '
the sake of clearness, however, and to prevent confusion, we prefer
to call it the Science of Beauty in Art. Had not the tyranny of
formulae by custom become too strong, we would willingly refrain
from using the word " beauty " at all, for it has the drawback of
being too exclusively connected with the sense of seeing, and of
calling up too much the idea of visible form. The employment of
this word became general when the art par excellence was sculp-
ture. To make it apply to the other arts, it was necessary to foist
upon it a series of extensions which deprived it of all accuracy.
Language possesses no word more vague or less precise. This
absence of precision has perhaps contributed more than might at !
first be supposed to that confusion of ideas which can alone explain
the multiplicity and absurdity of current eesthetic theories.
All these inconveniences and obscurities may be avoided by
simply putting it thus : —
^Esthetics is the science whose object is the study and elucida-
tion of the manifestations of artistic genius.
110 ^ESTHETICS. [part i.
CHAPTER VII.
DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART.
§ 1. Characteristics of Decorative Art — Decorative Art among the
Greeks.
The idea of beauty as understood by the ancients, and as denned
in most modern treatises upon aesthetics, is not in itself sufficient to
account for art. The two conceptions, to speak in academic style,
are not coterminous. Art goes far beyond mere beauty, and,
therefore, cannot be included in it. Their true connection is the
exact opposite. It is art which encloses the beautiful, just as it
encloses what is terrible or sad, ugly or joyous.
In fact there exists a distinct art, having beauty for its object,
and with a particular character of its own, which is one to be
carefully distinguished by us. This art arises from an instructive
and voluntary search for the pleasures of the eye and ear. It
is achieved mainly by arrangement of line, form, colour, sound,
rhythm, movement, light, and shade, without any necessity for
the intervention of idea or sentiment. This branch of plastic
art is called " decorative," in contradistinction to the other
branch, which is called " expressive " art.
It is essential to distinguish between the two things ; and it is
partly because this has not been done, that the science of aesthetics
has not even now emerged from its period of obscurity and confu-
sion, to which false conceptions have given so long a life.
The arts of design are not the only ones which may possess a
decorative character. It is to be found in the dance, in music, in
CHAP, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. Ill
poetry, and in rhetoric. Our ballet measures are usually nothing
but decorative dancing, with the one object, to please the eye.
The special character of Italian music, with its bravura airs, its
roulades, shakes and embellishments, is purely decorative, aiming
but to amuse the ear. Poetry, as understood by our modern Par-
nassians — who subordinate all thought and feeling to complex
conceits of rhyme and quaint concords of sound, who think more
of harmonious versification than of true or noble sentiment —
is decorative poetry. This description applies equally to that
academic kind of literature of which the most perfect examples
are the eloges of Thomas, the funeral orations of Flechier or the
poems of Delille, whose more or less successful resurrection occurs
whenever a new member is received by the French Academy. The
chief characteristic of such work is the laborious care taken to
make a grandiloquent speech without anything in it.
Does it follow, then, that decorative art must be false and con-
temptible? Certainly not. So long as it confines itself within
its proper limits, which may be said to be grace, prettiness, and
beauty, and refrains from obtruding itself in its search for novelty
into what is strange, or, in mere eccentricity, into what is old-
fashioned or false, decorative art is perfectly legitimate, and in
supplying a natural want, cannot be too much encouraged. All
lovers of art visited the great show of tapestries collected in 1876
in the Palais de V Industrie by the Union Centrale des Beaux Arts
appliques a Virulustrie. There was to be seen that great art in all
its splendour, the very tradition of which seems to become more
lost to us every day. 1 What harmony of colour! what taste in com-
position ! Had these old fellows some power in their eyes which
we are without 1 Nearly all the art of the eighteenth century,
1 The truth is, that the most natural combinations were long ago exhausted by
our ancestors, and the necessity for never-failing novelty has driven us to adopt
complications which are rarely happy : how can they be, when we consider the
modern dislike to the use of a subject more than once ? If we would but consent
to take our themes from the every-day life around us, we should there find har-
monies of line and colour which would enable us to avoid repetition without falling
into eccentricity. But what would the Academy say to this ?
112 AESTHETICS. [part t.
up to the Revolution at least, was purely decorative. Watteau
and Boucher, admirable as decorators, troubled themselves very
little about what we call " high art." They received from nature
a gift for infinite grace, stamping all their works with its inimi-
table and unmistakable seal.
Greek art itself partakes to a great extent of a decorative cha-
racter. I do not only refer to that charming form of art which
spreads with inexhaustible invention over the utensils of every- day
life. No, a decorative stamp is impressed upon almost all Greek
art until the day when it first began to take note of moral expres-
sion and human personality ; because, as we cannot too often
repeat, a decorative aim is not only compatible with what is grace-
ful and pleasing, it includes beauty also, in its generalities, so far
as it is expressed by form.
Here we come to an essential point upon which we must dwell
a little to obviate possible indefiniteness.
Sculpture was preeminently the chief of the arts in ancient
Greece. Now, its oldest monuments may be divided into two
distinct categories. On one side, we have the images of the gods,
the Zeus and Pallas of Phidias for instance, in which, as the
embodiments of divine power and wisdom, the dominant charac-
teristic was the expression of an attribute ; that is, of an idea.
On the other, we have the statues or reliefs which reproduced
scenes from heroic or religious mythology, and were intended for
the decoration of monuments.
This difference of purpose determines two tendencies in art
which we should be wrong to confuse. The former led to that
expressive sculpture of which Phidias afforded the earliest models ;
and the moral significance which he could not help giving both
to the separate features and to the complete personalities of his
statues, took gradually, in the works of his successors, a more
and more important place. The latter produced a form of art
that has ever remained subordinate to architecture, of which,
indeed, it is an integral part ; we call it ornament. This
latter art naturally made the refinement of linear contour its
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 113
main object, seeking for perfection of form and harmony of
effect; in fact, for the sculpturesque qualities which charm the
eye.
We must observe that those Greek sculptors who most strongly
insisted upon moral expression, were as faithful as any in their
representation of physical beauty. 1 This worship of plastic per-
fection was one of the dominant traits of the Greek intellect.
This kind of art has always been the most accessible to the public,
.and its examples the most numerous. This, too, is one of the
causes of the opinion which has been so general and so long-lived,
that beauty is the chief aim of sculpture; the existing aesthetic
rules of the arts which appeal to eyesight being constructed upon
this single conception.
It is true, however, that the poetic ideal of the Greeks is in-
finitely more comprehensive than, from such a starting point, we
might suppose.
The notion of beauty, expand it how we may, could never suffice
to give even the smallest idea of Greek poetry. The Iliad, the
Odyssey, the tragedies ofzEschylus, of Euripides, even of Sophocles,
are founded upon a conception of art at once broader and more
complex than Plato's system of eesthetics ; although the latter does
not confine itself within the bounds prescribed by the " sculptural
beauty" notion. In fact, Greek poetry was from the very begin-
ning the poetry of humanity, comprehending a crowd of senti-
ments and ideas that could not be explained by any such narrow
theory.
Music with its different methods, to the moral power of which
many an ancient tradition bears witness, could not, any more
than sculpture, be shut up within the narrow limits of the beauty
theory of aesthetics. Its province was not confined to the arrange-
1 We may put on one side realistic forms of art ; which, however, were not so
entirely neglected by the Greeks as we sometimes imagine, although th
be said to have exercised much influence. The art critics of antiquitj s iem I •
have utterly ignored them ; no doubt the influence of Tlato did much to h
in the background.
L
1U ESTHETICS. [parti-
ment of rhythm and souud so as to tempt the ear with more or
less agreeable sensations. It sought after expressive power and
obtained it. If it be restricted, like all the other arts, sculpture
included, to the refinement of certain qualities of form more or
less exterior to us, none the less is it a language which speaks to
the soul through the communicative faculty of emotion.
Even Greek dances, their sculpturesque character notwithstand-
ing, were in most cases equally expressive. Although they were
in one sense, by their study of graceful or severe attitudes, by
the rhythmical cadence of their movements and their harmonious
groupings, peculiarly decorative, still they were not reduced to be
merely spectacular. Their ambition was not to please the eye only
by presenting agreeable images ; the expression and communica-
tion of emotions were also aimed at and achieved. The "beauty"
theory, then, does not entirely embrace this art, no more than it
embraces sculpture or the rest of them.
From all these observations we may conclude that no single
form of expression appealing to either sight or hearing, can of
itself suffice as a foundation for a complete system of aesthetics,
unless we modify and arbitrarily extend the meaning of such ex-
pressions.
Another equally grave inconvenience from this point of view,
is the confusion caused between beauty in art and beauty in
nature.
Such confusion is easily understood when it occurs, for instance,
in decorative sculpture, the true aim of which is the almost literal
reproduction of the most perfect physical forms, for which reason
the model chosen is the almost absolute arbiter of the art whose
only aim is to reproduce it. 1 Plato has tried hard to make us
1 I do not mean to affirm that the Greeks made use of professional models, as
we do. The reverse has often been asserted, but in fact we know nothing about
it. Among a people whose costume veiled the form but slightly at any time, it is
possible that the habitual sight of the nude enabled their sculptors to dispense
with other aid ; that, however, is scarcely probable. On the other hand we know
by anecdotes which have come down to us, that in many cases sculptors confined
chap, til] DECORATIVE AXD EXPRESSIVE ART. 115
believe that the sculptor, instead of copying the figure which he has
before his 'eyes, applies himself mainly to the reproduction of ideal
forms which he has never seen; but such metaphysical theories can
never prevail against truth. The sculptor always does copy the
human form ; and if he be able to correct the faults of the model
posed before him, it is by virtue of the aid which he obtains, not
from an imaginary spectre of some divine prototype existing in
the unexplored depths of his own nature, but from the observa-
tions of bygone experience stored up by his memory. The beauty
of nature is, then, the source from which we obtain decorative art ;
and we may say, in one sense, that the value of the works is to be
measured by the power with which they reproduce the beauty of
their models. The beauty of a statue depends upon the refined
interpretation of a beautiful form ; a picture is beautiful when it
renders certain natural and pleasing effects, those of light and
shade for instance. The beauty of Claude Lorraine's landscapes
lies mainly in the power with which he works out the various
effects of sunlight appropriate to different hours of the day : as
for moral expression or human personality we must look for them
elsewhere. Landscape painting, as practised by Claude, is deco-
rative landscape in its highest perfection. Decorative is to ex-
pressive art, what Ariosto is to Homer. We have cited a few
examples of it in the painting of the 18th century. Watteau and
Boucher were admirable decorators. Greek sculpture was often
purely decorative. A certain number of the productions of the
renaissance, especially those which were founded upon mythology,
had but little of any other character. We might instance a great
deal of the work of Raphael, of Correggio, of Titian, and of Paul
Veronese : but the creations of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael
Angelo absolutely refuse to submit to any such classification,
themselves to the servile reproduction of actual models. Xeuxis got the young
girls of Agrigeutum to sit to him ; the bosom of Lais was the frequent model of
painters. Praxiteles made a statue of Phrvne ; the -women of Athens frequented
the studio of Phidias ; the iconical statues of the victors at Olympia were done
i >ui nature, and there are other instances.
i 2
116 ESTHETICS. [part i.
although the latter hardly ever worked except in decoration.
Must we include Rubens among the decorators 1 It is certain
that a vast number of his canvases have for their chief merit the
power to enchant the eye by glorious displays of colour ; but
there are many where this magic colour is united with power of
movement, with moral expression and epic meaning. Now the
presence of lively and sincere emotion is fatal to decorative cha-
racter ; it constitutes both the superiority and the distinguishing
feature of expressive art. Its possession, to give examples from
cognate arts, made Demosthenes and Mirabeau superior to Cicero,
Shakespeare and Corneille to Racine. The eloquence of Cicero
was decorative, so are the tragedies of Racine ; the rhetoric of
Demosthenes and Mirabeau, like the drama of Shakespeare and Cor-
neille, was "expressive ;" because, instead of attempting to please
the public and gratify their fancy, it set about convincing them
by a sincere and vivid statement of the feelings and ideas of the
orators. It was, in fact, living and spontaneous eloquence, in the
literal sense of the word ; while Cicero, like too many of the cha-
racters of Racine, was always thinking of the external effect to be
produced.
§ 2. Expressive art. — Grace and beauty are not necessarily found in
expressive art. — Expression and abstract beauty.
These distinctions in the two kinds of art are never so clearly
defined in reality as in theory. Decorative art does not exclude
all expression or expressive art ; and expressive art does not con-
sider itself at liberty, simply because it is founded upon feeling,
to disregard all consideration of form and contour, or to despise
the, in one sense, exterior rules to which all forms of art must
submit. The whole matter is in fact a question of degree; taste
may comprehend it, but the scrupulous critic would find it a very
difficult matter to formulate any absolute or precise rule upon
the subject. Who shall dare to say that all sincere emotion is
banished from the rhetoric of Cicero, or that the pictures of
passion, which we find in the drama of Racine, are entirely
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 117
artificial, and have no object but to give momentary pleasure to
an audience 1 It would be equally hardy to pretend that neither
Demosthenes nor Mirabeau cared to please those who listened to
their eloquence ; or that we could not find in their speeches
bravura passages, only meant to hide the want of passion,
which either has never been felt or has grown cold. If we
reviewed, one by one, the works of the artists whom we class
among the decorators, it might not be easy, in each case, to deter-
mine exactly the causes of the impressions which decide the cate-
gory in which they should respectively be placed. But we may
be sure that, after such an examination, we should possess a mass
of partial but successive impressions, which would leave us in no
doubt as to our ultimate conclusion. In the distinction which we
have set up, there is a point of difficulty, however, which is not
without apparent weight. We must refer to it in passing, that
we may anticipate objections to which it might give rise.
We may say that evei-y work of art is expressive, so far as it
manifests the manner in which its author understands the sensa-
tion or sentiment which belongs to it, and so far as it gives a
measure of the impression which he has received, and of the power
of expression which he possesses. This is quite true as a general
proposition. But, in spite of its intrinsic truth, it has, in the
present case, no value. A work cannot be ranged in the category
of expressive creations, except on condition of possessing evidence
of an imaginative power and sensibility above the average. It is
clear enough that if, aesthetically speaking, it is unable to suggest
to our minds the true meaning of its author, such inability woidd
suffice to chiss it in our eyes among vulgar works, and to deprivo
it of all expressive merit.
But this is not all. A work may easily escape being vulgar, in
some aspects it may even be very worthy of distinction, without
deserving a place in the category of expressive art. This occurs
whenever the sentiment or character expressed by the work takes a
general and impersonal form, and causes us to look upon the artist
as wanting in individuality in his power both of comprehension and
118 AESTHETICS. [parti.
of feeling. In a word, whenever in presence of a work of art, we
are not impressed by any clearly indicated individuality of senti-
ment, we feel that such a work, no matter what may be its other
merits, is not an expressive work in the true sense of the phrase.
A few examples will make this notion more easily understood.
Certain artists have had for their chief aim elegance of form com-
bined with grace of attitude and movement. Parmigiano, Guido,
and Albani, had scarcely any other idea. Now, the dominant
characteristic of grace is absence of effort in either attitude or
movement. All visible exertion of force destroys grace. The body,
during any muscular effort, becomes stiff, the muscles swell, the
head is thrown back, the limbs are strained. Hence arise a mul-
tiplicity of angles, of straight or broken lines, suggesting the idea
of power ; whilst, on the other hand, the notion of grace is con-
veyed by a combination of curved lines that excludes all idea of
effort. The observation of this fact suggested to Hogarth his theory
of the serpentine line of beauty.
Whence comes the pleasure which the contemplation of grace
affords us 1 The answer is : from the more or less unconscious
but very real sentiment of human sympathy, which makes us in-
voluntary partakers in the joys or sufferings that come before our
eyes. As the sight of a painful effort oppresses us and gives us
sympathetic pain, so does an easy and graceful action arouse in
us an instinctive feeling of muscular repose and calmness — the
invariable result of seeing great strength at rest. But here our
impression is limited to the spectacle itself, without going outside
of it. The personality of the artist is not in question. The more
he has succeeded in rendering this absence of effort, the more do
we abandon ourselves to the satisfactory feeling resulting from his
work, and the less do we trouble ourselves about himself. Such a
result always seems to have been achieved naturally and without
effort, and gives an appearance of impersonality which is the direct
opposite of that which we consider the essential characteristic of
expressive art.
It must be clearly understood that we are here speaking of
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 119
grace in attitude and movement only, which is a simple question
of form. What we have said above cannot be applied to grace in
facial expression, for this presupposes some sentiment of moral
perfection, and is consequently outside the limit of decorative art.
From the same point of view, the question of beauty is more
complex than that of grace. It may be considered under two
different aspects. We may either confine ourselves to the mutual
relations of the lines and forms which are its constituents ; or,
going deeper, we may endeavour to establish the connections
Avhich attach certain classes of form to superior moral significance.
To the man who reflects, and analyses the reasons of his pre-
ferences, it seems very difficult to separate these two points of
view — because so soon as beauty has been acknowledged to be
superior to ugliness, we at once want to know how and why it is
superior. If we analyse beauty of face, we shall always find the
causes of its superiority to lie in its moral expression. To take
one by one the constituents of ugliness, a prominent and heavy
jaw, cheek bones standing out on each side, low forehead, large
mouth, thick and protruding lips, oblique and staring eves — all
these are precisely the salient characteristics of inferior races, and
even of the animals. Physiologically, they result from the inferior
development of the intellectual organs, and the predominance of
purely physical instincts over moral wants. 1
We find then that the idea of beauty springs from, and is justi-
fied by, a conception of moral superiority, which again is derived
from physiological observation.
The beauty of the body is no more arbitrary than that of the
face. It consists essentially in the appropriateness of the organs
for their work, with this difference — the functions of the body are
almost exclusively physical, and therefore the idea of moral per-
fection has a much less important share in its appreciation.
We might say, then, that as Greek art is founded mainly upon
the idea of beauty, it must be essentially expressive. Such astate-
1 See Herbert Spencer on the development of this physiological proposition in
'\Essays on Various Subjects."
120 ESTHETICS. [part I.
ment would, however, generally be erroneous, because Greek artists
do not seem to have been much preoccupied with the ideas which
the forms they produced were calculated to express. With the
exception of a few works — as, for example, the Jupiter of Phidias,
in which the exaggeration of the facial angle makes evident the
intention to bring into prominence the intellectual superiority
proper to the chief of the gods — it is very certain that Grecian
sculptors simply made use of the relative perfection of the living
models provided for them in abundance by their gifted race. They
instinctively chose those models whose conformation reproduced the
essential characteristics of the race in the greatest purity, and never
doubted that such conformation was the result and the outward
physiological evidence of moral and functional superiority. They
imitated the appearances which they had under their eyes, seldom
going beyond them ; and when they did make corrections, it was
only with intent to conform to the type of beauty to which their
eyes bad become accustomed, but never to give greater relief to the
moral conception of which that type might be either the product
or the physiological instrument. Now, the word expression itself
carries with it a double idea — the sign, and the thing signified.
From the moment that these two terms cease to maintain their
reciprocal relation in the thought of the artist — though he may
show powers of imitation, reproduction, even of idealization, he
will be without expression. A work may be admirable from the
point of view of an art founded solely upon the idea of beauty ;
but it is not therefore expressive in the correct and complete
sense of the word, if it fail to give rise to the idea of a personal
and subjective creation — that is to say, of an intelligence mani-
festing, under visible and material form, an individual sentiment
or idea suggested by the object or spectacle represented. 1
1 Hermann Ilettner, an enthusiastic admirer of Winckelmann (Revue Moderne,
l.st January, 186(>), frankly acknowledges this. " The imperfection of "Winckel-
mann's work," he says, "consists in the fact that his fundamental idea is some-
what narrow and inadequate to explain even his notion of the essence of beauty
and its realization by art. Winckelmann himself has Dot deferred to the prejudices
of his limes; for he never shook himself free from the idea bequeathed bylEseraud
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 121
Those critics who have devoted themselves to Greek art with
the most exclusive worship, have, far from denying its neglect of
moral expression, greeted this very neglect as a merit, considering
it altogether voluntary and systematic. This is no more than the
logical consequence of their method of appreciation. The ideal of
the great artists of Greece, say they, was " pure beauty." If the
term have a meaning, it is the denial of all search after expression.
What we mean by expression, is the manifestation by attitude
and physiognomy of the habitual sentiments or accidental emotions
of the soul ; that is, of the dispositions or passions which constitute
the moral life. If it be one of the characteristics which distinguish
modern from ancient art, to what conclusion does it point, if not
to the absence in antique sculpture of the manifestation of the
moral life 1 But then, what do they mean by pure beauty, if not
this absence of moral life 1 Would they consider it a merit if the
Mengs, and continued to believe with them that the production of ideal forms, of
forms, that is, superior to reality, was the final aim of art and its essential con-
stituent. In every effort which, following the Platonic theory, he made to grasp
the constitution of the beautiful, he never had any conception of it other than as
the beauty of form or plastic perfection ; he saw in it no incarnation or expression
of ideas, of intellect, of sentiments, of natural proclivities. The intellectual prin-
ciple of art seems never to have dawned upon him. Beauty for him consists in
unity and majesty of form, in a certain typical generalisation ; or, to employ a fan-
tastic word ruined by himself, "Inappropriation" — that is to say, "in forms neither
appropriate to any particular person, nor to the expression of any state of the soul
or of the passions, for these," he said, " would introduce foreign traits into beauty
and would destroy its unity! " According to this, beauty should be like the purest
water drawn from a spring, which is considered healthy in proportion as it is
without taste and if it contains no foreign bodies. The radical defect in this way of
looking at things is strongly felt when Winckehnann, leaving the bounds of Greek
art history, proceeds to consider the more general character of a;sthetics. As
beauty of form in art is for him absolute — possessing a distinct reality of its own,
itself the aim instead of being the creation of art and a product of the imagina-
tion ilistined to give expression to feelings and ideas — the ideal, as he conceives
it, is no longer pliable and variable, adapting itself to the diversity of notions
and times, a thing determinate and individual like the sentiment which it is used
to express, but it is unique, universal, imposing itself alike upon all peoples and
upon all arts, in all ages. "Truth," says Winckehnann, "is one and never
changes." It follows that modern art finds no grace in his eyes, except in so far
as it approaches a Greek ideal.
122 ESTHETICS. [pakt i.
ancients cared only for physical life 1 Do the critics and the
dilettanti mean to bring us back to the exclusive worship of
corporeal beauty, under the partly false pretext that the Greeks
could neither have known or understood any other]
To this their logic will lead them, and yet they will not
allow that it is their goal. Such critics elude the conclusion
forced upon them by their apparently unconscious psychological
confusion. What they call " pure beauty " is nothing more than
physical beauty, the harmony and perfection of line and form,
though they mean more by it. They really, without knowing or
wishing it, add some indefinable and impossible moral expression,
which is in itself a contradiction of their theory, and the absurdity
of which a moment's consideration will suffice to prove.
A statue or painting that expresses some attitude or condi-
tion of the soul other than perfect immobility, cannot impart an
idea of abstract beauty ; because any particular emotion, permanent
or transitory, that requires for its outward expression special
contractions or developments of the muscles and features, cannot
but destroy the geometric and physiologic harmony of the typical
human form as conceived in its mathematical perfection. It must
disturb that supreme ataraxy, that serene repose, which is essen-
tial to the visible manifestation of pure and abstract beauty.
We are once more then brought to our old conclusion : that pure
beauty consists in the negation of all expression. It is summed up
in the unflinching application of all the geometrical laws of pro-
portion recognized as constituting the canon of physical perfection.
To give an example— the Venus of Milo seems to be one of the
most perfect models of beauty left to us by antiquity. Certainly
the statue is fair, but under what conditions? We grant its beauty
only on condition of being allowed to fancy that it will not for ever
rest under the spell of moral immobility. Its form is perfect,
and, thanks to this perfection, we consent to wait indefinitely for
its reanimation. It is this quasi possibility and pleasing expec-
tancy which endow the figure with beauty ; in fact, it seems to us
beautiful because it appears able to be so in more ways than
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AXD EXPRESSIVE ART. 123
one ; its physical is but the promise of its moral beauty. More-
over, as its organism is complete in all its parts and of just
balance, no feature so predominates as to determine beforehand the
characteristics of the moral manifestation to be revealed in some
imagined future ; and in contemplating the image of the goddess,
we dwell in a state of general and undefined admiration which
is not directed into any one channel more than another. This
condition of the mind creates in us the idea of what is called
abstract beauty.
The thing itself is altogether artificial and illusory. Such beauty
is only fair in our eyes on condition that its existence is about to
cease, and that it is able to throw aside its immobility. The
theory of the ancients was an exactly opposite one. 1 Abstract
beauty to them was beauty far excellence ; just because it could
not be reconciled with any moral expression or manifest emotion of
the soul, for this would cause its instant disappearance. Abstract
beauty, with the Greeks, consisted essentially in moral immo-
bility ; that is, in suppression of the interior life and in the per-
fection of the body alone — the perfection of the soul having no
other external interpretation than the absolute equilibrium of all
the organs, and vanishing entirely upon the failure of this exact
balance. Thus it is that those successors of Phidias who attempted
to extend the province of sculpture to the expression of certain
passions and sentiments, generous enough in themselves, have
been accused of corrupting Greek art.
Though the conception of the beautiful which we have just
described was much less narrow and despotic in the poetry of the
time, still it was for cognate reasons that Euripides was long
considered a poet of the decadence. He breathed into his own
branch of art a study of humanity and human feelings which,
had it not clashed with the .prejudices that transcendental philo-
1 All the moral theories of the Greeks pointed to one conclusion upon this point.
Their moral ideal was the final suppression of all passion ; ami their ideal of phy-
sical beauty was the reflection, through constant immobility of feature, of eternal
repose of the soul.
124 .ESTHETICS. [part i.
sophers guarded with so jealous a care, would have restored
that art.
The personce of the tragedies of iEschylus are impersonal. The
fatal power of events, the logical consequences of acts, dominate
over and sway his characters. Action with him is everything ;
marching over his men and women, it breaks their wills and
crushes them. Sophocles follows the same system ; and, although
humanity in his works holds a much more important place, al-
though the assertion of liberty, or rather the demand for it, is
sometimes found in them, still his men remain more the instru-
ments and victims of facts than the controllers of them. With
both these poets action is the chief care. It may be called the
hero of their dramas.
Euripides on the other hand opens up a new system. He pre-
sents to us man with all his passions. If his heroes perish, they
are themselves, at least in some degree, the authors of their fall,
for they are free agents and the masters of their own will. Not
that the antique notion of fatality is entirely absent from his work.
It appears in his mode of conceiving passion, for this he describes
as a blind and indomitable force, often, and somewhat fantasti-
cally, mixed up with the sentiment of human freedom. Nor has
he any active consciousness of the revolution which he is accom-
plishing. He ever remains influenced by recollections of the old
traditions, and even believes himself to be faithful to them. The
psychological and human tendency which struggles into light in
nearly all his plays, suffices to show us the narrow field to which
he believed it necessary to confine his conceptions. Hence the
indecision of plot with which he has so often been reproached. It
has not been recognized as the logical consequence of his mode of
conceiving tragedy, nor has it been clearly understood, that, so
soon as the human soul became the active and dominant person-
age, thenceforward it was impossible to accommodate the arrange-
ment proper to the tragic action of the fatalistic drama, to the
development of the new idea.
The decadence which began with Euripides, real, if we look
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 125
only at the unity of form in his works, was, in fact, progress, if
we look at their aim and directing idea. This latter was the sub-
stitution of a psychological for a fatalistic conception.
The comedy of manners, too, dates from Euripides. To his
example must be referred the psychologic diama of the seventeenth
century ; and this fact explains both the instinctive preference felt
by Racine for his works, and the discord manifested by the French
poet between his treatment of the historic events that foim the
ostensible subjects of his plays, and the delineations of passion
which form their real interest.
Expressive art, then, has nothing to do with beauty, whatever
we may consider that to be ; or, at least, for it, beauty of nature
can only be a point of departure or an accessory. It does not
despise beauty; it willingly interprets it when occasion shall arise,
but with no exclusive preference. Look at the series of celebrated
portraits by famous and great painters. Does appreciation of the
natural beauty of the models have any effect upon our estimate
of the work 1 Who shall have the hardihood to say that Rem-
brandt, who perhaps never painted a beautiful figure as Greeks
and academic critics understand the word, is any less an artist
than Raphael, the only great painter that ever took special pains
to elaborate physical beauty 1 Dare we call the pictures of David
perfect works 1 And yet his personages are academically faultless !
No ! perfect art does not necessarily concern itself with beauty
of form unless the object have been specially designed for art use.
We must expel the idea. It confuses and falsifies principle, ami
disturbs the consciences of young artists. The theory that makes
beauty the one aim of art may be very well for narrow intellects,
such as that of Ingres, which see nothing but beauty of line, and
sacrifice to its attainment all that manifests human character,
sentiment, or idea. 1
1 The devotees of beauty did not hesitate to give most startling illustrations of
the falsity of their own theories. How much of the work of Ingres will live \ His
portraits — and these are in absolute contradiction to his abseiled principles, and
their value is the resuit of that disagreement.
126 ESTHETICS. [part I.
§ 3. Resume.
To sum up — there are two distinct kinds of art. The one, de-
corative art, we understand to be that whose main object is the
gratification of the eye and ear, and whose chief means perfection
of form are harmony and grace of contour, diction or sound. Such
art rests upon the desire for beauty, and has nothing in view be-
yond the peculiar delight caused by the sight of beautiful objects.
It has produced admirable works in the past, and may produce them
again now or in the future, on condition that its inspiration be
sought in actual and existing life, and not in the imitation of works
sanctified by time. We must recognize, however, that modern art
has no tendency in this latter direction. Beauty no longer suffices
for us. Indeed, for the last two thousand years something more
has been required; for even among the chefs d'couvre of the Greeks
not a few owe their creation to a different sentiment. Some of
the great artists of antiquity were, certainly occupied with the
interpretation of the moral life ; and had not time destroyed
their painted works, we should, at the present moment, probably
be able to show absolute proofs of this tendency. But we may
readily dispense with the confirmation which they would have
afforded to our arguments ; for we find more than sufficient evi-
dence in the avowed character of the music of the Greeks, in many
of the most important works of their sculptors, and in most of
their great poems.
The chief characteristic of modern art — of art, that is, left to
follow its own inspiration free from academic patronage — is power
of expression. Through form this, the second kind of art, traces
the moral life, and endeavours to occupy man, body and soul, but
with no thought of sacrificing the one to the other. It is ever
becoming more imbued with the quite modern idea that the whole
being is one, metaphysicians notwithstanding, and that its aim
can only be complete by refusing to separate the organ from its
function. The moral life is but the general result of the condi-
tions of the physical. The one is bound to the other by necessary
chap, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 127
connections which cannot be broken without destroying both. The
first care of the artist should be to seek out and grasp the methods
of manifestation so as to comprehend and master their unity.
Art, thus understood, demands from its votary an ensemble of
intellectual faculties higher and more robust than if founded
solely upon an ideal of beauty. Art founded upon the latter
notion would be sufficiently served by one possessing an acute
sense of the beautiful — the degree of his sensibility being indicated
by the plastic perfection of his work. But expressive art demands
a capability of being moved by many varying sentiments, demands
the power to penetrate beneath outward appearances and to seize
a hidden thought, the power to grasp either the permanent cha-
racteristic or the particular and momentary emotion ; in a word,
it demands that complete eloquence of representation which art
might have dispensed with while it confined itself to the investi-
gation or delineation of a single expression, but which became
absolutely indispensable from the moment that the interpretation
of the entire man became its avowed object.
We may say, too, that modern art is doubly expressive ; because,
while the artist is indicating by form and sound the sentiments
and ideas of the personages whom he introduces, he is also by
the power and manner of such manifestation giving an unerring
measure of his own sensibility, imagination, and intelligence.
Expressive art is in no way hostile to beauty ; it makes use of
it as one element in the subjects which require it, but its domain
is not enclosed within the narrow bounds of such a conception. It
is by no means indifferent to the pleasures of sight and hearing,
but it sees something beyond them. Its worth must not be
measured only by perfection of form, but also and chiefly, by
the double power of expression which we have pointed out, aDd,
as we must not omit to add,. by the value of the seutiments and
ideas expressed. This latter point is too often and wrongly ignored
by artists.
Between two works which give evidence of equal talent — that
is to say, of equal facility to grasp the true accents and charuc-
128 ESTHETICS. [paiit I.
teristics of nature, and equal power to bring out both the inner
meaning of things and the personality of the artist — we, for our
part, would not hesitate to accord the preference to that of which
the Conception showed the more vigorous intelligence and elevated
feeling. The art critics seem to have made it one of their prin-
ciples to take no account of choice of subject, but only to look at
the technical result. Such a principle is plausible rather than
true. The individuality of the author can never be excluded from
a work, and choice of subject is frequently one of the points by
which this individuality is most clearly indicated.
Jt is true, of course, that elevation of sentiment can never take
the place of art talent. On this point we cannot too strongly
condemn the practice of academic juries who, on the one hand,
reward mere mechanical labour simply because it has been exer-
cised upon what are called classic subjects ; and, on the other,
f ...
persecute more independent artists to punish their obstinacy m
deserting the beaten track. Nothing, then, can be further from
our thoughts than to require critics to substitute, in every case,
consideration of the subject for that of the work itself ; or to con-
demn d, priori all artists who remain faithful to the traditions,
ideas, and sentiments of the past. In these, indeed, some find
their only inspiration. We only wish to affirm our conviction
that choice of subject is not so indifferent a matter as some say it
is, and that it must be taken into account as of considerable
weight in determining an opinion of a work of art.
The necessity for this is one consequence of the distinction
which we have established between decorative and expressive art.
The former, solely devoted to the gratification of eye and ear,
affords no measure of its success beyond the pleasure which it
gives. The latter, whose chief object is to express the feelings
and ideas, and, through them, to manifest the power of conception
and expansion possessed by the artist, must obviously be esti-
mated, partly at least, by the moral or other value of the ideas
and sentiments in question. And, as the value of a work depends
directly upon the capability of its author, and as many artists
CHAP, vii.] DECORATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ART. 129
have been about equal in their technical ability, we must be ready
to acknowledge that moral and intellectual superiority is a real
superiority, and is naturally marked by the possession of an
instinctive and spontaneous power of sympathy.
In the following pages we shall treat mainly of expressive art,
which, with every day that passes, becomes more predominant, and
is surely destined to be the art of the future.
130 .ESTHETICS. [part i.
CHAPTER VIII.
STYLE.
§ 1. Individual style — Impersonal style — Style in Greek sculpture.
Style is the man, says Buffon ; and he is right. Get some one
who can read, to read a page of Demosthenes and of Cicero, of
Bossuet and of Massillon, of Corneille and of Racine, of Lamartine
and of Victor Hugo. However slight may be your literary percep-
tions, you will at once notice that no two of them sound the same.
Apart altogether from the subjects or ideas, which may be identical,
each one has an air, an accent, wmich can never either be con-
founded or replaced. In some of them we find elegance, finesse,
grace, the most seductive and soothing harmony ; in others, a force
and elan like the sound of a trumpet, enough to awaken the Seven
Sleepers.
Style only exists by virtue of what Burger calls the laiv of
separation. " A being only exists in consequence of his separation
from other beings This law of successive detach-
ment — which alone renders progress possible — may be proved to
influence the course of religion, of politics, of literature and of
art. What was the renaissance but a break in the continuity of
the middle ages 1 " It is by style, by the manner of compre-
hension, of feeling and interpretation, that epochs, races, schools
and individuals are separated and distinguished one from the
other. In all the arts, analogous differences are to be found ;
plainly marked, in proportion as a more or less extensive field is
offered for the development of artistic personality. Michael
chap, vnr.] STYLE. 131
Angelo and Raphael, Leonardo and Veronese, Titian and Cor-
reggio, Rubens and Rembrandt, resembled each other no more and
no less than Beethoven resembled Rossini ; Weber, Mozart ; or
Wagner resembles Verdi. Each has his own style, his peculiar
mode of thinking and feeling, and of expressing those feelings and
thoughts.
Why have mediocre artists no style 1 For the same reasons
that they are mediocrities. The particular characteristic of
mediocrity is commonness or vulgarity of thought and feeling. At
each moment in the evolution of a social system, there is a general
level which marks, for that moment, the average value of the
human soul and intellect. Such works as rise above this general
level, imply an amount of talent or genius in exact proportion to
the amount of superior elevation and spontaneity which they dis-
play. Mediocrity comes up to the general level, but does not pass
it ; thus the mediocre artist thinks and feels like the ordinary run
of mankind, and has nothing to " separate " him from the crowd.
He may have a manner, an ensemble of habits of working peculiar
to himself ; but he can have no style in the accurate sense of the
word. Facility is not style ; for the latter is really a product, a
reverberation, if we may use the word, from the soul itself, and
can no more be artificially acquired than can the sonorousness
of bronze or silver be acquired by lead
1 " Painting is perhaps more tell-tale than any other art. It is an absolutely
truthful witness to the moral state of a painter when he has brush in hand.
What he wills to do, that he really does. What his will only feebly desired is
obvious from the undecided result. What he willed not at all is, of course, absent
from his work, though he may not think so. Any distraction or forgetfulness ;
any languor in feeling or shallow insight ; any little relaxation of efforts, or falling
off in interest in his subject ; any weariness of work or insatiable passion for it ;
all the shadows of his nature and intermissions of his sensibility: find a record in
the finished work of the painter, as clear as if he had literally made the world his
confidant. We can conjecture, with certainty, from the pictures of a conscientious
portrait painter what his behaviour was in presence of his sitters." — Eugene
Fromentin, Lee Matt res cP Autrefois, p. 120.
What Fromentin here says of painting may be applied, more or less, to all the
arts ; we may even say to all the manifestations of the soul of man. We do not
need to study the works of great painters and poets to be convinced of the fact.
K 2
132 AESTHETICS. [fart i.
Does it follow that those who deserve the title of artist possess
style innately ; that it is to be seen as clearly in their youthful
and imperfect works as in those of their maturity 1 We are very
far from entertaining any such belief. The most gifted men find,
in the experience of their lives and the practice of their art,
sources of inspiration previously undreamt of. Genius can be
elevated and widened by judicious education. Although it may
not be completely enclosed in that which forms the basis of its
individuality, yet it has the power to develop itself very greatly ;
and style, which is no more than the result, or rather, the mani-
festation of such progress at each moment of its evolution, naturally
follows all its various phases.
This method of understanding style is pretty generally accepted,
when its consideration is confined to the particular work of any
one artist. But the word is also used by art critics in an absolute
sense to which we can scarcely give our consent.
M. Ch. Blanc says in his Grammaire des Arts duDessin that " by
reason of these differences in style, which represent the various
shades of feeling and thought of the great masters who have con-
We shall find plenty of proofs in the course of our everyday life. Gesture, atti-
tude, the carriage of the eyes, the sound of the voice, constantly reveal the etam es
in our moral condition. With the help of a little experience, we may sometimes
discover a complete drama in the most seemingly simple conversation. How
much easier must it be, then, to do so when we have before us the works of artists,
of the men who, by nature, are the most impressionable, and whose impressions
enjoy the most spontaneous outward interpretation. Any one who listens atten-
tively to the reading of a poem, to an oration, or to a piece of music, can easily
distinguish between the passages which come from the author's heart and those in
which his inspiration failed. Such discrimination is, perhaps, more ditlirult in
the arts which appeal to the eye, for in these it requires more particular study,
whereas most people give it but slight attention. It does not, however, escape
the discerning critic.
The salient characteristic of art is its power to transform and personalize
realities. But such transformation, to be artistic, must be involuntary ; that is,
the impression from which it springs must be absolutely lively and spontaneous,"
and also sufficiently long-lived for the complete achievement of the work. Vivacity,
spontaneity, and, still more often, persistence of impression, are all wanting in
mediocre artists. They try to supply their place by academic procedures, by
nostrums and secret processes to which true artists need never turn.
chap, vin.] STYLE. 1*3
secrated them, it follows that there is some universal and absolute
quality which we know under the name of style. As his style is
the distinguishing mark of such-and-such a man, so style is the
imprint of humanity upon nature. In its highest sense it ex-
presses the ensemble of traditions handed down by masters from
age to age, and, including every classical way of looking at beauty,
it is beauty itself. It is the opposite of pure realism ; it is the
embodiment of the ideal. A painter who has style sees the great
side even of little things ; while the realistic imitator sees the small
side even of great things. A work possesses style, when the objects
in it are represented under their typical aspect, in their primitive
essence — freed from all insignificant details, simplified, elevated.
Architecture which inspires no sentiment, awakes no thought, has
no claim to style. Paintings or statues are without style when,
aiming to be but literal and mechanical transcripts of nature, they
betray no human feeling. So a landscape produced by such an
apparatus as the camera lucida cannot have style, any more than
an image reflected in a mirror. A photograph is without style ;
although we do sometimes recognize in it some of the preferences
of its author, in his manner of arranging his model and managing
the incidence of light so as to accentuate forms or soften them.
But at best we can only call this a kind of superior trade mark."
" The Dutch school is without style, because it has ever been
destitute of beauty ; but it has played a brilliant part in a lower
walk of art, the aim of which is consummate execution. The
schools of Italy, as exemplified in the works of Leonardo, Michael
Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, were all grand in style. But
the Greeks alone, when at the zenith of their excellence, seem to
have attained for a moment, under Pericles, to style absolute and
perfect ; to that impersonal and therefore sublime form of art upon
which most of the elevated characteristics of beauty are founded —
a godlike mingling of sweetness and strength, dignity and warmth,
majesty and grace. Winckelmann has penned these profoundly true
words : ' Perfect beauty is like pure water, it has no particular
savour.' So in the sculptures of the Parthenon, the personality
1U ,ESTIIETICS. [part i.
of the sculptor is so entirely effaced, that they are rather the
creation of art itself than the work of an artist : Phidias, instead
of animating them with a breath from his own souL has inspired
them with the universal soul of man." l
We have cited this passage in spite of its length because it
seems to show very clearly one of the points that characterise
the better class of idealists, and furnishes us with an opportunity
to indicate precisely the illusion into which they seem to have
fallen.
In every artist whose personality is stamped on his works, we
recognize a particular style, the unfailing mark of such personality.
Beyond this peculiar style of each artist, we admit the existence of
the style of the school, nation, or race, to which he belongs. This
style, too, is as much a mark of the personality of a race or school
as that of an individual is of his, and is composed of the various
features which are common to the works of art of such groups-
There is, of course, a Greek style, as well as an Egyptian, a
Syrian, and an Arabian style ; then there is the style of the
Venetians, which differs from that of the Florentines, from the
schools of Rome and Lombardy. But when we begin to talk of
essential style, of absolute, abstract, or impersonal style, we are
1 It is interesting to compai - e such development of opinion in an art critic of the
first order, who, after having once " looked," as he said, "upon the ideal as but
a cloudy phrase " — abstract ideal, and impersonal style being one and the same
thing — has completely turned his back upon his old beliefs, as the following passage
will prove: — "Critics have one word which they air at every opportunity, which
word drops out of sight whenever they attempt to practically explain works of
art ; — the ideal. What is this ideal ? Is it in a subject or in the manner of its
portrayal ? If the ideal exist in Raphael's school of Athens, where can we find it
in Rembrandt's school of anatomy? Why is a landscape byPoussin more ideal than
one by Ruysdael ? We do not mean to act sphinx to these artistic mysteries. If
symbolic intention constitute idealism, the most downright of naturalists has only
to paint a drowsy female and dub his picture Slumber. Thereupon the critics will
find a peg on which to hang most ingenious speculations. ' Death, it is sleep . . .
or perhaps awakening! and so on' — just as the line groups of shepherds near an
ancient tomb in Poussin's Arcadia rouse profound reflections upon the uncertainty
of happiness and the shortness of life, Such philosophical amusements may exercise
the faculties as easily before a smoker by Brower as before a muse by the Carracci.
' That smoker ! what depth of allegory ! Alaa ! all things vanish like smoke !
chap, viii.] STYLE. 135
at sea. If we admit that the impersonal style is beauty, we still
have to face the fact that beauty is felt in very dissimilar ways
by different artists. How are we to reconcile this diversity with a
style which, as it is absolute, must logically be without internal
change 1 In the school to which M. Ch. Blanc belongs, it is under-
stood that Raphael is the great painter of beauty. But beauty,
as he understood and interpreted it, has nothing in common with
the quality under the same name as rendered by Leonardo, Michael
Angelo, or Rubens.
" Raphael," says Jules de Goncourt in his Notes de Voyage, " has
created a classic type for the Virgin by carrying ordinary beauty
to perfection — the absolute reverse of the system of Da Vinci, who
sought beauty in rare excellence of type and refinement of expres-
sion. The former has given her an altogether human serenity of
character, a formal and holy beauty which is almost Jesus-like.
His virgins are ripe and dignified mothers, wives of St. Joseph.
He thoroughly realised the metier assigned by the faithful to the
mother of God. His pictures will be ever popular. They will
remain to eternity the clearest representations of the Virgin of
good Catholics ; the most general, accessible, easily understood in
their divine authority ; the most grateful to the mingled desire for
art and piety. The Madonna della Sedia will ever be the academic
type of the deification of woman."
These remarks may seem a little harsh and exaggerated, but
Life is short, happiness is fleeting, virtue is the one thing to be desired. ' So
we return to the arcadia of Poussin in company with a haunter of tap
rooms ! "
"Truly art is more single-minded than criticism. The true artist has more
ingenuousness. He is satisfied to represent what he sees, and to express what he
feels — two things, insight and feeling, inseparable from every really worthy artistic
achievement. It is the ego and the non-ego of philosophy naively and irresistibly
put into action; a form borrowed from external nature, and animated by tin i
timent which it inspires in the inner man of him who borrows it. Nature and
humanity are, indivisibly and at one time, both the object and subject of all the
arts, as of science and industry. Art displays the phenomena of the universal
life, science explains them, and industry adapts them to the various wants of man.
Art sets the goal, science affords the means, and industry makes use of it." So
writes SI. Burger of idealism, in his review of the salon of 1861, in Le Tempt.
136 .ESTHETICS. [parti.
on the whole, they are just. They give a fair estimate of the
idealism of the lovable genius to whom they refer, facile and perhaps
superficial, diffuse rather than profound. Raphael, like most men,
looked upon beauty as external rather than internal ; he saw its
visible form rather than its moral basis. His style then is not
style par excellence. It is no more than his style, marking his own
personality. That which renders him, in the view of many, worthy
to be called the prince of painters, and, therefore, to be placed
above Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Rembrandt — is exactly the
quality, or rather the deficiency, which places him beneath them,
when we come clearly to understand that impersonal style is merely
absence of style ; and that, if Raphael possessed more than any
other man this pretended perfection, it was merely because his
works never received those profound and trenchant marks of indi-
viduality which are so striking to the masses and so disconcerting
to academists, but which are not the less on that account marks
of po verful and vigorous genius.
The same remarks might with justice be made of the vaunted
impersonal style of Greek works. Were the intended eulogium
merited, it would be the condemnation of Greek art. We know no
literary style more personal than those of iEschylus, Demosthenes,
and Aristophanes. If the statues do not show such strong
marks of individuality, it is not because their authors " breathed
into their works the breath of the universal soul;" but simply
because the ideal aim of sculpture was, as Plato says, for a long
time almost exclusively confined to the representation of perfect
physical types. This narrow ideal found its limit and its laws in
the peculiar genius of the Greek race. The province of the artist
was confined to rendering, with the greatest possible completeness,
the ideal physique determined by universally accepted rules. His
first care was to seek out and faithfully imitate tho fine models
furnished in abundance by that perfect race. Secondly, he had to
summarize and condense the mass of details into a comparatively
small number of essential features ; this process was insisted upon
by the character of the Greek intellect, which was ever antagon-
chap, vim.] STYLE. 137
istic to anything particular or individual. To their philosophers,
as to their artists, only general principles seemed worthy of
attention ; in their systems of philosophy, as in their statues, they
proceeded by long strides, by masses ; they suppressed detail, and
preferred synthesis to analysis. This characteristic was common
to the whole race, and was but little favourable to the expression
of individuality. Beyond the special necessities of sculpture,
which we shall consider later, the artist found himself within
certain habits of intellect outside which he was forbidden to go.
He was compelled, whether he liked it or not, to adopt types ;
that is, to the generalization and abbreviation of things. So
in the end he troubled himself but little about the expression
of the face, looking first and mainly to the beauty of general form,
and to the well-balanced proportion of parts. When some of the
successors of Phidias, weary of the serene immobility of god-like
souls, began to represent human life with all its joys and sorrows —
teaching themselves to mark by attitude and physiognomy certain
sentiments and passions that can be expressed by means of sculp-
ture — a cry of decadence was raised ; in the same way in which
Euripides was accused of having degraded the Greek drama, when
he had substituted for the almost geometric symmetry of the tra-
gedy of action as understood by Sophocles, or at least had added
to it, the delineation of the passions and of man's moral activity.
This exclusive pre-occupation with physical beauty among a
people peculiarly sensitive to its influence ; this striving after a
type by abbreviation of detail ; this imperious desire for proportion,
for what they called Eurytlimia : did not constitute an impersonal
art in the true sense of the word. All that we can assert of Greek
sculpture is, that the peculiar character of the artist was in great
part swamped by the general personality of the race — very much
as we see it in that collective work which has come down to us
under the name of Homer.
We have already said enough on this point, and wo need not
revert to it. There is no such thing as an impersonal style. The
union of the two words forms a contradiction in terms.
133 AESTHETICS. [paet t.
§ 2. Style in Italian Painting and in that of Holland — Capital
importance of the question — The Academic style — Official
teaching.
The fine work of M. Fromentin contains a passage which sum-
marizes very completely the whole question of style. 1 Comparing
Italian painting with that of Holland, he says : —
" There existed a habit of high and noble thought, an art which
consisted in the choice of things and subjects, in embellishing and
perfecting them, living rather in the absolute than in the relative,
seeing nature as she is, but eager to depict her as she is in rare
moments. This art all referred more or less to the personality of
man ; was dependent on it, subordinate to it, and copied from it :
just as some laws of proportion, and certain attributes, such as
grace, force, nobility, beauty, learnedly studied from man and
digested into the form of doctrine, came to be applied to matters
which had but little to do with him. Thence sprang up a kind of
universal humanity, or humanized universe, of which the ideal
human body was the prototype. Historical facts, visions, beliefs,
dogmas, myths, symbols, emblems : the human form, in one way
or another — was made to express everything which it could, by any
means, be made to interpret. Nature existed but vaguely around
this absorbent personage. At best it was looked upon as a frame
which should diminish, and even disappear, so soon as man was
ready to take its place. Elimination and synthesis were the order
of the day. As it was necessary that every object should borrow
its plastic form from the same ideal, there was no question of
derogation. Soon, by virtue of the laws of historic style, it came
about that planes were reduced, horizons brought near, trees
generalized, skies simplified, that atmospheres became more limpid
and monotonous ; whilst man had become more fixed in type, nude
oftener than draped, and usually of full stature and noble visage,
so as to be a real sovereign in the role which he had to play. In
these days our task is more simple. We have to render each
1 La Matins d' Autrefois, pp. 174-175.
chap, viii.] STYLE. 139
object with its own especial interest, to put man back in his
proper place, and, on occasion, to do without him altogether."
" The time has come for less thought, and for less lofty aims ;
we must now look at things more closely, and observe better. We
must paint as well, though in a different fashion ; we must work
for the general public, for the citizen, the man of business and the
parvenu — everything is now for them. We must become humble
for humble things, petty for petty things, subtle for subtle things ;
we must follow them all and track them out without contempt
or omission ; we must be familiar with their homeliness and enter
lovingly into the conditions of their existence. It is all a matter
of sympathy, of patience, and attention, of never flagging re-
search. Henceforward, genius will consist in absence of prejudice,
in taking nothing for granted, in allowing oneself to be governed
by one's model, in inquiring only how it may demand to be
represented. Embellish it 1 No ! Ennoble it 1 We must not ;
neither must we chasten it. It would all be so much falsehood
and useless trouble. But is there not in every artist worthy of the
name some indescribable quality which accepts that trouble naturally
and without conscious effort.'"
These words indicate the whole theory of style. Style, which
is a simple reflection of the artist's personality, is naturally found
in the work of every artist who possesses any personality. The
indescribable quality, the "je ne sais quoi " of which Fromentin
speaks, is precisely the assemblage of qualities, the condition <»f
being and temperament which caused Rubens to see things dif-
ferently to Rembrandt. The two extracted from one and the same
object or subject, emotions widely different though congenial to
their respective natures ; just as a tightened string in a concert
room will vibrate in response to the note which it would itself
produce if struck. The one thing needful is the power to vibrate,
which is too often wanting.
The question of style has considerable importance. We might
even say that it includes the whole of aesthetics, which is in fact
the question of personality in art.
110 ESTHETICS. [paet i.
If no one took up art but those who are born artists —those, we
mean, in whom aesthetic emotion arises with that spontaneity and
energy which constitute creative power — discussions such as this
upon which we are engaged, would be purely academic, and it
would be childish to dwell upon mere definition of style.
But it is not so : the subject upon which men think least
is generally their own character, and so vanity leads them into
strange delusions ; and, what is perhaps still more important, their
ignorance and caprice find baneful aid in the rules and formulas
of official teaching.
" Style," says M. Ch. Blanc, " expresses the collection of
traditions transmitted to us by various great masters from age to
age. Summarizing all classical ways of looking at beauty, it
means beauty itself." That is, if we wish to acquire style and
interpret beauty,we need only study the mass of classic tradition !
This is the doctrine of the Academy, baldly stated. By virtue
of this belief have been edited and compiled the collections of
recipes which treat of poetry, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and
enunciate as law, more or less inaccurate observations on the art
of constructing chefs d'ceuvre. The method is simplicity itself;
we have but to look back and see how anything has been clone
before. You want to write an Epic ] Nothing can be easier.
Examine Homer's way of going about it, and do the same.
Sophocles will show you how to compose a tragedy. You mean,
perhaps, to devote yourself to sculpture and painting 1 Doubtless
you have but little pretension to excel Phidias, Polycletus,
Praxiteles, Raphael, Titian, or Michael Angelo. Now, a study of
the productions of these groat men will of courso convince us that
their superiority arose from the care with which they sacrificed the
real to the ideal. They saw the grand side of subjects which had
no sides that were not petty ; they represented objects under
their typical aspect, in their primitive essence ! Perhaps you don't
understand ? Well, all this merely means that they ignored
unimportant details, and simplified their compositions to obtain
dignity. They were in the habit of embellishing, correcting, and
chap, vin] STYLE. 141
improving, proceeding always by elimination and synthesis,
reducing planes, bringing forward horizons, generalizing trees,
purifying atmospheres, idealising the human body, and replacing
its vulgarities by the forms which have become academic.
All this is taught to young men preparing to practise art. To
help them to understand poetry, it is translated into prose for
them, and art is reduced to a mere matter of processes. The
natural result upon their minds, is a conviction that for the
production of a work of genius the first condition is, not genius,
but elaborate rules. If we may trust the Academy, Michael
Angelo is inferior to Raphael, although his genius is superior ; and
for no better reason than his disinclination to or unfitness for the
tyranny of rules. How many of the young are there who, having
studied Boileau's Art poetique or the numerous successors of the
Rhetoric of Aristotle, or official lucubrations on aesthetics, imagine
that they can only be very bad poets, very mediocre advocates, or
very incapable artists !
These mistakes are much more frequent than might be
imagined. They have deplorable consequences even for those who
have received the necessary gifts from nature. Their first effect
is to destroy all sincerity and spontaneity, without which no art is
possible. Instead of giving free scope to their real impressions,
and interpreting them faithfully and directly just as they are felt —
the method is to torture these impressions by rules concocted and
imposed by privileged legislators, to pass them under the academic
standard, and for this purpose to clip and oppress them till they
are killed, and then, forsooth, to be surprised to find nothing left
but corpses.
This substitution of executive skill for spontaneous feeling
produces theatrical art, which is deliberate, cold-blooded, and
calculated exaggeration superimposed upon the naive and uncon-
scious exaggeration of true art. Academic art runs into the
extremes of what is false and theatrical in order to escape from
vulgarity and inanity. Not being sustained or warmed l»y
internal feeling, which it has been taught to despise, it loses itself
142 AESTHETICS. [part i.
iu deliberations as to lines, details, and arrangements which
contradict and destroy all harmony or unity of effect. It is this
want of abandon and sincerity which constitutes the besetting sin
of academism. The natural simplicity of true, personal impres-
sions, is displaced by exaggeration and respect for tradition, which
allow calculation and effort to become conspicuous. This is not
art ; it is only more or less laborious industry.
What can be said of the condition of any young man who,
probably entirely ignorant of his own powers, never for a moment
supposes that the dicta of men stamped with the official im-
primatur and accredited by successive governments, can come
from lying oracles 1 He, too, will understand and perceive by
notable examples, how dangerous may become any pretence to an
opinion of his own on aesthetic subjects. His liberty of thought
is conspired against on all sides. The very moment when he most
requires to be sustained, encouraged, and aided in the develop-
ment of his own individuality, is that chosen to overwhelm him
with every kind of intimidation and temptation. Imitation and
study of the great masters — excellent things for the artist already
started on his right path — are full of peril to the young man still
dubious as to which road he ought to take.
This mistaken method has been energetically criticised by the
more competent men. M. Horace Lecocq de Boisbaudran, who,
professor of drawing though he be, is among the few that show the
most just and lively sense of the necessary reforms, has recently
published the following opinions in a brochure for which the
Academy will never forgive him.
" Young men who take part in competitions, direct all their
efforts, as is but natural, to obtain the prizes which follow success.
Unhappily, the means which usually commends itself to them as
being both the surest and easiest, is the imitation of works which
have previously obtained the approval of the judges, and have
been shown with honour and eclat, as if with the intention to
afford examples, and to point out to younger men the straight
road to similar success. Do people realize the whole effect of such
chap, vni.] STYLE. 143
a stimulus, when they see the majority of the competitors abandon
their individual inspirations, to follow, with complete docility, the
recommendations of the Ecole des Beaux Arts which seem sancti-
fied by success?
" With but very rare exceptions, mere admission to the compe-
tition 1 cells is only achieved after long periods of study exclu-
sively directed to the one purpose ; and it is the long duration of
this unnatural preparation which makes it so fatal to the freshness
of original gifts.
"Pupils delayed in this way, end by resembling those aspiring
bachelors whose aim is rather a diploma than the acquisition of
knowledge.
" Two tests are demanded before admission to a cell is allowed —
a sketch or composition of any given subject, and a painted figure
from a model. Preparation for this double test becomes the
one idea of young artists. Their only studies are the daily
repetition of these sketches and common-place figures — always
executed in dimensions, within a limit of time, and in a style
identical with those required for the competition itself.
" After whole years devoted to such practice, what can remain
of the more precious qualities 1 What becomes of naivete, sin-
cerity, naturalness 1 The exhibitions of the Ecole des Beaux Arts
tell us only too clearly.
"At times, certain competitors imitate the style of their
respective masters, or that of some famous artist. Some seek
inspiration from the works of former laureates ; others borrow from
recent successes at the Salon, or from other works which may have
left lively impressions upon them. All these various influences
may give a certain diversity to a few of the exhibitions ; but they
do not give anything like natural variety or the original character
flowing from individual inspiration."
M. Lecocq de Boisbaudran affirms that our first effort should be
directed to make students perceptive and impressionable, to which
1 The cells in which competitors are separately confined during the "con-
cours."
144 ESTHETICS. [i-Aiir i.
end lie has imagined very efficacious means. This is the essential
point, and precisely that which is most neglected.
Technical education in the elements of design is no less
defective. Speaking of the models patronized by the Ministry of
Fine Arts in all their teaching establishments, M. Lecocq says : —
" It is a strange thing that at a period when the example and
authority of Raphael and other great designers are more than ever
appealed to, the models used for the training of youth are
systematically the very contradiction of that great master's de-
signs — so animated, so striking, easy, and undulating in contour,
so well understood and accentuated from the point of view of
perspective and construction."
Similar strictures are to be found in a communication, dated
18G4, from M.Violletde-Duc to M.Vitet, in which, referring to the
instruction in the art of drawing at a time when the Academy of
the Fine Arts, shaken for a moment in its supremacy, had just
acquired a new lease of its baneful dictatorship, the learned and
able architect says : — '
" What do they mean by teaching drawing after the classic
manner 1 They begin by placing before the student silhouettes,
which they call ' feature drawings,' to be mechanically copied.
The eye of the child, who is thinking only of rendering by help of
the hand, a still imperfect instrument, this feature or silhouette,
acquires from the very first a bad habit of ignoring planes, seeing
in the object to be delineated nothing but a flat surface bordered
by a contour What is the further course of teaching at
the Ecolc des Beaux Arts 1 It is confined to copying what are
commonly called academies ; that is, nude men, always under the
same light, in the same place, and in positions which may be
fairly described as torture paid by the hour. Such is the course
of drawing from nature which has now lasted for about two
1 M. Viollet-le-Duc is well known to be one of the best draughtsmen in Fiance;
and he has laboured with unremitting ardour to introduce into our schools the
reforms which out administrations and academies, under the tyranny of the spirit
of routine which has so long obscured their counsels, have refused to discuss.
CHAP, vin.] STYLE. 145
hundred and seventeen years, and the suppression of which, if we
may believe M. Vitet, would be the annihilation of art ! "
At first sight, this obstinate clinging to a useless and foolish
tradition seems very strange ; but a little reflection will explain
it. In our country, men never rise above the crowd until they are
no longer good for anything. To be a general, a minister, or an
academician, old age is necessary. When a man has been well
battered and used up by the difficulties of life, and has imperative
need of repose — then the great offices are opened to him, and he is
allowed to take his share in the regulation and direction of
national activity ; but always on one condition, that he have no
reforming tendencies or revolutionary instincts. As soon as this
can be ascertained ; as soon as it can be shown that a man who,
when young, possessed vigour, talent, and activity, no longer has
any one of them : he is called up into one of those numerous
" hotels des Invalides" called ministries, academies, administrative
and governing bodies of all kinds and descriptions. In these the
old gentlemen meet again and talk over the good old times of
their youth ; and, naturally enough, combine to anathematize all
who have the temerity to advocate change. If some too vigorous
colleague, possibly admitted by mistake into the learned company,
pretends to believe that some little matters require modification,
he is overwhelmed with ridicule ; and if he hazard any definite
proposal smacking of heresy, he is incontinently crushed and
smothered by adverse votes. Not that we feel any ill will to
academies and administrative bodies in themselves. They are
only what we have made them. The blame lies with the
popular prejudices which confine the greatest prizes to those who
have lost their teeth, and lay the most weighty responsibilities on
men no longer able to discharge them. We insist upon having
generals to command our armies who can no longer sit a horse,
and directors for our art institutions who have lost both eyes and
ears. The judgment of such men is of course founded upon
recollections. So much the worse for us who refu.se to understand
that it is so. It is but natural that dotards should love the old
146 ESTHETICS. [part i.
fashions which recall their youth ; and that they should treat as
profanation, any effort which would seem to menace the sanctity
of their memories.
"We must not forget that similar vices are found everywhere.
Instruction in letters among us is worthy of the same process in
the fine arts. It is everywhere carried on under the same methods.
Fatiguing and monotonous exercises have fatal effect in reducing
everyone, professors as well as pupils, to the condition of machines.
Iron routine is despotic. Every day of the year some professor re-
peats wearily and dogmatically the lesson of corresponding days in
preceding years ; and that lesson, more often than not, is addressed
only to the memory of the pupil. Our children are taught upon
the same principle as performing dogs, by innumerable repetitions
of the same act — the main difference being the substitution of
" impositions " for the cane. Thus do we pretend to form the
characters of men. We form dunces instead, who carry nothing
from our lyceums but horror of all intellectual work : whose one
care is to wipe out the weary recollection, by plunging into those
many forms of brutal amusement which are the glory of the
" well bred " young men of the day. One thing indeed surprises
us : it is, that with such a method of instruction, we still find so
many young men able to outgrow its evil influence, to right
themselves and acquire a proper basis for intellectual pursuits.
Let us hope that at some future day — when voices have been long
raised against administrative laches, against the crystallization of
academies and their rulers, against the softening of youthful
vigour and the decadence of true artistic principle — a time may
come when men shall understand that, instead of working for
effect, they must go back to cause ; that they must refuse to
confide the direction of the living to the dead ; that they must
free our youths from the oppressive and stultifying methods by
which to-day they are being crushed.
The first aim of instruction should be to elicit individual
powers. Rembrandt attached so great importance to this point,
that he condemned his pupils to a solitary mode of study, and so
chap, vin.] STYLE. 147
prevented the possibility of one copying from another. In these
days, our one idea and the necessary consequence of our methods,
is the annihilation of individuality by the substitution of process
for inspiration, mannerism for sincerity, and calculation for
spontaneity. Imaginative and poetic art we scarcely attempt.
As opposed to those who look within themselves and obtain style
naturally, by the artless expression of their true sentiments, there
are to be found vast numbers, who toil and labour to master
a borrowed style by the application of mechanical recipes, and so
lose all the benefit of their own natural gifts. The latter method
kills the spirit, and the introduction of formula reduces art to a
trade.
G. Planche, in his article upon David d'Angers, says : — "What
is, according to the Academy, the clearest manner of proving one's
respect for tradition 1 Is it not to efface oneself so thoroughly, to
absorb oneself so completely in the imitation of ancient work, to
bring together in a new and unknown work so many ancient and'
well-known passages, as to make it impossible for the spectator to
say with confidence, ' This is the work of a new man 1 ' "
Not that the accepted theories are necessarily false and
dangerous in themselves. Many of the precepts which obtain in
our course of public teaching and in official tradition, are founded
upon real observation — often, perhaps, narrow, but on the whole
fairly just and accurate. The process of analysis by which they
have been extracted from the masterpieces of art, often reveals
remarkable perspicacity. But even undoubted truths become
dangerous in presence of the prevailing errors in method, which by
their insistence on the importance of rules, end in making young
men think that the excellence of the great masters arose from
their rigid adherence to rules ; whilst, in fact, their excellence
was but the expression of their individual qualities, and the
spontaneous manifestation of their genius.
Students even come to imagine that, like themselves, Homer,
JSschylus, Shakespeare, Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Rubens, and
Rembrandt, all worked from rules, which were able to instil into
L 2
143 ^ESTHETICS. [part i.
tbem all alike the supreme laws of eternal reason — a revelation
anterior to the existence of art itself. Art is thus rechiced to
a kind of inflexible geometry, with axioms equally despotic over
all temperaments and intellects ; and with theories deduced by
irrefutable logic, which are cei'tain to produce masterpieces when
respected, abortions when neglected. As for genius, emotion, the
internal movement of the soul which warms the imagination and is
alone able to render it fertile in consummate art — these are put
on one side, and are only casually referred to when they give
opportunities for high-flown language. When such conventional
homage has been paid, serious instruction, i.e., the distribution of
formulas, is resumed with fresh vigour.
This perversion of talent is disastrous. It sterilizes both the
teaching of masters and the efforts of pupils. War must be waged
indefatigably against it, if any good results be desired. Before
unfolding the whole catalogue of processes, and showing young
men how they were used by the great masters for the manifesta-
tion of their ideas and sentiments, we must begin by making the
students understand that the first and most important point is
the possession of an idea ; and, moreover, that the said idea must
be personal, lively, and keenly felt. We must teach them that in
the absence of this antecedent condition, no rules, no formulas, no
reoipes, can save a work from that commonplace which is the true
antipodes of style. That is to say — before setting up an arsenal
for the benefit of artists, we must render them capable of making
use of the arms provided for them. Before we show them how to
interpret emotion, we must see that their souls are sufficiently
developed and educated to feel it.
As things are now, it seems that personality has no proper part
to play in art — at least we do not suppose that a young man who
presents himself for official instruction has arrived at a point when
he has nothing to hope from its aid. It would be a mistake to think
so. Generally a little facility with the pencil is the only accom-
plishment of young men entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Their literary instruction has been nearly always completely
chap. Yin.] STYLE. 149
neglected ; their brains are empty and untroubled with intellec-
tual labour. Their natural artistic faculties require nourishment
and opportunity for exercise. Thus movements and warmth of
imagination may be in a state of potential activity, but they are
undeveloped for want of exercise.
We must, then, take these young men in hand. We must develop
them and guide them through the mazes of aesthetic emotion ;
foster, by every means in our power, the expansion of their moral
qualities which constitute the real sources of art ; refine their
sensibilities, elevate their conceptions, and warm their imagina-
tions by familiarizing them with liberal ideas, by putting before
them masterpieces in every branch of art, by teaching them to
comprehend the basis of human society and the grandeur of man's
nature, and by bringing them face to face with objects that are
calculated to awaken and develop enthusiasm and poetic senti-
ment : in a word, we must multiply for them, in every conceiv-
able way, the special delights of the eye and ear which are, strictly
speaking, aesthetic pleasures.
If it be true that style is, above all, the imprint of individuality
left upon a work by its author ; if we acknowledge that its
elevation will depend upon the generosity and loftiness of such
individuality : is it not evident that the surest means of en-
nobling style, is to ennoble the personality of the artist 1 '
1 We take pleasure. in recognizing that this latter truth is felt in the most lively
manner by the present director of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, M. Eugene Ghiillaume.
He has always in.si.stel upon the necessity for systems of study, which, without
bearing directly upon the theoretic or technical teaching of sculpture or painting,
would effectually widen the intelligence and imaginative power of artists, whose
horizons are, in truth, too often restricted. He understands as well as any one
how narrow and inadequate the method is which has been in vogue up to the
present time. Thanks to his exertions, many improvements have been introduced ;
but his efforts clash with obstinate prejudices, which, in all probability, will
finally prove too strong for him. One of the most urgent of the necessary reforms,
is the suppression of existing privileges ; for these invest a few men with absolute
artistic dictatorship, and, putting an end to all free instruction, condemn French
art to a state of hopeless stagnation. The adoption of our young artists by the
state has not, and never can, produce results other than disastrous. In art, as in
all else, fertility is the outcome of freedom. We cannot understand how it is that
150 /ESTHETICS. [part i.
So soon as we have done this, and have replaced things in their
proper places and true rank, we shall no longer find it impolitic to
acquaint young men with the results of our examination of master
works. We should no longer have cause to fear the annihilation
of spontaneity by imitation, imagination by memory, inspiration
by recipes. Even if the students did remain mediocrities it would
be in their own way, and this would be much better than imita-
tion of the mediocrity of others, or even than the smothering of
personality in eclectic combinations necessarily condemned to im-
potence. Premature study of the old masters has the certain effect
of preventing study of nature, and, consequently, the development
of all spontaneity. It is an excellent thing to study the execution
of others in order to add to the completeness, lucidity, and
accuracy of one's own. But it is first of all necessary to acquire
an individual style ; for without this, there is great danger that
one will permanently remain a slave to that of some other man,
and nothing can be more pernicious than such a result.
The mode of teaching which we suggest would have another
advantage. It would enable those subjected to it clearly to
determine whether or not their natural gifts would fit them
to succeed as artists. If taught nothing but processes and
general axioms, they might take for granted their ability to apply
this teaching. If it were enough to understand how Raphael or
Rubens went to work, to analyze their principles of composition,
to study their design, to master their schemes of colour, to store
up in the memory the accumulated observations of the learned
men who have moi*e or less passed their lives in dissecting
chefs d'ceuvre — then few men could doubt their possession
of the capacity necessary for such mechanical achievements ;
nothing, in fact, being wanted but power of attention and a good
memory. But so soon as it is generally allowed that, to be an
the men who pretend to have avowed fidelity to the art of Greece and the
Italian renaissance, have harboured such a thought as the wilful suppression of the
very conditions which rendered these great manifestations of artistic genius
possible.
chap, viii.] STYLE. 151
artist a man must receive from nature imaginative power, warmth
of feeling, enthusiasm, sensibility to aesthetic pleasures, peculiar
aptitude to estimate the artistic value of things, and an in-
stinctive, imperious desire to give to internal feelings external
manifestation under one of the special forms of art — then will
young men, during the noviciate to which they will be subjected,
have many opportunities for self-examination as to their true
vocations, many tests for measuring their artistic capabilities,
and will no longer be exposed, as they are to-day, to the danger of
lamentable mistakes, too often expiated by a life-long despair. In
the result, we should find in all those who persevered to the end,
that peculiar "je ne sais quoi" which is the essential condition
of style.
END OF PART THE FIRST.
PAET THE SECOND.
CHAPTER. I.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARTS.
We have explained the general principles which obtain in all
the arts. We have now to consider each art separately. But first
there is a preliminary question to be decided — in what order shall
our inquiries be made 1 We cannot leave it to chance. Such a
course would expose us to fatiguing repetitions and disagreeable
confusions. We must then discover and adopt some classification
which may constitute a logical succession, and enable us to pass
easily from one subject to another.
The chronological order, which has several advantages, presents
as many inconveniences. First, we are not sure that we know it —
a difficulty on the very threshold. Shall we attempt its recon-
struction by means of conjecture 1 That would hardly be any
easier. It is probable enough that the arts appealing to the ear
preceded those belonging to the eye. The reason for such proba-
bility is that poetry, music, and the dance, reduced to their most
simple expression, imply nothing external to man himself and
require no foreign aid. Rhythm of language, singing, and move-
ment, produces these arts quite naturally, for it is quite instinctive.
But which of these three arts came first into being 1 Was it dancing,
singing, or poetry 1 It would be difficult to determine with any
certainty. The difficulty would be no less great in the other
category of the arts. I am quite aware of the existence of a very
convenient theory which derives sculpture and painting from
architecture. This is what Lamennais says : " Just as the beings
chap, i.] CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARTS. 153
contained in the young world in which they had only a potential
existence, developed themselves by very small degrees at a time,
and obtained individuality in that universe which contained their
germ — so from architecture, their common mother, have been
derived by a kind of organic evolution, all the arts potentially
contained in it ; and these, always united with it, though distinct
from it, have become individualised in exact proportion as such
evolution has proceeded in sympathy with that of the world itself.
Sculpture detached itself, first, by its steady progression from low
into high relief; and, next, the emancipated statues, in break-
ing the last tie of marble binding them to the temple, entered
upon independent existences of their own. Painting, whose pri-
mitive rule was merely to vary and enliven flat surfaces with
colour, or to accentuate with a more marked boundary the hardly
perceptible reliefs of early sculpture, at last obtained emancipation
from such servitude, and committed itself to a life of its own ; until
man, growing out of the mystic symbolism of early art, began to
look about him, to understand his individuality, and to see that
colour plays a very important part in the universe, were it only
in the discrimination of objects."
We should like nothing better than to be able to adopt this
fascinating and generally accepted doctrine, could we but clearly
perceive the facts upon which it is founded. Unfortunately its
authors and defenders have usually neglected to point them out,
or to replace them by other proofs. They seem to consider that
to pen fine phrases upon architectural symbolism, whose ob-
ject they believe to have been reproduction of the great features of
creation, has rendered unnecessary any more direct evidence. But
is this symbolic theory worthy of credence 1 Is it represented in
the earliest forms of architecture 1 Of this we have no proof
whatever, and the whole brilliant explanation of the arts of design
is obviously a purely imaginary theory. We know very well that
at one period in the development of art, probably in very remote
times, architecture began to form with sculpture and painting
a sort of trinity, at once single and triple, in which the three
154 .ESTHETICS. [part n.
elements existed, and were so intimately connected as to form an
almost indivisible ensemble. Moreover, we know that amongst the
Creeks, and probably amongst other nations also, the arts of the ear
formed a single group. Poets sang to the accompaniment of their
own lyre or cithara. Lyric poetry, as we find it in tragic choruses,
was sung by groups moving in studied time and rhythm. These are
instances of the intimate combination of poetry, music, and dancing.
As we remarked at the commencement of our inquiry, the arts
are reduced, by their affinities of nature and origin, into two dis-
tinct groups. It is, however, neither proved nor suggested that
any member of these two groups sprang, completely fashioned,
from the brains of our ancestors ; and in considering the arts
of hearing, we find ourselves confronted with the same difficulty
as we met in trying to determine the precedence of the arts of
vision. Which of the two groups was the first to give evidence of
its existence 1 And, to take each group separately, in what order
did the arts of which it is composed make their first appearance 1
To this question we can give no answer. Thus, as we have no
facts to guide us, and are unwilling to plunge into the regions of
more or less hazardous conjecture, we shall put on one side the
chronological arrangement until such time as new discoveries may
enable us to resume it with some hope of accuracy. It seems, too,
more in conformity with the subject and title of our work, to seek
for a basis for a classification of the arts among aesthetic charac-
teristics themselves. This we must endeavour to do.
By their origin and the nature of their processes, the arts, as we
have seen, naturally divide themselves into two well-defined groups.
The one springs from the sensation of sight, and is more or
less immediately connected with the practices of primitive scribes.
The three arts of which it is composed are, sculpture, painting,
and architecture. Their common feature is development in
space ; their manifestations have to do with a single point of
time : consequently, they exclude movement, which is succession
and duration, replacing it by simultaneity and order, whose law is
proportion.
chap, i.] CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARTS. 155
The other three arts, poetry, music, and the dance, are subject
to the laws of rhythm. They have sound for their vehicle of
expression, they appeal to the sense of hearing, and take their
immediate origin from spoken language, which seems for long to
have consisted of a species of cadenced singing. Their principle of
action is by succession, through which they are referred to general
ideas of lapse of time and movement. They are, therefore, the
more direct expression of the inner essence of life, ; while the other
three deal with it rather in its exterior forms — which, being
expressed at one given moment of their action, become as it were
disguised by the very necessity under which they labour to
limit themselves to a definite attitude, depriving them of the
most salient characteristic of the other group of arts, — movement
and power of change.
It would perhaps be quite reasonable to found a classification of
the arts upon the more or less powerful expression of life found in
each. We must first understand what we mean by life. Do we
mean physical or moral life 1 We are evidently concerned with both.
It is not enough for a painter or sculptor to excel in rendering the
outward appearance of the living body. Its attitudes and gestures,
the disposition of its muscles both of trunk and visage, must ex-
press, so far as possible, character and sentiment, intention and
reflection. Now, from what we have said, if we have succeeded
in making ourselves understood, it is evident that the value of
artistic manifestations does not depend upon fidelity of imitation.
If our only object were the sight of the human body, we need only
go to a public bath, or make a model disrobe. Any day we may
see the signs of the moral life, in the attitudes, gestures, physiog-
nomies and language of the groups which collect in the street on
every slight occasion, or in conversational discussion with our
friends. However great the interest we may feel in making these
various observations, we must quite understand that the impres-
sions received from them are in no way artistic. They possess a
kind of philosophic interest, a satisfaction for our psychologic
curiosity ; they confirm or demoralise previously-formed obscrva-
156 AESTHETICS. [part h.
tions : all this they do, but they never give rise to any such feeling
as that which we experience before a picture or a statue, even
though they express the same ideas. And why is it so 1 Because
that which strikes us in a work of art and stirs our emotions; that
which we admire in the artistic expression of moral and physical
life : is not really that life itself, but the power and originality
shown by the artist in interpreting the impression made by it upon
him and the manner in which he comprehends its manifestations.
In fine, the cause of aesthetic pleasure does not reside in the per-
sonality of the beings represented, but in that of the artist himself
shining through them.
Upon this clearly-understood principle we must now found our
classification of the arts. We shall preserve the division into two
groups, as seems natural. But we shall class each of the arts of
which they are composed, in accordance with the amount of facility
which they respectively afford for the manifestation of artistic
personality ; and this brings us back to a classification of the arts
after the number and quality of the impressions which they are
capable of rendering — for it is by such impressions that the artist
manifests his particular genius and talent.
Here, then, is our classification, which we must justify when, in
.the following chapters, we study the nature and expressive limits
of each art.
We place the least expressive first in each of the two series :
Arts of the eye : Architecture. — Sculpture. — Painting.
Arts of the ear : Dancing. — Music. — Poetry.
chap, ii.] ARCHITECTURE. 157
CHAPTER II.
ARCHITECTURE.
§ 1. Architectural symbolism. — Modifications of architecture by
climate, nature of its materials, character of political and
religious institutions.
It is in treating of architecture that the symbolic school has
gone to the greatest extremes.
" In the very earliest social systems," says M. Charles Blanc,
" architecture was conceived as a creation fit to enter into compe-
tition with nature, and even to reproduce her most imposing and
awe-inspiring aspects. Mystery was the condition of its eloquence.
But still it was not its final aim, its deliberate intention. It sym-
bolised the thoughts, struggling to light, of a whole people, rather
than the well-defined ideas of an individual or class. In the
complicated civilisation of modern times, architecture has become
specialised ; every edifice affects a character of its own, and it is
even considered an evidence of taste and skill in an architect, to
have succeeded in clearly showing the purpose of his building. 1 t
was not so in ancient times. Monumental works of early ages did
not bear their purpose clearly marked upon them ; they had little
of the utilitarian character. They spoke forcibly to the eye, but
vaguely to the spirit. The priesthood by which they w T ere con-
ceived kept to themselves their mystic signification. Just as the
Deity is at the same moment both present and concealed in the
universe, so is the idea of the architect present in the temple, both
visible and concealed. If its walls were covered with symbols
158 ESTHETICS. [part n.
borrowed from nature, the masses would not comprehend their
meaning ; and even he who created that enigmatic writing upon
stone, would possess no key to its signification. So the manifesta-
tion of the idea was confided to an undecipherable character, and
the mystery petrified in granite."
" The earliest architects — the priests — raised monuments which,
compelled to be obscure emblems of the divinity, reproduced in
an ideal form great features of nature's architecture. So they
imitated the sublimity of high mountains in constructing the
pyramids — instar montium eductce Pyramides, says Tacitus ; and to
these artificial mountains they gave symbolic form, that is, surfaces
whose numbers were venerable and mystically redoubtable. So,
too, they imitated the firmament in star-spotted ceilings, and the
mystery of caverns by subterranean labyrinths ; they symbolized
the great plains of the sea by long horizontal lines, rocky peaks by
towers, and the forests of nature by forests of columns
In their heroic aspirations they do not imitate the dwellings of
man, but the architecture of God The priests sought to
reproduce the most imposing features of the universe ; to borrow
from the Supreme Artist his own peculiar materials, stone, marble,
and granite ; and to employ them after his manner, in producing
the three dimensions of length, width, and depth Such
is the origin of architecture. From its beginning it has been
nature reconstructed by man." l
Lamennais is quite as dogmatic in a similar sense.
" The religions of India," he says, " all enclose a pantheistic idea,
united to a pi'ofound consciousness of the forces of nature. Their
temples bear the stamp of the same idea and consciousness. Pan-
theism is at once very immense and very vague. We feel in its
temples an infinite power of increase. No symmetrical structures
are presented to our eyes, to be by them easily seen and compre-
hended ; they force us, by dint of what they leave unachieved, to
keep our imaginations continually on the stretch, without ever
attaining any complete or well-defined idea, and so they give
1 La Grcmmaire des Arts du Dessin, by Cli, Blanc, p. 59, et seq.
chap, ii.] ARCHITECTURE. 159
expression to the pantheistic feeling. The sensitiveness to the
phenomena of nature shown by their constructors also attaches
them to the ideas of pantheism. In it they are conceived and
developed. Communing with nature in her mysterious moods, the
artist thinks out his work and fills it with life ; life which begins
to proclaim its individuality even in the first rough productions ;
symbol of a world in germ ; of a world becoming animated and
organized, receiving into the chaos of its primordial substance, the
all-powerful breath of the Universal Being."
To all these fantastic theories we vastly prefer the less ambitious
but infinitely more trustworthy explanation of an eminent archi-
tect, M. Viollet-le-Duc : "As far as the architect is concerned, art is
the sensible and easily understood expression of a want satisfied."
One fact has by this time been irrefragably established — the con-
stant and never-failing connection between the religious and civil
architecture of all ancient peoples, and the arrangements of their
early habitations.
Caverns and forests were evidently the refuges of man in his
early savage state. As soon as he had advanced so far as to be
equal to the fabrication of the necessary implements, he scooped
out artificial caves, which call to mind the subterranean temples
of India, Egypt, and Assyria. Later, he learnt to work and joint
wood.
This latter kind of construction must have been practised in the
East throughout a long series of centuries; because, as M. Viollet-
le-Duc has shown, its traces are to be found even in the arrange-
ments of edifices built in stone. There are in India monumental
edifices cut in the rock, whose roofs or ceilings are carved to
resemble the joists and planks of timber construction. The pillars
which are left for the purpose of sustaining these ceilings, are
made to look as like balks of wood in form as possible. Among
the capitals in the ruins of Persepolis, there are many the shape
of which is to be explained in the same way.
M. Viollet-le-Duc says, that " the decorative system of tower
farades, the system universally adopted throughout the palace of
160 ESTHETICS. [part II.
Khorsabad, consists in the juxtaposition of portions of cylinders
after the manner of organ pipes ; still more like the trunks of trees
placed vertically side by side. Such a system of decoration seems
to be a last reflection of those wooden linings which once served
to sustain the walls of earth, the clay, before the regular employ-
ment of unburn t bricks."
The same author states that " the majority of the very ancient
monuments of Asia Minor which still remain to us, do not show
a single form of stone construction that is not borrowed from
carpentry." His examination of the monumental remains of
Thebes, discovered a similar contradiction between forms and
structural materials : he shows us the Egyptians setting them-
selves to work to raise in stone, by means of the prodigious power
at their command, imitations of cabins of rushes and mud. He
can find no explanation for such a contradiction but in the sup-
position that these men had been transported from a well-wooded
country long familiar to thern, into one denuded of trees.
The same phenomenon is to be found in the monuments of
Asia Minor which are usually attributed to the Ionians. Some of
these monuments are cut in the solid rock, like those of the
Hindoos ; but here again we find imitation of the balks of wood
which, in their prototypes, were used for supports, cloisters,
galleries, and doorways. As for the belief which discovers in the
structure and decoration of Doric-edifices reminiscences of wooden
building, M. Viollet-le-Duc will have none of it ; and it seems to
us difficult to contest the truth of his arguments.
There is nothing mysterious in all this. Men built their houses
of the materials which they found to their hand in the countries
which they inhabited, and the mixture of styles simply proves the
force of habit.
When a man took it into his head to build a temple or a palace,
he was content to give increased proportions to familiar forms,
so as to keep them in fitting relation to the importance of the
dwellers for whom they might be intended. Their size depended
upon the idea that held the more dominant place, whether it was
chap, ii.] ARCHITECTURE. 1G1
of divine or of royal power. The pyramids were not raised in such
formidable masses to gratify a desire for a parody of creation by
building artificial mountains ; but merely because kings, who were
to be buried in them, wished to mark, by the actual immensity of
their monuments, the distance between themselves and ordinary
mortals. The Bible and the Iliad teach us that it was formerly the
custom to hide corpses in caves and cover them with stones, to pro-
tect them from the attacks of savage animals. The higher this hill
of stone was raised, the more clearly did its elevation indicate the
important rdle filled by the person who obtained such a mark of
respect from his contemporaries.
When the kings of Assyria caused the palaces which domi-
nated the country far and wide to be built, it is probable that
they were impelled by a similar sentiment ; to which, perhaps, was
joined a desire to find in their altitude a little of the freshness
wanting in less elevated dwellings.
The immense size of the temples of the East, is explained by
two reasons : first, because in the nature of the gods whom they
adored, the sky, the luminous atmosphere, &c, were looked upon
as filling the whole universe ; and, besides, there was hardly any
method of symbolising their omnipotence other than by the
colossal proportions of their representations ; secondly, because
the priests of their sacerdotal societies themselves inhabited the
temple and turned it into a sort of town. Such were the temples
of India, of Egypt, of Judaea.
Among those peoples who looked upon the temple simply as the
abiding place of the god, in Greece for instance, it still remained
larger than any single habitation, because the statue which it
enclosed was always more or less colossal. But as there was no
sacerdotal caste — the priests being simple citizens living in the
town among their fellows, and the ceremonies of their worship
taking place in the open air at the altar standing before the
doors of the temple — these buildings never rivalled the enormous
proportions rendered necessary by the practical necessities of the
daily worship of some other countries.
M
162 ESTHETICS. [part ir.
In northern countries, the temple, at first small enough, finally
became huge, but for very different reasons. Instead of spring-
ing from the religious conception itself, the increase was caused by
considerations of climate, of security, and even of vanity. There
was no longer any question of housing colossal statues or numerous
families of priests ; but, as the invisible God, to whose honour
such monuments were raised, was believed to be infinite, it was
necessary to give some indication of that belief by the proportions
of the edifice — above all, by its height. And then, too, ungenial
climates did not readily lend themselves to the celebration of
religious pageants in the open air ; thus it became necessary to
enlarge the temple so as to receive the multitudes of the faithful
within it.
But this is not all. The epoch which saw the construction of
our great cathedrals, was precisely that in which the nations of
Christendom awoke from the long torpor in which they had been
held by the sinister predictions as to the year 1000 1 , and took a new
lease of life. Communities began to free themselves from the
tyranny of the priests and of the feudal system ; and they displayed
their gratitude to the heaven to which they owed their freedom,
by the construction of great edifices, which were destined to be at
1 This date, now too much forgotten, exercised a baneful influence upon the
history of Christian races. We know that, according to St. Luke's Gospel (chap.
xxi. verses 25 to 30), Jesus Christ announced to his disciples the end of the
world, and his return in a cloud to judge all men. He added (v. 32) : " Verily
I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away until all be fulfilled."
The early Christians at the time believed that the end of the world would
rapidly follow the death of Christ. When, however, they saw years and genera-
tions pass without bringing to pass the fulfilment of this prophecy, they sought
to give it another meaning ; and by collating it with various passages in the
Psalms, they came to the conclusion that, in the mouth of Christ, the word
"generation" meant "a thousand years." Such was the origin of the almost
universal belief that the year 1000 would see the destruction of the world, and
the last judgment. People saw the approach of the dreaded catastrophe with
ever-increasing terror ; and, especially during the last century which, so they
thought, remained to them, activity was almost suspended, and men, their spirits
overwhelmed with apprehension, thought only of preparing themselves for the
terrible and inevitable end.
chap, ii.] ARCHITECTURE. 103
once the symbols of their religious sentiments, places of meeting
for all members of the community, and the signs and guarantees
of their independence.
All these ideas are mixed up together in these ancient monu-
ments, and it is quite a delusion that they were only proofs of
faith in God. Their great vaults were not only meaut to shelter
the faithful collected under the eye of the priest before the altar
where he said the mass ; they were also places of assembly. M.
Viollet-le-Duc calls an old cathedral a kind of sacred forum, where
matters of interest to the community were discussed. The high
towers were built, not so much to direct men's eyes heavenwards,
as to enable watchmen to see afar, and to signal conflagrations,
storms, and the approach of enemies. The bell which called men
to their religious duties, called them also to arms, or to meetings
of their fellow-citizens.
It has been often said that Gothic or Pointed architecture pro-
bably sprung from the habitual employment of wood in the struc-
tures of the Gauls. Augustin Thierry held that opinion. Describing
the edifice upon the ramparts of Rouen in which Brunehaut and
Merovee took refuge from the pursuit of Chilperic, he says : — " It
was one of the wooden basilicas then common throughout Gaul, in
which a soaring style of construction was in use, pillars and
pilasters formed of several trunks of trees bound together, and
ai*cades necessarily taking the Pointed form from the difficulty of
•shaping an arch in such materials ; and it gave, in all probability,
the original prototype of that Gothic vaulted style which, several
centuries later, became so general in great architectural works."
This explanation has not been in any way absolutely proved,
but there is nothing in it difficult to reconcile with that of M.
Viollet-le-Duc, who sees in the final selection of the low-crowned
arch the result of a series of tentative experiments, to which the
architects of the middle ages were condemned before they could
discover the form of vault which should unite the two advantages
of solidity and the greatest possible absence of thrust. The solu-
tion of the problem was found in a compromise between the acute
M 2
164 .ESTHETICS. [part ii.
angle formed by two pieces of wood, and the semicircle of the
Roman arch.
It has been our care from the first to repudiate the whole mass
of d priori reasonings and metaphysical conceptions with which
the origin of architecture has been so long and so fancifully
obscured.
§ 2. Architecture sprung from the natural aggrandisement of man's
primitive dwellings. — The architectural theories of the Greeks.
Building industry, the aim of which was bounded by the desire
to provide shelter for man, did not change its nature when its task
was to construct dwellings for divinities or kings. The Odyssey
enables us to understand what the palace of a king or a
tribal chief was in those remote days. It was nothing but a
wooden cabin, somewhat larger than than those used by ordinary
mortals. The temples of the gods had a similar origin. All
races of men were at first contented simply to provide for the
use of their gods enlarged habitations of the construction with which
they had become familiar in building their own dwellings. But
this very increase in size gave a peculiar character to the buildings.
Homer expresses sincere admiration of the great wooden hut of
Alcinous. Such admiration was the cause of artistic conceptions.
The increased scale of which we speak, brought forward in a
peculiar manner some of the features of the common ai'chitec-
ture ; it gave rise to impressions which could never have been
produced by the sight of the ordinary domestic dwellings — precisely
because they were ordinary. These impressions were more or less
Vague ; but it was enough that they were awakened at all, and
that attention was directed to the new aspects of structures, so
that the imagination, with logic to help it, could push on from
] ii ant to point by a series of experiments, the aim of which was to
achieve, by means of the completest possible agreement between
means and end, the fullest manifestation of the impressions re-
ceived.
So soon as this point Avas reached, az-chitecture ceased to be
chap, n.] ARCHITECTURE. 165
an industry and became an art. Convenience and utility were no
longer its sole objects. It strove to convey an idea, and to excite
admiration ; it was not content with size in itself, but endeavoured
to produce an impression of vastness superior to the mere fact
of size.
It was by size that it first endeavoured to amaze beholders.
" Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach
unto heaven," said the men assembled on the plains of Shinar.
This legend of the tower of Babel shows how greatly the races
of antiquity were impressed by the enormous structures of the
Assyrian kings. Architecture obtains other aesthetic character-
istics, or remains in static quo, according as the genius of a race is
more or less progressive. The Assyrian empire was too short-lived
to have had sufficient time to add many modifications to the first
style of its monuments. In Egypt, too, the type once found
was adhered to and indefinitely repeated. Its essential charac.
teristic was solidity derived from the mass of blocks disposed in
more or less truncated pyramidal forms. In India, architectural
progression and its different periods, are manifested less by
changes in form and structure, than by the addition of ornament
and decorative design. By this, too, is marked the introduction
of symbolism. In Indo-China the discovery has lately been made
of a large number of buildings, immense both as to amount of
space covered and as to elevation, all built upon the same plan,
and all literally covered from top to bottom with decorative sculp-
ture, executed with the most remarkable care. 1
This combination of great size with elaborate and intricate
ornamentation is well calculated to astonish at first sight ; but no
very prolonged reflection is required to enable lis to recognize
in such an alliance a sure mark of barbaric taste. Notwithstand-
1 This architecture is the only style, within my knowledge, which can afford
any justification for the assertions of M. Ch. Diane. It seems to have had hardly
any other aim than the imitation and emulation of granite mountains. Or, I
should say, we cannot, as yet, clearly tell what purpose such edifices could have
served.
166 .ESTHETICS. [part ir.
ing the considerable merits of Egyptian and Assyrian architecture,
it is not till we come to the Grecian, that we find any real archi-
tectural principle fully reasoned out and undeviatingly followed.
This principle regulated the use of three essential members >
the column or support, the architrave, and the pediment. The
column replaced trunks of trees or fagots of reeds bound together ;
the marble architrave was the substitute for the balks of wood
of primitive times ; while the pediment sprung from the neces-
sity to give inclination to the roof that the rain might run off.
All this, it is easy to see, is perfectly logical ; and we fail to dis-
cern how a straightforward inquirer can find in it any materials
for the mystic or symbolic fantasies of which we have already
spoken. All the proportions were determined by rigid geometrical
rules, in which was conspicuous the very systematic genius of the
Greek people — lovers of proportion and symmetry in every sense
of the words.
At the same time, these strict geometrical principles lent them-
selves very readily to the gratification of aesthetic sentiment, and
fell easily into a series of combinations of which the chief examples
were the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. Each of these orders
resulted logically from the various proportions assigned to the
column. The Doric order, in which the height of the column is
less than six times its diameter, expresses solidity, severity, and
strength. The Ionic, in which the height of the column is eight
or nine times its diameter, expresses lightness and elegance. The
Corinthian column is still more slender than the Ionic. It need not
be said that all the parts of the column in each of the three orders
were so conceived as to contribute with absolute certainty to the
general effect. Thus, the Doric column, like a tree springing from
the earth, has no base, and its capital is confined to the slight
enlargement which is absolutely necessary for the support of the
entablature. The Ionic column stands upon a base and possesses
a capital of volutes, which recalls ideas of flexibility and grace, but
is still far from possessing the richness and magnificence of its
Corinthian rival.
chap, ii.] AECHITECTURE. 167
The logical development does not end here. The dominant
idea expressed by each order of columns, becomes in a sense the
motive for the whole monument — thanks to a series of mathema-
tical calculations, proceeding naturally the one from the other. 1
The character of sturdy strength which distinguishes the Doric
order became progressively attenuated through the Ionic and
Corinthian styles, and gave place to the elegance and richness
which is their special characteristic. Following a similar course,
the severe ornamentation of the first-named order gradually
developed itself through the other two, till, in the last, it came
to border on exaggeration.
Greek architecture represents, then, an absolutely complete
system, all of whose parts stand to one another in logical relations,
determined by a series of mathematical calculations ; its propor-
1 The despotic character of these mathematical rules is such that they even
determine the height of the steps that give access to any classic monument.
Their dimensions always maintain a certain relation to those of the columns.
When the diameter of the latter becomes very great, the steps attain such a height
that they lose their first raison d'etre, and it becomes necessary to get to the
top to make use of a smaller flight hidden between the gigantic stages necessitated
by the rules of proportion. In all this there is an abuse of the logic of numbers
which we should hardly have expected to find among so practical a people
as the Athenians. This symmetry, when pushed to extremes, possesses another
inconvenience from the aesthetic point of view. The proportions of everything
are so rigorously calculated that the appearance of grandeur is in great part
lost. The architects who built our cathedrals did not make the same mistake.
They kept the steps and doors down to the scale fitting for man ; thus the contrast
between the smallness of these parts and the total elevation of the building,
gave an increased idea of size.
Besides, we must remember that the primary conception of the Greek temple
and that of the Christian cathedral partly explain these differences. The church of
the Christians, as its name — innX-riala, assembly — declares is, not only the abiding
place of the Deity, but the place of meeting for the faithful. It would in such a case
have been ridiculous to construct the steps of such a height as to be hard to climb.
The Greek temple, on the other hand, was looked upon solely as the dwelling of
the god, who was represented by a more or less colossal statue entirely filling it.
We know that in some cases the statue was so large that it could not have assumed
an erect posture without bursting through the roof. The public never entered
these temples. All they did was to march around them in certain of the annual
ceremonies ; we therefore need feel no surprise that the steps and doors had pro-
portions superior to those intended for men — they were on a divine scale.
168 . .ESTHETICS. [past ii.
tions are none of them left to chance, although some liberty is
allowed to the artist. The rules, precise as they are, are not
absolutely inflexible. The figures which we have given for the
diameter and height of columns may be looked upon as repre-
senting the mean ; and enough play is allowed to the imagination
of the architect to enable him to realise his own personal concep-
tions. The Greeks, notwithstanding the systematic bent of their
genius, preserved, through long periods, sentiments of liberty much
too lively to allow them to consent to the imprisonment of art by
absolutely rigid formulas.
One of the circumstances which clearly indicate the delicate
nature of their aesthetic perceptions, is the effort which they
made to find an escape from the chief inconvenience of their
architectural principles. It is certain that in the Greek temples,
especially in those of the Doric order, the all-pervading predomin-
ance of straight lines could not fail to raise an uncomfortable
impression of stiffness and disagreeable monotony. In most cases
this monotony is no longer felt, because there hardly remains
a classical temple which is not more or less a ruin, and the
ruined parts break down the rigidity which otherwise would be
a fault. Imagine all the columns in their places, faithfully
upholding an entablature perfect in continuous parallelism with
the horizon ; above this a pediment composed of two straight
lines meeting each other; add the almost absolute symmetry of
the^arts in strictly prescribed geometrical relation : and the result
would be an ensemble, perfectly logical indeed, but cold and with-
out grace.
Of this some of the Greek architects showed a lively conscious-
ness. The columns of their buildings are not perfect cylinders.
They are always more or less conical, and sometimes gradually
swell up to a third of their height like a spindle, and then grow
slender again toward the capital ; both walls and columns incline
sensibly inwards. And this is not all. In the temples at Ptestum,
and still more in the Parthenon, it has been discovered that all
the horizontal surfaces present a gentle swell, and a similar con-
chap, ii] ARCHITECTURE. 169
vexity is found in the basement, the architraves, the frieze, anrm of a series of monographs.
1 Dktionnaire raisonni de V architect arc fraucaisc da onzltmc on setziSmc
tidcle, article— Stile.
184 .ESTHETICS. [part ii.
§ 5. Conclusion.
Architecture, as we have said, is the least personal of all the
arts. It has to submit, in fact, to many controlling facts and
circumstances from which other arts are free. It is first an in-
dustry, and then an art — in the sense, that it almost always has some
utilitarian aim to govern its manifestations. Whether its task be to
construct a temple, a palace, or a theatre, it must in the first place
accommodate its work to the predestined purpose. Nor is this all :
due consideration must be given to the requirements of materials,
climate, light, situation, and habits ; which are all matters demand-
ing great skill, tact, and forethought, but can hardly be con-
sidered as belonging to art in its strictest sense. They do not
give the architect much opportunity for the exercise of his aesthetic
powers. Let us remember too, that, in the majority of cases,
especially in ancient times, the forms of monuments were more or
less borrowed from those of ordinary buildings ; and therefore were
determined by the ensemble of qualities and conditions which con-
stituted the collective genius of the race, causing the individual
and personal predilections of the artist to be under considerable
restraint.
In most cases it would be a mistake on our part to suppose that
the ideas and moral impressions created in our minds by the sight
of certain edifices, were foreseen and intended by their authors.
When, for instance, the architects of the thirteenth century
exerted all their powers to increase the height of the cathedrals,
is it quite certain that their only motive was to direct men's souls
upwards, and to symbolize the gulf fixed by the (Jospel between
things of earth and things of heaven 1 Perhaps it may have been
so, but we must not forget that they were carrying out a symbol-
ism forced upon them. The planning of churches after the form
of the Latin cross was meant to recall the sacrifice of Christ and
His passion; their great elevation symbolized his triumph over death
and ascension into heaven. Every architectural member, almost
every stone, had its separate signification; and nothing can be
chap, ii.] AEGHITECTUEE. 185
more curious than to trace the subtlety of the intellect of those
times in discovering all kinds of imaginary connections between
doe-ma and natural facts. To these motives must be added, as we
have already observed, the necessity for some means of out-look
over the surrounding country, and the jealous vanity of city popu-
lations, emulating each other in the height of their steeples.
All these impelling reasons no longer exist, and so we are left
face to face with the single impression of size, which is all the more
striking because not immediately explicable. 1
We should not think nearly so much about the aesthetic
aspect of monumental edifices, if for us they had not lost much
of their raison d'etre as instruments for religious or social pur-
poses. That this is so, cannot be denied. It is this fact which
makes a ruin more poetic in our sight than a recent monu-
ment. Certainly the Coliseum has provoked many more laudatory
apostrophes in the days of its ruin and decay, than when a hundred
thousand spectators assembled within its walls to applaud the
fights of gladiators or of mimic navies. It is the same sentiment
that makes us so severe upon contemporary art. It has disap-
peared to make room for utility ; when the latter vanishes in its
turn, art will reappear.
"We do not mean to say that the great monuments of archi-
tecture were without poetry for their contemporaries and their
authors. While affirming that these were much more taken up
with the convenience and the practical purposes of their buildings
than we are in the present day, we also acknowledge that they
took considerable pains to realise an idea, possibly more or less
vague, yet real — an idea oftener collective than individual, but
1 We might add this instance to those given liy Herbert Spencer in his first
volume of Moral, Scientific and JEsthetic Essays. In a short article of a few
pages, entitled Utility and Beauty, he very ingeniously upholds the theory that
beauty always commences with utility, and that in the great majority of cases it
is nothing but utility that has lost its use. Such a theory, advanced by him in
rather too absolute a fashion, no doubt contains a considerable proportion of
truth ; but the conclusions to which it leads him arc evidently erroneous, and
that always on the side of over-generalization.
IS6 AESTHETICS. [part 11.
giving the opportunity for the expression and assertion of their
personality — to be measured by the intensity of the effort to con-
ceive and express it with the greatest possible completeness.
Finally, architecture in its own province, has a power of expres-
sion which cannot be denied. That it can convey an impression
of calm or of boldness, of grace or of power, of religious bigotry or
of gaiety, of size or of richness — the sight of certain monumental
works is sufficient to prove. In our study and analysis of archi-
tectural construction, we may easily notice the reasons for each of
these impressions : for example, prolonged horizontal lines create
ideas of stability, durability, and weight ; vertical lines, on the
other hand, express boldness, enthusiasm, aspiration ; the pre-
dominance of plain surfaces over voids, suggests austerity and
gloom; while many and various openings, create absolutely opposite
ideas. We must also recognize that the nature of materials and
their arrangement, the various use of smooth and carved surfaces,
can either add greatly to, or much detract from, the character and
beauty of an edifice. Great architects are those who are able to
tell in advance with accurate knowledge and feeling, the exact
effect which all these various conditions will have in the finished
building. But it is obvious that this ability cannot be acquired
except by a series of experiments, in winch each component part
is gradually reduced to its just importance. Architecture, even
when considered from the aesthetic point of view, remains so
dependent upon geometry, upon mechanics, and upon logic, that
it is difficult to discover accurately the share which sentiment and
imagination have in it.
It is this uncertainty which has rendered it possible to fasten
upon the art a string of various ambitions and speculative
notions — people even going so far as to derive its origin from rival
creations of the universe. Truly, architecture moves in a sphere
of somewhat narrow sentiments and ideas — narrower, at least, than
that of most of the other arts. Its first aim is to minister to con-
venience; it has to provide edifices fitted for their final destinations.
In most cases such fitness is in itself enough to endow them with
chap, ii.] ARCHITECTURE. 187
character. It is, as we have said, all-important. If it carry
beauty naturally with it, so much the better; but nothing is
more repugnant to true architecture than an illogical use of forms
divorced from their true purposes and real significations, in order
to act as ornaments which are, in truth, no more than disguises.
Such a proceeding reminds one of the discourses of those fine
talkers of Molierc and La Bruyere, who were never content to
speak of things as they are, but decorated their conversation with
a crowd of flourishes and phrases as ridiculous as they are far-
fetched.
To sum up : in most cases the pleasure of the eye was but a
secondary aim of architecture ; and we may easily believe that
the inventors of different styles hardly foresaw the aesthetic re-
sults which they were destined to produce. And they did not the
less create a work of art because they implicitly obeyed the re-
quirements of situation and climate, of the materials and pur-
poses of their buildings. We could wish that our architects would
follow the example of their predecessors, instead of allowing them-
selves to be dragged through all sorts of queer ways by a deplo-
rable spirit of eclecticism. Imitation is seldom prolific. That
our contemporary architecture possesses so little character, is the
fault mainly of academic prejudice, which holds men down in
superannuated traditions that are incapable of properly satisfying
modem wants. The problem offered by our present civilisation is
capable of being stated very simply. It demands the enclosure of
vast spaces, in which great crowds can meet and circulate ; but,
at the same time and by a happy coincidence, science offers the
veiy means required to carry out the demand in the most fitting
manner — iron and steel. It is hardly possible that with such con-
ditions and facilities, the problem above stated can long remain
unsolved.
But, to make any new departure possible, we must begin by
casting aside the academic traditions of high art. To any one who
will trouble himself to give the subject a moment's reflection and
unprejudiced examination, it will be obvious that the architectural
188 AESTHETICS. [part II.
forms of the past were intimately connected with the nature of
the materials employed — with their power of resistance, with their
length of span, &c. It "will be the same in the future. The con-
sequence of introduction of iron and of cast forms into construc-
tion, must be an analogous modification of architectural pro-
cesses. " Men may say that iron can never be employed in our
buildings in an outwardly evident manner, because it does not
lend itself to monumental forms ; but it would be more in accord-
ance with truth to say, that existing monumental forms, being the
consequences of the employment of materials possessing totally
different qualities from those of iron, cannot be adapted to the
latter material. The logical deduction is, that we must not
restrict ourselves to those forms, but must devise others appro-
priate to iron."
Such is the conclusion to which M. Viollet-le-Duc comes ; it is
also our own. But how can improvement be possible, so long as
the education of our young architects is entrusted to a corporate
body of men who are one and all convinced that progress consists
in marching backwards ; and that the last word on every artistic
subject was spoken by the Greeks and Romans ?
chap, in.] SCULPTURE. 189
CHAPTER III.
SCULPTURE.
§ 1. Symbolism — Services rendered by it to sculpture — The beauty of
the Greek race — Sculptured types — Pure beauty.
It is generally assumed that sculpture, like painting, took its
origin by a kind of spontaneous generation from architecture,
when the latter found it necessary to decorate the structures it
raised in honour of the gods, and to accentuate their signification
by representations of various kinds.
In order to prove the truth of this idea, it would be necessary
to show that sculpture was unknown until it sprung into being as
the handmaid of the other art. Now it is quite certain that,
among the ornaments, the arms, and the utensils of prehistoric
times, there are many which are undoubtedly works of sculpture.
The designs which have been found on flat bones and on hard
stones, engraved in more or less high relief, can only be considered,
what we call, bas-reliefs.
We may say the same of the hieroglyphic figures which consti-
tuted the earliest kind of writing. It is, in fact, among such
carvings that we find the earliest examples of relief. The more
or less deeply and widely cut markings in the stone which at first
sufficed, were soon followed by the cutting away and the rounding
off of the edges of contours, by which veritable carvings in relief
were obtained. We meet also with hieroglyphics that instead of
standing out from the stone are excavated in it. At Thebes in-
190 .ESTHETICS. [part II.
deed figures have been discovered, in which the surrounding margin
of the stone remains raised, so as to leave the carving standing out
from its bed within a moulding, exactly like the bas-reliefs of more
modern times. This point reached, nothing remained but gradually
to accentuate the cutting, and finally to detach it entirely from the
wall, to obtain both alto-rilievo and the statue.
Whatever we may think of this question of origin, it is easy to
understand that sculpture, even from its beginning, found itself
bound up in symbolism. "Whether it be the offspring of hiero-
glyphic writing or of the necessity for images of the gods, the
result is the same. Hieroglyphics were of course symbols ; indeed
the personification of such divinities as the sun, light, night, could
not very well be anything else. It is the necessary result of the
anthropomorphic type adopted by all the religions which super-
seded the fetich worship of primitive times.
This symbolism was modified to a certain extent by the varying
genius of different races ; but, though it changed its outward
character, its real nature remained the same — for its aim was ever
to make real to the visual sense the forms of imaginary beings, in
whom ideas more or less absurd were to be embodied. From the
day when men ceased to adore objects which superstition had trans-
formed into wonder-working talismans and protecting fetiches, 1 and
addressed their prayers to the stars, to fire and to fiery meteors —
they endowed their deities with forms which were similar to their
own, if more powerful and endowed with peculiar attributes cor-
responding to the functions which they were supposed to fulfil in
the government of things. This anthropomorphism became more
pronounced than ever, when mediating gods, sons of men created
gods by sacrifice, were added to, or took the place of, the divinities
of the air and the sky. 2
1 We know that in remote times both Greeks and Latins used to render divine
honours to rough stones. Pausanias has preserved for us many evidences of the
existence of such a form of worship among the ancient Greeks.
* The series of these transformations is to lie found in an appendix to the
Origines de la myihologie, a sequel to the Mythologie dan* Vart ancien ct
modcrne, by Ilene Mdnard ; 1 vol. 4to. (Ch. Delagravc), with COO illustrations.
chap, in] SCULPTURE. 191
It is in consequence of this symbolism that the Hindoos have
given three heads and a multitude of arms and legs to so many of
their deities, to indicate the superiority of their strength and
intelligence. The Egyptians attempted to convey an idea of
the functions and characters of their gods, by giving them the
heads of animals ; and symbolized their power, by the enormous
size of their statues. Assyrian art, which did not confine itself
so much to the interpretation of religious ideas, was equally
symbolic. Like the art of the Egyptians, its symbols were taken
from the animal world; with this difference, however — instead
of placing the heads of animals upon the bodies of men, they
reversed the process, and crowned animal forms with human
heads.
The two kinds of symbolism are found combined among the
Greeks, in the figures of Pan, of Silenus, of fauns and of centaurs.
But such mixtures are confined to a small number of peculiar
conceptions ; in the representations of the gods, anthropomorphism
is supremely dominant. But we must not forget that it is still
symbolism. The first Greek artists who represented Zeus with thG
eagle and the thunderbolt, Hera with the peacock, Athena with
lance and owl, Hermes with caduceus and winged heels, had no
intention beyond suggesting, by these attributes, the functions and
position of each of the gods.
But the fact alone, of having separated the god from his
attribute, contained the germ of all the future development of
Greek sculpture. The attribute, which at first was the most
important sign of the particular conception from which each deity
sprung, soon came to be simply a means of accentuating, and,
as it were, duplicating that conception in the image of the god.
Artists, in each of their personifications, had to carry out a clearly
defined programme, which at first was simple enough. They had
to express a single idea, and this they set to work to do by means
of the attitudes and physical conformation of their statues.
Thus were they led to the discovery of types appropriate to
each, without having to pay regard to those metaphysical aspi-
192 .ESTHETICS. [PART n.
rations which Plato, and the critics enrolled under the banner
of transcendental idealism, so kindly manufacture for their use.
They neither troubled themselves to discover what might be the
ideal type of the human form, nor to find out in what way it
might have been conceived in the divine intelligence. They
merely perceived that, among the deities whose visible forms they
had to reproduce — one was the personification of power, and another
of strength ; this one of beauty, and that of activity : and therefore
that these qualities should be carried, even in divine persons, to
their extreme expression. Moreover, in order to obtain this power
of expression in their representations, they kept all other qualities
subordinate to the chief one. Little by little they arrived at the
point of making each god an epitome of the peculiar characteristic
belonging to himself, everything that might either contradict or
attenuate the dominant impression being carefully eliminated.
This determination to represent, in a measure to duplicate, the
attributes of the gods, by causing their persons to conform to the
attributes assigned to them by mythology, seems so simple ana
logical, that we can hardly look upon it as the evidence of any
great merit in the Greeks. They were, however, the only people
to whom such an idea occurred — an idea which, by drawing their
art into a really aesthetic course, fixed its destiny.
They had other natural advantages, which explain a good deal
of the superiority of their sculpture. The Greek race was origi-
nally a fine race, and, thanks to its contempt for everything that
was not of it/remained unmixed. None but slaves, as a rule, were
employed in the more violent or laborious kinds of work. Among
their free citizens, a vast number regularly practised military and
gymnastic exercises, which developed the muscles in due propor-
tion. At these exercises, too, they were accustomed to see the
naked body in every attitude and in every sort of movement, and
thus could acquire a knowledge of the figure in all its details, the
like of which can never be supplied by the more or less intermit-
tent study of our days, of models who, in most cases, have a right
to the name only in one sense — that they are so by profession.
cir.vr. in.
SCULPTURE. 193
Their minds became filled with a crowd of recollections and im-
pressions which gradually became moulded and combined, into
more or less perfect ensembles. Every Greek carried by instinct in
his imagination a host of statues, ready made and life-like. He
had only to put one of them in this or that attitude, to modify a
few details, and he had a chef (Vosuvre of art drawn from the store-
house of his own memory, and hardly costing him an effort.
Thus, by the co-operation of memory, of imagination and of a
disciplined notion of form, were formed those pregnant and ex-
pressive images of simple and general ideas, which metaphysicians
attribute to some particular power of perceiving the ideal creations
which they call types.
This latter expression is one of those which the partisans of
academic aesthetic theories have most abused. By type they
mean that ideal and perfect form which contains and summarises
the especial characteristics belonging to any given quality. Every
quality, good or bad, has its type, which is necessarily ideal —
for perfection cannot be realised in matter. It is this very im-
possibility of any actual and material existence which metaphysi-
cians look upon as the demonstration of the ideal reality of the
type. Our intelligence, which is no more than a mirror, could
not conceive the idea of type did it not perceive the eternal
examples of things as they exist in the world of pure essences ;
this it does, thanks to our reason, which serves, as it were, for a
window from which to look out upon the region of metaphysical
entities. Consequently, memory and imagination, peopled as they
are witJi recollections and impressions of vague reality, could not
construct types by the union of disjointed fragments, were it not
that some higher faculty gives the power to perceive what is their
true and superior constitution.
It is easy to see that, to the advocates of these ideas, when
carried to a logical conclusion, study of real form must be of \ er
minor importance. That is to say, if it be possible to reconstruct
a type by the aid of recollections which have faded away, it is
only because the ideal type is deeply fixed in our reason, and is
o
19 i .ESTHETICS. [part n.
at hand to direct, regulate and correct the facts of memory and
the workings of imagination. Would it not be much better, then,
to pass to it at once, and copy it implicitly?
Reasoning would certainly end by compelling us to answer in
the affirmative ; but, unhappily, such a conclusion would not be in
accord with facts. An artist, in spite of the idealists, is ever
in subordination to the realities which surround him. The
sculptors of every country have a collective ideal of beauty, which
leads them invariably to reproduce the essential features of the
race to which they belong — always supposing that these influences
be not annihilated by education. In the ideal of the Chinaman,
the eyes are raised at the outer extremities, the face is large and
the cheek bones prominent ; in that of the negro, the hair is frizzy,
the nose broad and flat, the lips protruding. The Greek had a
very different notion of typical beauty, but his conception was in
quite as strict accord with the characteristics of his race as those
which we have cited.
The ideal type of the metaphysician rests upon a mere hypo-
thesis ; as, in fact, does the whole science of metaphysics. This
hypothesis consists in the continual substitution of abstract and
general ideas for concrete and living realities.
In truth, this ideal type is no more than a complete harmony
of the forms, chosen and brought together for the expression of a
dominant idea. Each individual function, both of the moral and
of the physical life, produces and fashions such organs as are fit
for its use. Thus the function is naturally indicated by the re-
production of its peculiar organ ; and the predominance of any
particular function, logically results in the exaggeration of that
organ and in the diminution of those foreign to it.
The principle, from the purely logical point of view, is as simple
as possible. It pretends that memory, with the aid of reason,
would suffice for everything, so long as men should be able, as
were the Greeks, constantly to observe the play of all the organs,
and so to become familiar with them. Memory would, in fact,
take the place of a book of anatomy, where nothing is desired but
chap, in.] SCULPTURE. 195
the clear exposition of structural modifications, and information as
to the deformities produced in the undue development of such
and such a part of the body by the exaggerated exercise of its
functions.
But we must remember that the aim of art is infinitely more
complex, even in the system of simplification followed by the
Greeks. The problem was, how clearly to indicate the function,
which was the very object of the work, without any of those de-
formities which result from excess, and are destructive of the
physical perfection which the representation of the gods demanded.
It was necessary that the work should preserve both its unity of
idea and its lifelike ensemUe — the essential condition of art con-
sisting in complete harmony between the two. Now, in order to
obtain a work, not of reason, but of art in the proper sense of the
word, a good deal more is required than the mere logical juxta-
position of separate recollections : the one great point is that they
must exist in the mind of the artist combined in one complete and
definite impression, which he can keep before him to serve as the
real model for his work ; they must undergo the peculiarly elabo-
rate work of aesthetic composition which goes on spontaneously in
the imagination of men born poets, as the Greeks understood the
word. The philosopher and the critic look upon all things as
founded upon systems and abstract ideas ; it is the distinctive mark
of their vocation. With the artist, on the other hand, everything
takes concrete form ; and this is precisely why he is an artist.
It has often been remarked that the facial expression of many
Greek statues, especially those of deities, seems undecided. In
order to explain this immobile irregularity, the critics of the ideal
school have invented a term as convenient as it is vague. Greek
art, they say, sought above all things for "pure beauty," whirl:
would naturally lose its purity and abstract nature were it ever
mixed up with passions and other accidental feelings. We have
yet to learn in what this '-pure beauty" really consists. No
attempt is made to tell us, so that the explanation of the first
difficulty does not amount to much.
«. 2
196 JESTIIETICS. [pakt rr.
Without plunging into any fantastic metaphysical discussion,
we shall content ourselves with affirming that the immobility of
countenance in Greek statues can be very easily explained by the
great idea which the nation entertained of the dignity proper to
free men, and still more to the gods. Impassibility and repose
formed their ideal, as they still form the ideal of existing eastern
races. Civilized and barbarous peoples alike preserve this common
trait, making it the law and the aim of their moral system. Upon
this point the Epicureans agreed with the Stoics ; the only differ-
ence was that the former called it ataraxy, and the latter apathy, 1
words which have much the same meaning. Agitation and passion,
undignified in man, could not very well be attributed to the
gods.
We can feel no surprise at the care to preserve the represen-
tations of their divinities from all profanation of this kind.
Another explanation of this impassibility is suggested by the
essentially symbolic character of the sculpture of early times.
What was its principal object 1 ? — to interpret an attribute by an
attitude : to accommodate the gestures and movements of the
body, not to a casual act giving the notion of accident, but to a
permanent and an eternal function. In the Greek pantheon each
god formed a part of the universal organization that preserves the
world ; a wheel in the great machine that keeps life on the earth,
in the seas, and in the heavens. The divinities differed among
themselves only in the nature of the role with which each of them
was entrusted ; and it was this difference which the artist sought
to render, without troubling himself with anything else. Why then,
should we lie surprised because we do not find in his work that
which he never meant to place in it ; and why should we fal
ourselves in the search for a pretext to attribute the change to
our own natures 1
1 Ataraxy, from a, privative, ami rapdcraeiv, to trouble; apathy, from a, priva-
tive, and irdOos, passion. The two words equally signify absence of trouble or
a^itatiou.
CHAP, in.] SCULPTURE. 197
§ 2. Expression in GreeJc sculpture — Academic prejudice- — In what
does the superiority of antique sculpture consist? — Our ability
to excel it in movement and expression.
That the theory of pure or abstract beauty, put forward as the
principal aim of Greek sculpture, is founded upon an illusion, can
be proved by the fact that, in most cases, even those who have the
most implicit faith in it and would wish most to rely upon it, are,
in practice, obliged to give it up. Side by side with purely
symbolic sculpture, there sprung up in Greece a very considerable
development of the personal and human form of the art. This
latter, having nothing to do with symbolism, did not fear to
engage its personages in particular actions, or to give them
gestures and even facial expressions, which energetically prove
a desire for movement and the indication of moral life. We may
cite the Boiteux of Pythagoras of PJiegium, the Fhiloctetes of Pro-
tagoras, the Discobolus of Myron, the Niobe and her Children of
Scopas, the Dying Gladiator of Cresilaus, the Wrestlers at Florence,
the Dying Jocasta of Silanion, the Diotrephes pierced with Arrows,
the Wounded Amazon, the Laocoon, the Weeping Jfatroiis of
Sthenis, the Child caressing its Mothers Corpse of Epigonus," &c.
Pliny mentions a statue of Hercules which was brought from
( treecej the hero, consumed by the fatal shirt of Nessus and about
2 The painting of the Greeks was as ready as their sculpture tj put itself in
opposition to the "purified" taste of our modern imitators of Aristarchus, and
their theories of Greek art in general. Ancient writers have left to us descriptions
of a certain number of pictures in which moral expression seems to have held a
considerable place. Winckelmann speaks of a Medea painted by Timomachus, in
whose face might be read the conflict between vengeance and maternal love. In a
picture by Aristides, representing the sack of a city, one incident was that of an
in hint dragging itself towards the breast of its dying mother. The face of the un-
happy woman, according to Pliny, marked in the strongest manner her fear that
the child would draw blood from her instead of its accustomed milk. An Ajax,
also painted by Timomachus, appeared full of shame and despair ; "one had only
to look at him," said Apollonius of Tyana, "to perceive that he was resolving
upon death by his own hand." •
198 ESTHETICS. [part ir.
to die, showed by his wild and contorted visage the agonies which
he was suffering. It is true that he says such a representation
was, in itself, a proof either of the decadence of art or of the bad
taste of the artist. Such an argument is convenient; but it
remains to be proved how and why it is that immobility and
ataraxy should be esteemed of higher value, in sculpture, than
life and emotion, while an opposite estimate obtains in all the
other arts. Visconti, who can hardly be accused of any bias
against Greek art, and who looked upon Phidias as the greatest of
all sculptors, acknowledges, nevertheless, that other Greek
sculptors excelled him in the expression of the head, especially
in those of women ; nor did he hesitate to describe this excellence
as a merit.
As for ourselves, we are convinced that, althoiagh the processes
and even the materials of sculpture, impose certain compromises
which are less absolutely required in other arts, there is no good
reason for the prohibition of all movement. At any rate, we may
remind the despots of academic taste, who pretend to speak in the
name of antique sculpture, that the latter happily took the trouble
to contradict in advance, by its still existing examples, the narrow-
ness of the theories of those who think to show their admiration of
classic works, by a process of mutilation in order to make them fit
their prejudices.
It is easy to understand that symbolism must early have become
exhausted. So soon as each god had obtained a representation,
consecrated as it were and free from change, those artists who had
no wish to become mere copyists, found themselves forced to look
elsewhere. Naturally they allowed themselves to take a course
parallel to the current which was setting in, and which in poetry
had superseded the epic poem by the drama, the tragedy of action
by the tragedy of passion. The point of view taken by the sculp-
tors of the images of the gods, offered several advantages, as we
have already seen ; but it had also the inconvenience of arresting
progress rather too sharply by the canon, the limit imposed by the
religious system — as their pre-occupation was chiefly centred upon.
chap, in.] SCULPTURE. 199
the rendering of a certain attribute, so soon as their end was com-
pletely attained they could go no further.
We must not, however, imagine that there was an absolutely
regular sequence of religious art, carried to final perfection by
Phidias ; and, following it, a more human forrn of art, inaugurated
and developed by the artists of later epochs. Such regularity
does not often occur in history. It is certain that the search after
expression became more common after the time of Phidias, but it
is also to be found before him. The bas-reliefs on the Theseum, or
temple of Theseus, less perfect, perhaps, in execution than the
statues on the pediment of the temple at iEgina, are infinitely
superior to them in life and movement. At the same period, the
great painter Polygnotus, who seems to have been a genius re-
plete with boldness and inventive power, invariably endeavoured
to endow his figures with a moral expression which up to his time
had hardly been thought of; and we know that he exercised a
very considerable influence upon contemporary art. The sur-
name — the Ethographer, or painter of character — given to him,
shows how much such an influence made itself felt.
We must also remember that by the side of religious and heroic
sculpture, there almost always existed in Greece another of a
quite different nature, which we may term "realistic." Instead
of devoting itself to the manifestation of some particular and pre-
determined quality, character, or sentiment, this took for its aim
individual truth — often displaying very close study of the living
model. Works of this kind are very numerous. In modern times
multitudes of them have been discovered, chiefly of terracotta ;
articles of pottery and personal ornaments. The infinite diversity
of these, accords but ill with the narrowness of academic admira-
tion, or with the canon which it would impose upon the arts, in
the name of that ideal which it believes itself to have discovered
in Greek sculpture, and in which, forgetting all the downright
contradictions which it has received from the existence of works
created upon principles totally opposed to its own, in the result
it is hopelessly imprisoned.
200 iESTIIETICS. [part ii.
We cannot insist too much upon the facts that combined to
influence the history of the arts at this important epoch ; because
there is no doubt that it is from the literary and idealistic inter-
pretations of the principles of Greek sculpture, that those meta-
physical prejudices proceed, which form the greater part of the
official notions upon aesthetics. These interpreters have not even
given themselves the trouble to stndy the works of the ancients
that have come down to us, as a consistent whole. Their intel-
lectual system makes them content with the three or four statues
which appear to lend themselves most freelv to a fantastic Pla-
tonism, and upon these they have built up the whole of their
theory. Everything that did not fit in with it — that is, the great
majority of antique works — was simply put on one side or treated
as an accident without theoretic importance. Such absolute rules
once proclaimed, all efforts in any other direction were condemned
as tainted with the spirit of decadence. In the last century, while
Winckelmann enjoyed the rank of public dictator in matters of
taste, the eternal models of "the beautiful" were supposed to
lie the Apollo Belvedere, the Venus lie Medicis, and the Laocoon.
They have been deposed in our day by the Venus of Miio and the
marbles of the Parthenon. But, though the models have been
changed the rules are not — they are just as eternal and infallible
as ever ; and, under other names, Winckelmann and Plato are
still the tyrants of criticism.
An artist cannot be allowed to consult his own taste and indi-
vidual preferences. Everything personal or particular belongs to
the decadence. Art only exists in the ideal — in an ideal predeter-
mined, confined, conventionalized, whose theories allow of neither
contradiction nor neglect, under pain of anathema. Genius, indi-
vidual temperament, spontaneous and sincere emotion, are all of
very little importance. The one thing needful is to conform to
rule, to simplify parts, to idealise according to formulas, to accom-
modate every figure to the type consecrated by the Academy; that
is to say, to the type of the three or four statues erected into
canons bv official rule-makers.
chap, in.] SCULPTURE. 201
M. Duranty quotes an interesting letter upon this subject from
an observant artist : —
" Is it not very strange 1 A sculptor or a painter has for wife
or mistress, a woman with a retrousse nose and small eyes, who
is slim, light, unci lively. He loves her even for her faults.
He may perhaps have dared every danger and risk to make her
his own ! Now this woman who is the ideal of his heart and
intellect, who has roused into action the true power of his taste,
his sensibility, and even of his invention, which has also been ex-
cited and educated, is the absolute opposite of the feminine beings
whom he persists in embodying in his statues or pictures. He
goes back to ancient Greece for women ; sombre, severe, strong as
horses. To-night, the irregular nose which he loves delights him ;
in the morning, he commits treason against it and makes it
straight. He is oppressed with ennui, or at best brings to his work
the gaiety of effort and thought of a millboard-maker with his
accustomed pot of paste, whose only reflections are where he shall
go for drink when his day's work is over. And still, after all this,
we are surprised at the existing lack of inspiration ! We complain
that the pupils in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts do not produce chefs-
d'oeuvre ! As if the first condition of their production were not a
real love for what they do, and the sincere interpretation of their
own ideas! As if we could have any serious or elevated art with-
out sincere and personal emotion ! "
The writer of this lively sally has laid his finger upon the
veritable plague-spot, the capital vice of the official theories upon
aesthetics. So long as we take it into our heads to impose a ready-
made ideal upon young men, to constrain them to repeat a lesson
learned by heart — so long shall we continue to induce the habit
of substituting imitation for imagination. "We shall succeed in
giving them great skill in execution, but we shall never make
them artists. If there be among them a few who succeed in ] in-
serving their originality from all the pitfalls set for their inexperi-
ence, these may think themselves exceptionally fortunate.
These dangers chiefly menace the sculptor, simply because of
202 AESTHETICS, [past ii.
the chefs-d'oeuvre which still remain to us from ancient Greece.
These offer a specious argument for their use as models ; whilst it
is much too often forgotten that those who created them, themselves
obeyed their own inspiration, nor were ever troubled to copy the
ideals of other men. Neither must we forget that we have not —
that, in fact, it is impossible that we should have — the passionate
love for beauty of form which seems to have been both natural to
the Greeks and a certain result of their mode of life. 1
In addition to the fact that our mode of life necessarily pro-
duces few models for the plastic arts, the exigencies of our climate
compel us to swathe our forms in thick garments which hardly
allow the general outline of the body to be distinguished. Under
these circumstances, how is it possible that our eye can acquire
the experience of and love for form, which was the privilege of
Greek sculptors 1 We have to get on without the only fruitful
source of artistic inspiration — the living reality. We find our-
selves reduced, for knowledge of the nude, to the study, and,
consequently, to the imitation, of antique art. Now, every kind
of imitation must of necessity bear marks of a3sthetic inferiority.
1 Corporeal beauty had so great a value in the eyes of the Greeks that they
subordinated everything to it. It was put above law, morality, modesty and
justice. We have only to recall the stories which have been preserved to us by the
admiration of the ancients to see that it was so. We know that on two occasions
Phrvne exhibited herself naked at Olympia before the eyes of assembled Greece.
We are also told that when she was prosecuted for some unknown offence, her counsel
had only to disrobe her before her judges to obtain an acquittal. They were so
dazzled by the beauty of her form as to consider themselves at liberty to disregard
the laws. The Venus of Cnidusand the Venus Anadyomene were transcripts of the
body of that same Phryne, successively executed by the sculptor Praxiteles and the
painter Apelles. Aspasia, another of the great Grecian beauties, is the heroine of a
somewhat similar story. It was one day discovered that she was enceinte. Her
beauty wan threatened with partial destruction. The Areopagus ordered her to
give herself a fall. The chief magistrates of Athens thought they could not do
better than sacrifice the life of a child in order to preserve a famous courtesan in
her full beauty. Imagine, if you can, the full Cour de Cassation of Paris order-
ing an abortion to avoid risk of deterioration to the proportions and harmonious
contours of a beautiful form by a continuation of pregnancy ! We do not give
sufficient weight to all these fundamental differences when we attempt to impose
an antique ideal upon modern sculpture.
chap, in.] .SCULPTURE. 203
It would be folly, then, to hope to equal the ancients in this
respect. The nude is their peculiar domain, and, try as we will, we
can never supplant them. Our artists may bring all their zeal, their
patience, and their skill to bear, but they will never attain to that
indescribable excellence which springing immediately from fami-
liarity with nude forms, constitutes the incontestable superiority
of ancient works ; they will always be without the passionate and
exclusive worship of the unveiled human body. The nude, with
us, may be a superstition ; it can never be a passion, a religion.
We are impelled to it by education, by emulation ; and, of course,
there can be no question of suppressing it. But, if we wish sculp-
ture to become a truly modern and independent art, we must
apply ourselves vigorously to develop it in harmony with a modern
spirit — that is, we must look mainly to expression and movement.
In that point we may not only equal, we may surpass the ancients.
It is deplorable to see an art enchained by conditions which fatally
stunt its growth, while it would be so easy to grant it liberty, and
allow it to take a new departure. Above all is it to be regretted
that every year a certain number of young men (all under the
influence of one fatal prejudice) enrol themselves among the
copyists of the nude, and devote all their future to a series of
barren efforts to reproduce forms in which they feel but little
real interest, while another form of art would probably afford
them sincere inspiration. That such exceptional men as MM.
Chapu and Dubois, bountifully endowed as they are with a
feeling for beaiity of form, should persist in the interpretation of
the nude, is a subject for congratulation both for them and for us.
But how many there are who, possessing no iota of their feeling,,
persevere with a courage and patience which is truly pitiable, to
sacrifice to the hopeless pursuit of an unattainable end, faculties
which would be very useful in their own way !
Why, for instance, do our sculptors make no serious attempt ti
render our modern life in their art 1 Has any real proof ever been
given that such an idea is Utopian 1 that our habits are not
sufficiently "nude" to merit interpretation in marble or in
20i .ESTHETICS. [part H.
bronze 1 It seems to me that the thing has already been tried,
though timidly. We have seen, at exhibitions, Sowers, Labourers,
Spinners, Blacksmiths, Haymakers,
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230 iESTHETICS. [part ii.
results of the various mixtures of the prismatic colours. The
colours used in combination will be found in the first vertical
column and in the first horizontal oue ; the colour at the intersec-
tion being the result of the mixture in each case, as in the table of
Pythagoras.
But this table, whilst giving the scientific result of the mixture
of the prismatic colours, does not furnish accurate information for
painters. These obtain their tints by the mixture of coloured
substances formed of small solid particles, which absorb part of
the luminous rays — the result being a certain annihilation of light ;
and mixed powders, especially when they are somewhat coarse in
quality, almost always give darker tints than those which pure
science would demand. Cinnabar, for instance, and ultramarine,
give a grizzly black, in which very little violet is to be found. The
mixture of blue and yellow, from which painters obtain green, will
from the two prismatic colours simply produce white.
By the table we see that the complementary colours — that is,
those which, when united, produce white — are, 1st, red and
greenish blue ; 2nd, orange and pure blue ; 3rd, yellow and
indigo ; 4th, yellow-green and violet. Prismatic green has no
simple complementary : its complementary is purple, a compound
of red and violet.
But these theories are of little use to painters as aids to the pre-
paration of tints, because the coloured powders which they employ
are unfitted for their application. They are however a great help to
the comprehension of the effects resulting from the juxtaposition
of different colours. Whenever complementary colours are placed
side by side, they enhance each other's brilliancy. Yellow-green
attains its maximum of intensity when placed next violet, orange
when bounded by pure blue, yellow when bounded by indigo •
moreover violet appears more violet, and blue more blue, when
in immediate contact with yellow and orange.
For a similar reason, when non-complementary colours are
brought together, they diminish each other's beauty and effect :
too lively a red is lowered by the neighbourhood of blue ; violet
CHAr. iv.] PAINTING. 231
in contact with yellow becomes almost rose. Let the painter who
wants to arrive at some such result, cast his eye upon M. Helm-
holtz's table, instead of attempting to subdue over-bright tints in
a hap-hazard fashion.
We have stated the facts as established by scientific experi-
ment : what is their explanation ? This we are obliged to guess
more or less ; but observation fortunately has collected a few data
which may help to start us upon the right road.
In his Conversations de Goethe, Eckermann relates that one day
in 1829, while they were together looking at some crocuses of a
very intense yellow, they both noticed that the earth around them
seemed all at once to be covered with violet spots. Monge, in his
Geometrie descriptive, mentions a similar circumstance : — " Sup-
pose," he says, "that we are in an apartment exposed to the direct
rays of the sun, in which the windows are protected by red
curtains. Let us make an opening in these curtains of three or
four millimetres in diameter, and receive the rays which will
stream through it upon a white sheet of paper ; it will be found
that upon the paper these rays have formed a green spot. If the
curtains were green the spot would be red."
Another fact, noticed by M. Ch. Blanc : Eugene Delacroix was
occupied one day in working upon a yellow drapery, and was in
despair because he could not give it the brilliancy which he
desired. At last lie said to M. Blanc, " How did Rubens and
Veronese manage to get their yellow so beautiful and bril-
liant 1 . . ." He determined to go to the Louvre to find out,
and sent for a voiture. It was in 1830, and in those days many
of the Parisian cabriolets were painted canary -yellow : one of
these cabriolets was brought to the door. Delacroix sallied out,
but just as he was mounting the yellow vehicle he stopped short,
noticing, to his great surprise, that the shadow cast by it was
violet. He at once discharged the coachman and returned to his
studio rejoicing, to put in practice the law which he had just dis-
covered — that the shadows of an object always display more or
less of its complementary colour ; a fact which becomes more per-
232 ESTHETICS. [part ii.
ceptible when the sunlight is not over strong. Our eyes, indeed,
as Goethe says, have some power of their own to see complemen-
tary colour.
M. Chevreul, in his explanation of the law of complementary
colours, remarks that when a canvas is partly covered with colour,
the unoccupied space at once assumes that colour's comple-
mentary. A red circle becomes surrounded with a pale halo of
green, brightest where the colours touch ; an orange circle is sur-
rounded with a blue halo ; a yellow one with a violet halo, and
vice versa.
For this reason — leaving reflections and the modifications of
the atmosphere out of account — the discords of colour are usually
less violent in nature than in art.
Whence come these halos and this seeming presence of non-
existent colours 1 Obviously from our eye. Even though it does
not decompose colour in the same way as the ear decomposes
sounds and analyses their harmonics, still we find in the synthetic
impressions of our sight something which resembles an effort at
analysis. An English savant, Thomas Young, has even asserted
that a luminous impression is always divided into three parts ;
that the eye possesses three classes of nervous fibres — the first
sensitive to red, the second to green, the third to violet. We
certainly arc quite unconscious of any such division, says
M. Laugel, 1 but the ordinary ear is also unconscious of the reso-
lution of a sound into harmonics. No anatomical confirmation of
Young's opinions has yet been discovered — at least so far as men
are concerned — but it appears that a German anatomist, ^Iax
Sclmltz, has succeeded in tracing upon the retinas of certain birds
and reptiles, fibres, some with red, and some with green termi-
nations.
Several of the graver maladies of the eye have been mentioned
as tending to support the theory of Young. It sometimes
happens, for instance, that a person is quite insensible to red
without losing any of his sensibility to green, yellow and blue.
1 LOptiquc et les Arts, page 37, Library of Contemporary Philosophy.
chap, iv.] PALNTIXG. 233
From this it would seem that one class of nerve fibres may be
paralysed, while the others retain their normal powers.
The study of these questions, is being carried on indefatigably.
We have already known for some time that, in a normal state,
all the different parts of our visual field are not equally fitted to
perceive all colours. That which makes the most extensive im-
pression upon our retina is blue, then comes yellow, then orange,
red, green. Violet is only perceived upon a very restricted space
around chat point upon which the sight is fixed.
M. Landolt has recently made some very interesting observa-
tions relating to this subject, which have clearly established the
order of succession which we have just ^id down. At the same
time he has shown that the visual field of each colour becomes
larger as its luminous intensity increases.
M. Charcot has remarked that with some kinds of invalids —
notably with women subject to hysteria — there are difficulties in
perceiving colours which go far to confirm the laws of which we
have spoken. Such difficulties of perception are not permanent ;
but, on the return of the sufferei to health, the different colours
reappear in the inverse order of their disappearance.
The same observer states that in certain maladies the sensation
of red is preserved when that of yellow, or even of blue, has
become quite extinct. We have here, then, two separate types in
the distribution of colours upon the field of vision ; each type,
however, being constant in one individual.
We must add that, as the malady becomes still more intense, all
sensibility to colour disappears, and the patient sees nature in
black and white, like a picture in monotone or a sepia drawing.
M. Galezowski has made some observations upon certain facts
which have considerable analogy to those of which we have just
been speaking. There are some forms of illness which render the
sufferer incapable of perceiving colour at a little distance. When
tinted papers are gradually brought nearer to the eye lie will
suddenly become sensible of their colour. In the case noted by
the learned oculist it was at a distance of only from 20 to 30
234 .ESTHETICS. [tart n.
centimetres from the eye that the perception of colour began ;
blue being always the first to appear and violet the last. In some
diseases of the nervous system, other than hysteria, M. Galezowski
has ascertained that the first colours to vanish are green and red. 1
1 M. Bert lias lately laid before the Acadimie des Sciences an account of two
series of observations, of which we give the resume printed in the scientific column
of the llipuhlique Francaise, of the 29th January, 1878.
' ' If we observe, from some little distance, the green light resulting from the
intermixture of blue and yellow rays — such, for example, as that given by the
lamps of a Paris omnibus — w r e perceive that its colour increases in blueness as its
distance becomes greater, and vice versa. If the omnibus be approaching the
observer, a moment will arrive when, with a sort of wrench, the real colour
becomes suddenly apparent. This result is not however absolutely constant :
certain conditions seem to be necessary, of which the most important is the
presence of a given amount of watery vapour in the air. It will then be readily
perceived that, of the two colours which compose the green light, blue is the more
persistent.
"M. Bert seems to have ascertained from other and less careful observations,
that, in the case of the colour violet, when seen from a distance, the red dominates
over the blue ; again, orange gradually sinks into red. From all this it would
seem that the most persistent of colours is red, after which comes blue, and, last
of the three, yellow.
"We know that there are some painters, and by no means mediocre ones,
who make some favourite colour predominate in their works even to exaggeration :
with one it is yellow; with another violet, kc. It is commonly said of them, that
they only see yellow or violet. This favourite colour sometimes varies with the
succeeding epochs in the life of one and the same painter : so Decamps painted
everything lilac in the later years of his life, until people were driven to look
upon it as the consequence of some physical modification in the sensory apparatus
of his eyes.
" In order to investigate the bearings of this interesting fact upon physiology
and upon the history of art, M. Paul Bert painted a number of coloured spots, in
plain tints, upon a blank canvas. He then got one of his friends, a painter by
profession, to copy these spots. But first it was arranged, not only that he should
use spectacles of various colours, but as an additional precaution, the colours were
arranged upon the palette by a strange hand, so that the painter, not having his
usual arrangement before him, was obliged to examine carefully the composition
of the tints which he had to use for his copy.
"This experiment confirmed the a priori conclusions. The painter seeing
through the same glasses both the spots to be copied and the colours upon his
palette, committed the same error in his appreciation of the former and his
mixture of the latter. Consequently, he was not satisfied with his work until it
seemed to be really similar to his model. Looking through the coloured glasses
had no other effect than to Increase the difficulty of the imitation.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 235
Whatever theories may be deduced from all these observations,
and others that have still to be made, it is certain that the aureole
of which M. Chevreul speaks does exist ; and that, if we place a
grey drawing successively upon white, black, red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, and violet mounts, our eye perceives eight different
greys, caused by the projection over the drawing, of the colours
complementary to those of its eight successive mounts. Anyone
who was unaware of the existence of this phenomenon, would cer-
tainly, when seeing the drawing upon its various mounts, take it to
be really different each time ; but it would suffice, to dispel any
" Two exceptions, however, must be made to the latter statement. Suppose the
colour of the glasses to be green. If with them the painter examine the various
shades of green, he will not appreciate them with his habitual justice; and this is
easily to be understood, for they all seem to be more or less bathed in that colour,
so that the green tones in the copy suffer. The error, however, becomes still
more marked in the case of red. The various shades of this colour, which is the
complementary of green, have a tendency to black when looked at through a green
light ; as a consequence, the compound tints in which red predominates become
embrowned, lowered intone, whilst their delicate gradations escape comprehension.
" In the case of blue spectacles, it is the shades of blue, and, still more, of orange
which suffer. To speak generally — the mistakes in the copy mostly arise when
the various shades of the same colour as the spectacles, and in a still greater
degree, of its complementary, are in question.
" If, then, we suppose the case of a painter who really sees things with a violet
tint either by his natural disposition or by some alteration in his visual organs,
it is not, as is generally believed, by a predominance of violet that his infirmity is
recognized, but by insufficient variety and delicacy in the shades of violet and of
yellow.
"If he saw a predominance of red and had to represent a nude figure in a
landscape, there would be a disagreeable monotony in his flesh tints, in the
gradations of red which the painter would be unable to distinguish exactly, and,
above all, in the various shades of green in the landscape.
" We may remark in passing that there is much interest in watching a painter
who is copying either nature or a picture after he has made use of a quantity of
santonine, a substance which makes everything put on a violet tinge.
"It is certain, however, that the exaggerated employment of favourite colours
by particular painters, is caused not so much by any change in the organs of
sight as by reasons of an intellectual kind. The experiments which we have just
described show, moreover, how interesting an examination of pictures from this
new point of view would be. If there be some who err in their representations
of the two classes of tints derived from the complementary colours, we can only
attribute such errors in execution to some modification of the organ of sight."
23G ESTHETICS. [PART It.
such belief, to cover the mounts with a piece of white paper cut
to fit the drawing, when the changed appearance would instantly
disappear.
M. Hehnholtz attributes this result to the weakness of the
retina, which very easily becomes fatigued. It has only to receive
the colour red for a short time to become less sensible of its rays,
whereas its sensibility to green rays will be in no way lessened. It
soon begins to see green spontaneously, because the total impres-
sion to which it is accustomed is white light ; and naturally when
it loses one of the elements of that light, it supplies it by an
exercise of a habit which has become a uecessity.
In this we see a real act of reconstitution, forcibly indicating
the existence of an antecedent analysis, whicb is none the less
real because unconscious. From this spontaneous jeconstitution
spring many consequences which afford an explanation of what we
have already said.
First : — When two colours placed in juxtaposition are not com-
plementary, the complementary halos which they cause to be
visible around them, affect and falsify both colours at once. We
can easily understand what inharmonious results may spring from
such transformations when they are neither foreseen nor desired,
because they may operate in direct contradiction to the wishes of
the artist.
Secondly : — When the two colours in juxtaposition are comple-
mentary, the halo which surrounds them is made up of the
same colours, and, as it naturally adds its own intensity to theirs,
it increases their brilliancy to a maximum. This enhanced effect
may also be explained in a different way. If it be true that
the spontaneous appearance of the complementary aureole is due to
fatigue of the retina, produced by the isolation of primary colours —
we may be permitted to believe that the juxtaposition of comple-
mentary colours directly augments the power of the eye, by
suppressing the cause of fatigue, and so procuring for it a more
durable and more complete enjoyment.
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that it is necessary
chap. IV.] PAINTING. 237
to make only such combinations as red with blue-green, orange
with pure blue, yellow with indigo blue, or yellow-green with
violet. It is enough that the complementary aureole be suf-
ficiently and effectually challenged by the addition of the proper
tmt. Hence arise simultaneous contrasts of all kinds, which are
striking in proportion to their freedom from common elements.
We may remark that the pictures which are most admired for
their colour, are those which contain the boldest contrasts cairied
out in the most facile and most simple manner. Even the crudest
and most glaring colours can be harmonized to a considerable
extent, by the one precaution of attending carefully to their
transitions.
The reciprocal influence of colours pi-oduces, in application, some
very remarkable effects. M. Ch. Blanc relates that, on one
occasion of a visit to the Palais du Luxembourg, he was much
struck with the marvellous effect obtained by Eugene Delacroix in
the painting of the central dome. As this cupola is without a
proper supply of light, the artist was reduced to overcome its
obscurity and illumine the concave surface upon which his work
was to be done, simply by the artificial brilliancy obtained from
the management and play of his colours. Among the figures
which compose the decoration, M. Blanc particularly noticed one
semi-nude woman, seated under the shade of trees, whose carna-
tions preserved, even in this double shadow, the most delicate,
transparent, and pleasing tones. While he was lost in admiration
of the rosy flesh-tints, a painter who had been a friend of Dela-
croix and had seen him at work upon this cupola, said to him with
a smile, " You would be rather surprised if you knew what colours
were used to produce the rosy carnations whose effect entrances
you. Tf you saw the tints separately they would seem to you as
dull and wan, Dim me pardonne, as a street fog." Delacroix,
impelled by his singular and intuitive knowledge of the simulta-
neous effects of different colours, had not hesitated to work over the
naked torso of this female figure with hatchings of decided green ;
which, when modified and transformed by the proximity of its
238 iESTHETICS. [part 11.
complementary — rose — formed a fresh and broken tint only to be
appreciated at a proper distance.
This system of producing a third colour by the simple juxta-
position of two tints is called, by painters, an optical mixture. It
is an expedient of the very greatest utility, because, by having
recourse to it, an artist can give the impression of a colour which
does not exist upon his palette. Delacroix made continual use of
it ; and this is why his pictures are the despair of copyists, who
always attempt to place directly upon their canvas the colours
which they fancy they see upon his. But the laws of this
optical arrangement are still but very slightly understood ; and a
painter who is without the marvellous natural gifts and patient
power of observation of Delacroix, will very often arrive at
unexpected results in the endeavour to make use of it. We cannot
here enter into the infinity of technical details. We have said
enough to convince painters that colour does not exist internally
in colour itself, but that it is the result of a combination of physical,
chemical, and physiologic connections, whose laws are, as yet, very
far from being fully explored. In the present state of science,
however, the most important part of the art of colouring depends
upon the aptitude, instinct, habits, surroundings, and personal
caprices and intuitions of the^artists.
Fromentin, who has spent much time over questions relating to
colour, has said that, when reduced to its simplest terms, the pro-
blem might be stated thus : " First, to choose colours beautiful in
themselves ; secondly, to arrange them into appropriate, scientific,
and beautiful combinations." It seems to us that the truth would
be expressed more accurately by the transposition of these terms.
The arrangement and juxtaposition of colours would seem to have
an importance equal to, if not greater than, the choice of each
separately. Such was the opinion of Delacroix, who, more than
anyone else, has a right to an opinion on the subject.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 239
§ 3. Combination and harmony of colour — Expression by colour
and relic/.
We have seen how great care on the part of a painter the com-
position of colour demands. The arrangement of subject, the dis-
position of objects and figures, the progressive developments of
relief (or light) which give modelling and depth to a picture con-
sidered as a whole and complete creation — all these are of an
importance scarcely to be exaggerated. But the combination and
arrangement of values (mleurs) — as I shall call the scheme of
colour — are not less essential.
It may be looked upon from two different points of view. From
the point of view of the theme, or subject, it has, for its object, the
addition of a fresh meaning to the general impression of the work ;
a meaning the force of which may even transform the logical
signification of an action. We have seen an instance of this in
the case of Rubens. From the point of view of the eye, its effect
is to bind together into intimate relation, to direct into one
channel, all the impressions which spring from colour. We have
already seen that light and shade may be so distributed that the
whole picture shall appear a single mass ; having its reliefs and its
hollows, all in such gradation that it will seem easy to grasp the
whole series of projections and retirements of its guiding line, from
its extremities to its central and salient 'point, and from that again
to its extremities.
A similar unity obtains in everything which belongs to the
colour of a picture. All its parts must be combined by well under-
stood management of tints, reflexes, and transitions. To delight
the eye these must be fused into one progressive, concordant, and
well graduated impression, that will constitute unity, or, if you
prefer the word, harmony of colouring. " Keeping " is the studio
term for the pictorial result.
For the sake of illustration we might compare, from this point
of view, two very different works by one artist, the picture of the
Fight between the Romans and Sabines, and the admirable portrait
210 2ESTHETICS. [rArcr n.
of Mme. Recamier, both by L. David. In the former, the linear
composition is logically and academically conceived ; but here it
ends — the work of composition is carried no further. The person-
ages, historically connected, indeed, by the parts which they played
in one common action, remain otherwise perfectly isolated in
their individual proceedings. Romulus and Tatius, concerned only
about their own attitudes, do not seem even to dream that they have
anything else to think about. The mothers with their children
are equally indifferent to what is passing around them, and even
to their infants themselves. They are all simply academy models,
academically drawn and posed, who find themselves brought
together by the chances of history and the freaks of the painter,
but who are not the less on that account isolated in reality.
This deficiency of ensemble in the action is quite as striking in
the scheme of colour. Each figure is coloured, as it is drawn,
for itself alone, without regard for its companions. The result is
that neither in action nor in colour can the picture be called a
composition in the true sense of the word ; it is a mere juxtaposi-
tion, without unity either for eye or intellect. The same may be
said of its chiaroscuro, which is as conspicuous by its absence as
the other qualities which go to make up a picture. For a picture
it is not ; it is but a bas-relief.
The Portrait of Mme. Recamier, on the other hand, is an admir-
able example of this desirable unity. The background is in perfect
harmony with the flesh tints and the colours of the drapery. Each
part of the picture combines in a perfect harmony which makes
the whole unique among the works of its author. None of the
other portraits by L. David, notwithstanding their incontestable
superiority over his historical pieces, can sustain a comparison with
this one. It is true that it was never finished ; and how can we
be sure that the painter, if he had carried it to completion,
would not have taken away that which now constitutes its principal
charm 1
Though this question of enveloppe (or " keeping ") obtains so
little consideration from the public, we should not on that account
CHAP, iv.] PAINTING. 241
conclude that they are insensible to its existence. Although there
is on their part no question of a minute analysis of impressions,
there is no doubt that the masterly exercise of this unity has
great influence with them. Among the more or less conscious
sensations which combine to form their opinions, it is a latent
but an efficacious factor. It attracts by a secret charm, which
analysis might refer indeed to other and even absurd causes,
but which is not the less real on that account. That this
should be so, is quite legitimate, and quite in harmony with the
principles of ^Esthetic pleasure. It is therefore very important
from an artistic point of view, that this element of attraction
should not be lost sight of; especially as it is no more and no
less than the application, to the completed picture, of the general
laws which govern the employment and mutual relations of
colours.
As for precise rules, we need not here consider them.
Nothing is more vague and difficult to be defined than the
harmony of the colourist.
While the eye experiences intense pleasure in regarding the
contrasts of the complementary colours which exalt its visual
power, it obtains almost equal enjoyment from the softness and
sweet uncertainty resulting from the skilful juxtaposition of very
similar tones. It never tires of the prismatic colours of Kubens,
nor yet do the varied greys of Velasquez disgust it. Again, some
say that the total impression should be such as we feel before the
works of Paul Veronese, almost white. After looking at his
pictures for hours at a time, the eye carries away the sensation
of that white light which brings all its visual power into play
equally, and so preserves an equilibrium, to the exclusion of all
sense of fatigue.
This, however, is not all. Everyone seems to be agreed upon
the point. A painter, to deserve the name of a colourist, must be
able, as Fromcntin has said, to preserve to every colour of his
e — whether it be high or low in tone, broken or the reverse,
compound or simple— its just value, its full power, and its proper
E
242 iESTHETICS. [part ii.
place j and so preserve it everywhere and always, in shadow and
half tint as much as in high light. We distinguish masters and
schools hy the measure of their success in this. Take any painter
you please ; examine his local tones, see what they become in the
high lights, and whether they are carried fairly into half-tint and
into deepest shadow — you will then be able to say with certainty
whether or not the picture is the work of a true colourist ; you
will know to what epoch, to what country, and to what school it
belongs.
In connection with this subject, there exists, among technical
terms, a formula which we may here conveniently notice. "When-
ever any colour undergoes all the changes of light and shadow
without losing any of its constituent qualities, it is said that
light and shadow are of the same family ; this means, they must
both preserve, under all circumstances, the most easily grasped
relationship with the local tones. The ways of using colour are
very various indeed. From Rubens to Giorgione, from Velasquez
to Veronese, there are varieties of practice which prove both the
extraordinary elasticity of the art of painting and the extraordi-
nary freedom in choice of means which, without compelling them
to change their final aim, is yet open to men of genius. One law,
however, men of genius have all observed and they alone, whether
they belong to Venice or Parma, to Madrid, Antwerp, or Haarlem
—the law that governs the relationship between light and shade,
and preserves the identity of local tint throiigh all the changing
incidence of light.
It would seem, then, that in this matter all men have been
agreed ; that the rule we have quoted has never been denied.
It is not so, however. One painter — certainly one of the greatest,
if not the greatest of all — openly disregarded the practice and
traditions of the colourists, trampling under foot the laws they
respected and have by their authority imposed on us ; a painter
moreover who carried research into all the facts which bear
upon light farther than any man before or after him — Rem-
brandt.
UHAP. iv.] TAINTING. 243
Instead of wedding colour to light, he divorces them. In his
lights everything is white, in his shadows everything is brown.
He aims at value of tone, and to obtain it perpetually sacrifices
colour.
One of the most observant painters of our time, whose eye has
the finest perception, and the surest, of the infinitely minute and
delicate variations in the play of light and shade, Meissonier, does
not hesitate to follow the example of Rembrandt in this method.
In his high lights he mercilessly suppresses all local tint, as if it
were devoured by the luminous rays falling upon it. That bright
light diminishes colour we knew ; but we had hardly ventured to
make it cause its complete disappearance. A new school of
painters, which has applied to matters of colour the same direct
observation and unflinching sincerity which contemporary realism
has long demanded in the choice of subjects and the representa-
tion of form, 1 proclaims, as one of the chief articles of its pro-
gramme, this principle of the discolouration of tints when in full
sunshine, and claims to have discovered it, although it has
long ago been demonstrated by science. Just as white light,
when decomposed by the prism, resolves itself into the sequence
of colour, so these different colours, when exposed to the direct
rays of the sun, may, under certain conditions, become re-fused
into their primitive unity, with the residt of a unique impression,
namely, light.
We can easily understand how this fact escaped the observation
of artists accustomed to work in thedaylight of the studio, always
more or less diffused ; for a like reasoiij it was sure to strike the
attention of those who were in the habit of working in the open
air.
1 This does not imply any intention to accuse the realists of indifference to
questions of colour or of relief. Far from this being the case, their processes
deserve attentive study from this very point of view. But, although they
arrived at some very instructive results, it must be acknowledged that their
deliberate energies were not directed to any reform in colour and chiaroscuro.
The contrary is true, however, of the members of the " open air " school. Their
chief aim is truth in whatever relates to colour and the effects of light.
B 2
244 .ESTHETICS. [part ii.
We have dwelt on this question of colour at some length. It
is, in fact, the foundation of the art of painting. Combinations of
line and form are common to sculpture and architecture also,
but colour belongs to painting alone ; and, notwithstanding
anything which those members of the Academy who insist upon
considering it as a merely ornamental accessory may say, colour
has, as well as drawing, its power of moral expression, and lends
itself with an equal facility to the manifestation of an artist's
personality.
The power of expression possessed by colour is indeed incontes-
table. It has even been asserted as a reproach against colourists,
that they have completely transformed the significance of the
scenes which they have undertaken to represent. Of this there
are two often-cited examples, the Erection of the Cross and
the Martyrdom of St. Lieven, both by Rubens. A great many
critics have spoken with strong disapprobation of the contra-
diction between the sentiment of the colour and that of the sub-
ject. If colour be so entirely without moral expression as they
assert, how can it be guilty of any such contradiction. Its
enemies admit, by their reproaches, a practical recognition of
its importance, looked at as a means of interpreting moral im-
pressions.
The colour of the Erection of the Cross is startling as a trumpet
call ; its brilliancy seems at first more suited to a triumph than
to a scene so solemn. Neither Orcagna, nor Caravaggio, nor
Etibera formed such a conception of the event; though this is
hardly a good reason why Ave should accuse Rubens of want of
logic. Certainly E. Fromentin, who studied his works with the
most scrupulous care, did not think so. " Before all this," he says,
" Ave forget the torture and the shame, and look upon the whole
scene as a triumph. Such Avas the peculiar logical purpose of its
brilliant author. It has often been called a contradiction ; it has
lieen called melodramatic, devoid of gravity, majesty, beauty, or
solemnity — almost theatrical. It is saved by the very pictorial
qualities that might have destroyed it. A powerful imagination
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 245
pervades and elevates it. A flash of true sensibility illumines and
ennobles it. Something like eloquence purifies its style. A happy
but indescribable warmth of inspiration makes this picture just
what it ought to be — a picture both of ordinary death and of
apotheosis." An ordinary death, if the manner of arranging the
subject be looked at ; an apotheosis, if we regard the brilliant and
luminous colour, which causes Fromentin a little further on to
call it " line gloire et un cri de clairon."
He gives a similar explanation of the Martyrdom of Saint Lievin.
" Look only," he says, " at the white horse prancing against the
white sky, the golden cope of the bishop, his white stole, the
white and black spotted dogs, the four or five black and two
red hoods, the turning visages with their red beards, and in every
direction on the vast surface of the canvas, a delicious concert
of greys, of tender blues, of silvery lights and shadows — and
you will see nothing but a sentiment of glowing harmony, the
most admirable and the most spontaneous which, perhaps, even
Rubens has made use of to explain, or, if you will, to excuse, a
scene of horror."
These contrasts exist in the very nature of colourists. When
they choose a subject, we may be sure that it is its capability for
colour which has taken their fancy. Again, it is by their power of
colour that they redeem shortcomings in other ways. Eubens
is the chief instance of this. " He is more worldly," says Fro-
mentin, "than any of the painters who can be looked upon as his
equals. He comes to the aid of the designer and of the thinker
and redeems their work. Many, indeed, cannot follow him in his
bolder flights. They feel suspicious and distrustful of an
imaginative power capable of so great abandonment; and only
comprehend those parts of his art which attach it to what is
really common and low — its exaggerated realism, its display of
coarse muscles, its redundant and careless drawing, its heavy
human types, with their ruddy skins, and ensanguined flesh.
They fail to perceive that consummate unity, style, and even ideal
feeling, to be found in all the productions of his palette."
246 ^ESTHETICS. [i-aut ii.
Even when the colourist confines himself to the mere manifesta-
tion of his own personality as a colourist — to the manifestation,
that is, of the peculiar ensemble of natural qualities which
makes him look upon light as his own native element, upon the
glowing hues of his palette as his proper means of self-exaltation,
and upon the interpretation of nature in all her force and glory as
his chief end and aim ; qualities which cause him to see all things
in the blaze of light and colour which is his highest joy — does he
not give us reason enough to declare that colour is not deprived of
all moral significance 1
Besides, it is not correct to say that colourists are bound of
necessity to sacrifice drawing. Rubens, Veronese, Titian, Rem-
brandt, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Correggio, Delacroix were none of
them the mediocrities in the matter of drawing which too many
would have us believe. All that we can say with truth is,
drawing was not their exclusive pre-occupation.
It would even be easy to prove that, from some points of
view, and those perhaps the most important, the drawing
of the colourist is superior to that of the masters who pro-
fessed to make design the chief object of their studies. The
modelling of the former is truer and more lifelike ; and, to me,
it seems undeniable that the fused and undulating line with
which he marked his contours, is much nearer nature than the
cutting and harsh one with which Ingres and the painters of
his school used to make their figures stand out, as if punched
with a die.
The pretended indifference of colourist and colouring to the
moral character of the events depicted, is founded upon an
incomplete and superficial observation of the works of a few
painters — Paul Veronese, and Rubens, for instance — in which
the magnificence of the colour blinds most people to their other
great qualities. We are even told that these painters only aimed
to dazzle our eyes. This assertion is true of only a very small
number of the canvases of Veronese ; and we have already shown
how in the case of Rubens it was refuted by M. Fromentin in his
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 217
observations upon the Deposition in the Tomb and the Martyrdom
of Saint Lievin. The example of Delacroix seems to us to be
enough to show the great danger of these generalisations. In his
case it would be very difficult to find any justification for them.
No one will deny that he was one of the greatest of colourists ;
yet he always and obviously devoted himself to reconcile the
splendours of his palette with the moral character of the subjects
that he treated ; and more, to make the general tone and colour of
his pictures declare their character in advance, and, so to speak,
to give it emphasis. When at a distance from one of his works,
while we are still unable to appreciate the figures and incidents,
our eyes are fascinated by the power of expression, whether
brilliant or sombre, which seems to condense and summarize the
motive of the subject itself.
Theophile Sylvestre, one of the three or four really competent
art critics who have appeared during the present century, justly
remarks of his Christ on the Cross : " In order to give the
utmost effect to his work, Delacroix has not forgotten to agitate
external nature. The earth trembles, the sky is darkened, the
sun casts its lurid gleams across the black clouds, which a
rushing wind drives down upon the earth like a tattered pall ;
while the awestruck people, enveloped in the unnatural darkness,
recognize the death of the Just One, and the anger of God. The
great and ambitious genius of the artist would move all nature
with his own emotion. In the Pietd which now hangs in a dark
Paris church, the landscape is as desolate and sombre as the soul
of the mother weeping over the corpse of her son. In the
s liipwrecTc of Don Juan, the poor unfortunates are between two
eternities: the ocean about to engulph them, and the sky rolling
its gloomy depths over their devoted heads Xot only
dues the painter give infinite greatness to the heads of his
heroes; he also, by some indescribable magic of his own, makes
us see them clothed in colours which of themselves seem to express
both their external features and the aspirations of their souls. By
his blue and green he expresses all the immensity <>f sea and
248 JESTHETICS. [part ir.
heaven ; his reds are like notes of a war trumpet, his violet seems
to breathe melancholy. His colour is as expressive as the music
of Mozart, of Beethoven, or of Weber."
We might contend, if we wished to go into such refinements,
that the moral expression of a picture has less to do with the
colour itself than with the amount of light and shadow which it
contains ; and, upon this distinction between colour and light, we
might attribute to chiaroscuro properly speaking, part of the
impression made upon us by the works of the colourists. Such a
contention would be quite fair, provided it were not carried too
far. It is at least certain that black and white, by its propor-
tions, arrangements, and contrasts, exercises a very singular power
over us. So great is this power, that an engraving is capable of
rendering a large part of the effect of a picture. Upon the
principle underlying this, is founded the practice of the chiaroscur-
ists, who, as in the case of Rembrandt, often almost entirely
dispensed with colour in order to get the strongest possible effect
from light and shade.
This practice is no more than an exaggeration of the ordinary
duties of chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro, as we have already said, is
the art of giving relief or light to the picture. This definition
really gives the widest meaning of the phrase. But, for the
painter who is an acute observer of the nature of things, every
object is of course enveloped in air; which air, however trans-
parent it may be, possesses a colour of its own not to be overlooked.
Its interposition has the effect of attenuating, and, as it were,
vapourising colour in a degree varying according to distance. A
mountain in sunshine, when close at hand, seems to be enveloped
in a kind of luminous dust ; when seen from afar, it appears deep
blue. The more dense the intervening atmosphere becomes, the
more numerous are the accidental and picturesque effects of light
which spring up. Modifications in shade and shadow, in sharp
relief and hazy distance, arc suggested. Everything seems bathed
in a quasi artificial medium, whose mysterious veil puts colour
through a number of changing aspects, and makes it more useful
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 24!)
to a poetic fancy, by the facilities it offers to employ the effects
and contrasts of light and shade.
Rembrandt invariably made the greatest use of these facilities ;
and sometimes he even pushed his practice so far as to become
nearly unintelligible. This is shown very strongly by an examina-
tion of the conditions under which he painted his famous picture
which has so long passed under the name of the Ronde de JVuit,
or Night Watch. These names alone are enough to shew what
exaggerations of chiaroscuro the painter indulged in, for in reality
the scene is meant to be a daylight one.
Exaggerations so great as to demand a general transposition of
the luminous principle are, then, as we have seen, extremely
perilous, since the painter par excellence of the various effects of
chiaroscuro has himself been sometimes wrecked upon them. But
when the effect is successfully obtained, its power is extra-
ordinary ; whether wc look at the brilliancy given to light, or at
the mystery added to the shadows and half-tints. In the first
case, we are conscious of an intensity and plenitude of sensation
which almost exhaust our powers of perception ; in the second,
the very mystery of the forms and colours, bathed in half-
transparent shadows, attracts the eye and the imagination, and
holds them bound in a most tender if melancholy reverie.
Nothing is more fitted to render moral impressions than
chiaroscuro as thus understood ; nothing lends itself more readily
to individual fancy or to poetic modifications of fact. It is an
incomparable artistic element opening an infinite field for the
expression of personality. How does the personality of Rem-
brandt make itself felt? By research into physical beauty? by
accurate imitation of fact? by accuracy and vigour of drawing?
No one would dare to say so. By the novel but human character
of his religious scenes ? by the intense life which animates his
figures ? Certainly yes. But also and above all, by his peculiar
use of chiaroscuro in his subtle pursuit of light through the
midst of shadow, and by the powerful expressiveness with which
he endowed it.
250 ."ESTHETICS. [i-art ii.
§ 4. Drawing — Irregularities caused by movement — Draughtsmen of
line, and draughtsmen of movement — Physiological demonstra-
tion of the superiority of the latter.
We have been obliged to go into the important question of
colour and light, or relief, at some length, because its importance
has been contested. Nevertheless we are very far from denying
the importance of drawing. Provoking in their Byzantiuism 1 as
are the arguments of the pretended classicists who do their best
to demonstrate the superiority of drawing over colour — we have
yet no intention to uphold the opposite thesis, or to be led to
declare that drawing is nothing, simply because there are those
foolish enough to say that it is everything.
1 They Lave even extracted arguments to support their contention from the reci-
procal influence of colours when placed in juxtaposition to each other. " Colour,"
say they, " is relative ; form is absolute. " This proposition is doubly false. That
which is relative is not colour, it is out c;/e. Whatever may be its neighbour,
■colour changes neither chemically nor physically ; that which does change is our
visual power. Again, this modification takes place just as much in the case of
form. Without going into any question of anamorphosis, of foreshortening — we
may ask, is it not sufficient to bring two forms together to exaggerate or attenuate
the impressions of grandeur, size, suppleness, thickness, curvature, stiffness, grace,
&c, which either of them might produce if isolated ? It is quite certain that the
iesthetic value of form may be essentially modified by juxtaposition and compari-
son ; and this iesthetic value is the only one of which we need here take account.
Another argument equally astonishing is that embodied in the assertion that
"as we ascend the scale of creation, colour gradually loses its importance and gives
way to drawing or design." That is, we are to accept as a fact that colour dimi-
nishes in splendour as we go from mineral to vegetable and from vegetable to
animal ; and that the most inferior in colour of all animals is man ; of course,
a ftcr the monkey. They have been good enough to allow that birds are an excep-
tion, " being still gorgeous in their tints." There can be little doubt of that fact,
because there are not only many birds, but insects as well, whose colouring is infi-
nitely more brilliant and more varied than that of the great majority of minerals.
Ihit to compensate for this admission, which impairs the symmetry of their argu-
ment, they say that " the more intelligent birds are the least decorated." The
nightingale compared with the peacock, for instance. Is not this enough to refute
flic most obstinate of colourists '. If it be not, surely the next startling assertion
will convince them : "The human body is the work of a great draughtsman and
not of a colourist ? " Here we have the Creator himself enrolled among the
champions of drawing ! He despises colour, and colourists must do without his
aid !
chap, iv.] PAINTING -l-'A
Neither do we mean to say that it is the " honesty of art" (la
probite de Varl), because, to tell the truth, we are not sure that
we know what this rhetorical aphorism means. Moreover, we have
no wish to try to assign to each its respective rank, because it
seems to us clear enough that a picture without colour is not
painting in our sense of the word, and that colour without form is
no art at all. We are content to look upon form and colour as
the two essential elements of painting, since painting is defined to
be the coloured representation of form.
We shall be justified if we pass over drawing without entering
much into detail, for we have gone over almost the same ground
in our remarks upon architecture and sculpture. We may, how-
ever, observe that pictorial design has a peculiar importance of
its own, because painting allows the expression of gesture, of
attitude, and of physiognomy to be carried much further than in
the case of sculpture. A picture, by the facilities which it affords
for grouping, and, by perspective, for the comprehension of ex-
tended spaces, enables us to give an intensity and energy to action
which an isolated figure would find it very difficult to support.
Violent and even far-fetched gestures, fleeting attitudes, hardly to
be approved in a work of sculpture, are perfectly in place upon
canvas, because there they are surrounded by what is wanted to
explain them and their connection with the rest of the work. It
is not at all our wish to disallow movement in sculpture, and
especially in groups ; but the very material employed, lends itself
badly to the contortions quite permissible in the pictorial repre-
sentation of violent action.
These contortions, which are frequent in the works of certain
artists, full of fire and impetuosity, whose aim above everything is
life - — such as Ilubens and Delacroix — constitute of themselves an
- Drawing, in the true and complete meaning of the word, is a quite inseparable
part of the impression. Burger, in his Salon 0/I86I, wrote: "It is said that
our present school is perfect in process and handcraft ; that every one of our
painters knows how to paint ; and that, although there is some want of inspiration,
of intelligence, and of poetry, the practice of contemporary art equals that of the
252 ESTHETICS. [pakt ir.
important difference between the design of a painter and that of
a sculptor. It is easy to understand that a painter, having at his
disposal only a single moment of time, attempts to obtain all the
effect possible by borrowing, so to speak, a little both from the
past and the future of the particular gestures of his personages.
Gesture is not an arrested movement ; the latter being in fact an
attitude : it is a movement which is going continuously on. The
painter not having the means to reproduce this continuity of
movement, is obliged to make it felt, by adding to the forced
immobility of the attitude which he has to substitute for gesture,
something of what has immediately gone before and also some-
thing of what is about to follow.
We know well enough that this multiplex attitude cannot exist,
at one and the same moment, in the material reality ; but we
allow the painter to make use of it, simply because, far above the
purely material immobility of the moment chosen by him, there
is the superior truth of vitality, through force of which this immo-
bility becomes only an imperceptible point in a series of move-
ments. In the same way we may look upon a circle as a series of
very short straight lines attached to each other by an infinite
number of obtuse angles. If we were to assign to each of those
straight lines some appreciable dimensions, the circle would dis-
appear and would be transformed into a visible polygon. If,
again, the lines should be reduced to points, the angles formed by
their arrangement would become imperceptible, and the circle
would be restored.
In the same way, if the painter, under the pretext of accuracy,
were to represent his personages petrified in the momentary
attitude in which he is obliged to take them, he would destroy
their vitality, and, by this very scrupulous adherence to realism,
greatest schools of former times. We have here a very self-deceiving mistake.
The truth is imagination, high conceptions ami convictions, real love of art itself,
are wanting even in our most famous artists; anil, as execution cannot exist without
a trm mill life-like impression, they are incapable of drawing, modelling, or giving
proper effect even to the insignificant images which they .so painfully devise to
flatter the bad taste of a wearied public."
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 253
would take away the most real thing about them ; their move-
ment, life, and action. In order to give them full truth and power
of expression, he is obliged in some measure to ignore the ex-
tremely narrow limits of the one attitude to which logic would
restrict him, and to add a little both of that which went before,
and that which is about to follow. 1
This is what the cold designers of " absolute form," that is, of
immobility, can never forgive in the great draughtsmen of move-
ment. While the latter make life their aim, the former are com-
pletely taken up with the study of line. Compare Rubens and
Delacroix with L. David and Ingres. It is impossible to conceive
1 All great draughtsmen have devoted their attention to movement — Raphael,
whom our "princes of design" have taken for their patron, as much as others.
Constantin, in his Idecs Italienncs, has remarked that "the rapidity and sudden-
ness of movement on the part of the mother of the demoniac child in the Trans-
figuration, is such that her draperies have not had time to follow the impulse of
her body; she alone has turned. Her girdle, left behind by her movement, seems
to be placed awry ; but we soon perceive that if she were to return to her former
attitude, it would be in its proper place." We have here, evidently, an example
of license which, if it were found elsewhere than in one of his works, the worship-
pers of Raphael would condemn very strongly. The same author remarks again,
"Raphael always leaves around his figures the space necessary to indicate the
position in which they were at the moment immediately preceding that chosen
by the painter, and is very cai'eful not to fill up the void which they have thus
left behind them. Attention to details so minute would perhaps be laughed at
in these days; but Raphael gains by paying regard to them. Do the artists who
contemn these apparently insignificant but logical precautions obtain such an
effect as he does '. I may cite two examples which throw light upon the question.
The first is the figure of the young apostle who leans forward towards the sister of
the demoniac boy ; the space which he occupied is behind him and empty. The
second is furnished by the father of the sufferer. . . . We see here how
Raphael succeeded in giving to his figures that spontaneity of movement and true
and serious grace which Leaves an impression so powerful upon intelligent and
sensitive minds." The"ophile Sylvestre quotes some remarks of Delacroix relating
to this study of movement : "Rubens," said Delacroix, "Rubens is the king of
painters; he is as great as Homer, and like him, breathes his own soul into <
thing to which he puts his hand. We feel a tli rill when, in reading Homer, the
poet brings Achilles and Hector on the scene; so, too, we shudder before the
canvas of Rubens, as the Roman soldier strikes his lance through the bli
side of Christ. That lance thrust had, for me, a power of expression, a Homeric
force, which I shall never forget."
254 .ESTHETICS. [fact n.
a more complete antithesis, not only from the point of view of
colour — of which we have said all that we think — hut also from
that of design. While the smallest figures of the former men
seem instinct with a vitality so lively and strong that they seem
to be ever on the point of rushing out of the canvas ; those of the
latter, in their coldness and immobility, seem statues in repose.
And, in fact, they are statues, being both conceived and executed
in the spirit of sculpture. In spite of all that academic and con-
ventional admiration may say as to these two men being the first
of modern draughtsmen, I am not afraid to assert it can easily be
demonstrated that their reputation is singularly exaggerated ; or,
at least, that it rests upon a strange piece of confusion, which
proves how little account their admirers have taken of the funda-
mental differences between the two arts of painting and sculpture.
I am quite willing to acknowledge that no one could excel L. David
in the production of admirable academy studies; 1 that is, of atti-
tudes, of immobile statues. But Ingres has not even this merit :
we could, without very much trouble, point out a large number of
errors in the works of this corypheus of drawing. But even if we
admit that Ingres could draw attitudes as well as L. David, one
thing remains quite certain — neither the one nor the other could
draw gestures and movements ; neither the one nor the other
seems ever to have thought it possible for art to catch life on the
wing, so to speak, fix it on canvas, without first reducing it to
the immobility of death. It is impossible to look at their pictures
without being reminded of the frames in which entomologists fix
their unfortunate beetles and butterflies with pins through their
bodies. The figures of these masters of drawing bear each in its
heart an invisible pin which long since has destroyed their life.
1 I need not say that I am as little likely as anyone to include the portraits
of L. David and of Ingres in the sweeping condemnation of their other pictures.
Their portraits — especially those of David — often possess a startling vitality. This
very fact doubly proves the falsehood of their theories on the matter of drawing.
The actual presence of a model to lie copied makes them forget their academic
doctrines, and so prevents their application; again, the immobility of the model
helps to hide their incapability to represent life in movement.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 255
They no more resemble living figures than do the dried flowers of
the botanist resemble those blooming in the fields.
The reason is not far to seek. The ideal of both these artists
was the Greek ideal, the ideal of sculpture. 1
Originally obliged to admire the solitary masterpieces of the
sculptor, they have come to take these as models and rules for
all the arts. They despise colour, because sculpture does not
require to be coloured, being also unaware that in former days,
statues were always painted. They have made the elaboration of
line the almost exclusive object of the painter, because to sculp-
ture it was necessary in consequence of the relative immobility
which the nature of it imposes. Moved by the same idea, and
guided by the same logic, they have made absolute confusion
between pictorial drawing, which consists of a combination of
several attitudes, and sculptural drawing, which has to do with
one only. 2
1 Ingres, like David, was less a painter than a sculptor. The same characteristic
was the mark of all his school, as has already been observed by M. Guizot in his
Salon o/ISIO. The latter was much struck with "this influence of sculpture
upon a school of painting formed upon statues. Masters teach their pupils to
paint by giving them casts for models. Can they avoid becoming cold and grey
in their colour ?" He says also, and with equal justice: "The care which the
present French school (1810) devotes to fomi at the expense of colour, clearly
shows that it is not alive to the peculiar domain of palntiuy, and that it follows
too closely the practice of sculptors."
8 This is one reason why their sketches are generally so much more life-like
than their finished works. Of this we have seen a very striking example in recent
years. The Gazette des Beaux-Arts has published fac-similes of certain original
sketches by M. Paul Baudry for the decoration of the great foyer of the New Opera.
In them we find an amount of life and animation which, in the painted work, has
almost entirely disappeared. Gesture is not wanting in M. Baudry's pictures; we
might even say that it is exaggerated, and yet there is no stir. All his personages,
notwithstanding their great arms and outstretched legs, are fixed in an immobility
all the more disagreeable because seemingly in contradiction with their appa-
rent movements. To what must we refer this disastrous transformation from the
original sketch ? To the fact that, in the sketches, the gestures are vaguely indi-
cated by a multiplicity of features all leading to one impression ; in them figures
are made animate by having several movements, several successive attitudes,
simultaneously hinted at : while all this blending of succession and simultaneity
completely disappears in the definite precision of the attitude finally fixed upon.
256 AESTHETICS. [PART II.
The theories of those who approve immobility in drawing have
received a death-stroke from a recently discovered scientific
fact. It has been clearly demonstrated that the image impressed
upon the retina, remains there during an appreciable space of
time. Consequently, gestures, though passing continuously throng! i
an unbroken series of changes, for a time, and especially when
the movement is rapid, remain unchanged in the eye ; and thus
succession is transformed into a practical simultaneity.
Now, which should the painter prefer, reality as it is, or reality
as it presents itself to our visual sense 1 The latter, evidently,
unless he wish to reduce his art to the condition of photo-
graphy. 1 To deny this — that is, to compel the artist to represent
arrested movement, actual momentary attitude, under the pretext
that it alone exists for the painter, who has to do with a single
instant of time — would be hardly more intelligent, than to forbid
the recognition of the mutual changes in tone and tint to which
the juxtaposition of colotus gives rise. The critic who should
dare to advise artists to consider each colour on its own merits ; tc
reproduce them in their true reality, without taking heed of others
in their immediate neighbourhood, on the pretext that colour has
an isolated existence only, and that the mutual influences by
which it is modified, result merely from an infirmity of the eye :
would be at once repudiated by all painters who realise that one
of the first conditions of art is the recognition of the physiological
nature of man ; that painting can no more place itself in antagon-
ism to the eye, than music to the car — unless, indeed, the former
be meant for the blind and the latter for the deaf.
We are brought, then, to conclude, that in the long and
absurd quarrel which the exclusive partisans of drawing have
waged against the colourists, the former have .succeeded in cle-
1 Photography is unable to render movem at, simph because it is only able
to seize absolutely stationary attitudes. This is one of the chief of the disal ili
which will always effectually prevent it from usurping the place of art. It is also
lln: reason why draughtsmen of the school of L. David and Ingres, who .substitute
photographic for pictorial reality, must always remain imperfect.
rn.vi'. iv.] PAINTING. 257
monstrating that, if they are wanting in colour, they are no less
wanting in drawing — by which I mean, drawing considered as the
interpreter of life and movement. What they condemn as an
error is nothing more than the unconscious, but perfectly legi-
timate, result of a superior artistic realism ; a very different
thing from the realism of a photograph. They despise colour,
because it is beyond their reach. They console themselves by
maligning it, and by pluming themselves on their fancied supe-
riority in the art of design, properly speaking. I regret to
deprive them of their satisfaction ; but the discovery of the pro-
longed duration of the image upon the retina, forbids us to leave
them in the enjoyment of a belief which, we do not hesitate to
say, they have too long abused.
No one doubts that they have erred in good faith. But their
error has been absolute, and science has upheld the instinctive
convictions of that genius which, from the heights of their superb
infallibility, they have treated as a mistake. They have now
but the alternative of resignation to the sentence passed upon
them by physiology, through the discovery of the persistence of
the retinal impression.
§ 5. Malformations caused by light — Line and contour — Arabesque
of a picture — Linear and aerial perspective.
The malformations or modifications of form produced by move-
ment are no more extraordinary than those caused by light ] and
1 1 borrow from M. Ph. Burty's book, Maitres it petits maitres, the following
very significant passage relating to this'question of contour and the changes in form
produced by light : " Theodore Rousseau on one occasion showed me in the mosl
striking manner that form in itself does not exist by contour, but solely by it-
salience. He pointed out to me a landscape in which the trees received a strong
light from the front — that is, from the same side as the spectator — which oblite-
ratingall details, gave them large and simple forms. The effect was both powerful
and natural. Again, he had carefully transferred the forms of this landscape to
another picture ; and this one he illuminated with a sun almost setting in the
background. The rays penetrated through the foliage in a thousand little ton
of fire, cutting the great masses which had been bathed in the broad light and
s
258 -ESTHETICS. [pakt ii.
perspective. It is obvious, however, that these latter are only
changes in appearance. Neither aerial nor linear perspective can
really cause any change in the actual condition of things. A
long avenue of poplars has really the same height and width at
one end as it has at the other. The stature of a man does not in
reality diminish simply because you see him a hundred yards off.
These are purely subjective phenomena of which the advocates of
drawing and of colour alike are obliged to take account. They
have found it more difficult to realise that the mere incidence
of light imposes infinite modifications upon form, but they are now
gradually beginning to confess that it is so. They will end by
acknowledging that gesture and movement, also, have their visual
laws, which cannot be set at defiance without substituting immo-
bility for movement, and death for vitality.
We call the attention of all artists to this, a fact, which, we
believe, is destined to exercise considerable influence over their
procedure. And as we have but to announce it, to furnish another
argument against the pretensions equally vain and ill-founded of
a coterie, which gives itself out to be the sole depository of artistic
truth, we think that we have not given either our time or our
trouble uselessly.
We have a like observation to make on the question of contour.
Contour, as we have already said, is the imaginary line bounding
the juxtaposition of one colour with another. In itself it has no
real existence ; and it is therefore a mistake to circumscribe a
figure with the hard and rigid line of which the majority of
academic " draughtsmen " make use. This line possesses another
inconvenience : it destroys aei'ial perspective, the natural effect of
which is to soften the contours of objects, in a greater or less
degree, in proportion to their distance from us.
We have shown it to be doubly false; it will lie seen to be triply
shade of noonday into hundreds of little crisp silhouettes, and so changed the
contours of the trees and the general appearance of the scene as to make it
hardly recognizable.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 259
so when we consider that man, having two eyes, sees in duplicate
the limits of bodies which are near to him and possess appreciable
thickness. Such a boundary as this cannot possibly be traced by
a single black line. It is in fact a certain amount of space, on
which, us on other surfaces, white exercises its usual influence.
The suppression of this space constitutes an untruth by which not
only the contour itself suffers, but also the modelling ; for this,
as it begins at the further of the two lines, is truncated by the
amount of the interval comprised between them.
Over accentuation of contour implies a surface without depth,
at least upon its edges. It destroys that sensation which enables us
to perceive that an object has substance, and that the sides which
are turned away from us have also their relief. It is quite vain
for an artist to lavish his powers of modelling upon the face of an
object which is immediately opposite to his eye; because modelling
does not really begin there, nor is it possible by such means to
do away with the impression that the surface at the back is
quite flat.
Theophile Sylvestre remarks apropos of this point, that, so far
from encircling their figures with the rigid linear contours so dear
to Ingres and his school, Murillo and Correggio almost lost their
outlines in surroundings; while "Paul Veronese, Rubens, and
ltembrandt indicated it with free strokes of the brush, even
carrying it beyond the limits of their figures, thus giving them
extraordinary relief and vitality."
Upon the fact, so important from the point of view of relief and
salience, that when we look at an object with two eyes we see the
vertical lines which form its boundaries in two different places at
once, was founded the invention of the stereoscope. The ordinary
photographic image, being the production of a single objective or
lens, represents bodies without depth or thickness, just as we see
them in the pictures of Ingres. To give them their proper relief
it was only necessary to place side by side two photographs taken
from angles of view slightly differing so as to correspond to those
of our eyes; and also to arrange that the two images could be
a 2
260 2ESTHETICS. [paiit ii.
simultaneously inspected, the one by the left, the other by the
right eye. The slight displacement of the vertical lines gives the
required depth and modelling.
Here, then, in this question of contour, we again find ourselves
face to face with a physiological and scientific fact ; and again,
as in the case of the dislocations caused by movement, do we find
the despots of the rigid line and punching-out system convicted
of flagrant ignorance and error. And these are the men who have
substituted sculptural for pictorial drawing, under the empty
pretext that " form is absolute."
We shall not enter here into the moral significance of each
different kind of line. What we have already said is enough for
our present purpose ; any further analysis would carry us too far.
We need only remind our readers that the general line which
governs the mass of a picture is a very important part of what we
term its composition. It is called, in technical language, the
arabesque of the picture. This arabesque must, of course, develop
itself in conformity with the general sentiment of the work, whose
impression may vary very much according to the direction in which
such development may proceed. This arabesque occupies a very
important place in Italian paintings, and especially in those of
Raphael.
Perspective is another of the essential elements of pictorial
convention. There are two distinct kinds of perspective, linear
and aerial. The former is founded upon our visual organization,
which sees objects at an angle obtuse in proportion to their
proximity. We need not go into the technical part of linear
perspective, which belongs properly to geometry, but will consider
it only from the art point of view. Its principles must be
rigorously applied, whenever such application docs not entail any
consequences destructive of aesthetic sentiment. Cases might be
mentioned where it has been absolutely necessary to choose
between aesthetic fitness and geometric truth. Instances are to be
found in the works of Raphael, Paul Veronese, N. Poussin, and
many others.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 261
In the fresco of the School of Athens there are two points
of sight; 1 a low one for the architecture, and another, higher up,
for the figures. If the figures had been arranged from the same
point of sight as the architecture, they would have presented
a disagreeable aspect. The heads of the persons placed in the
background of the picture would have been much lower than
those of the philosophers in the foreground. We may judge what
the effect would have been from the figures of the disciples who
surround Aristotle and Plato. The architectural point of sight
coincides with the left hand of Plato, in which he holds the book.
Suppose the personages to be all of about the same height, and
draw a line to this point of sight from the head of Alexander, who
is the first of the group to the right of Plato, and it will be seen
how small the last figure in the picture would have been.
In order to hide the anomaly as much as possible, Raphael has
been at much pains to bring his more distant groups together, so
as to conceal the ascending lines of the pavement.
If he had made use of the same point of sight for his architec-
ture as for his figures, the painter would have lost the fine effect
obtained from his far-reaching vault. This would have become
comparatively mean, and would have lost much of the majesty
which Raphael has managed to give it by an artifice, which is so
far from shocking us, that it requires considerable attention to
discover its existence. Analogous reasons explain the two horizons
which Paul Veronese's great picture, the Marriage at Carta, con-
1 The point of sight is an imaginary point upon the horizon, always at the same
height as the eye of the spectator, and to it, converge all the vanishing lines of
such cubes as have one of their surfaces parallel to the face of the picture. In a
building, for instance, the line of the roof seems to descend, and the base line to
ascend to the horizon, in such a manner that the two lines, if sufficiently pro-
longed, would finally meet at the point of sight. Let us suppose a straight and
Hat road, many miles in length and enclosed on either side by a wall — to a spec-
tator placed at one end of such a road, midway between the two walls, the lines
on each sido of him would seem gradually to converge until they fell into one
point at the horizon. That point is the point of sight. Its height is always
determined by that of the horizontal line, which cuts a picture in two where the
converging lines from above and below meet each other.
262 AESTHETICS. [part n.
tains. By means of them the painter has avoided the necessity
of making the vanishing lines of his architecture too sloping.
We must say, however, that such pieces of artistic licence are
much more allowable in pictures composed of separate groups,
than in those which contain a condensed repi'esentation of a
single action.
As for the choice of the point of sight, and consequent determi-
nation of the direction of vanishing lines, it is entirely regu-
lated by the nature of the subject and the individual taste of the
artist. As perspective is nothing but the science of appearances,
it is the artist's business to fix upon an arrangement that
shall give the greatest prominence to the facts upon which he
wishes to insist, and the most natural concealment to those
least necessary to obtrude. It is obvious, for instance, that
Leonardo da Vinci would have been guilty of a great error if,
in his Last Supper, he had chosen such a point of sight as to
cause his personages to hide the figure of Christ himself ; or even
such as would have failed to give an importance to this figure
far above that of all the others. In truth he has taken great
care so to dispose his work that the head of Christ itself forms
the point of sight. To it, all the lines of the perspective converge,
so that it helps to accent the artistic idea of the work.
Aerial perspective is founded upon the fact that the interposi-
tion of the atmosphere softens all forms in a greater or less degree,
in proportion to their distance from the spectator. Not only does
the object which we look at from a distance of a hundred yards
seem much smaller than one only ten yards off; but the image
imprinted by it on our retina is infinitely less clearly defined.
All the accidental reliefs disappear, and we in reality see nothing
but a more or less brightly-coloured spot detached from the horizon
by its own contour. Any painter who, in a picture possessing
a certain depth of perspective, should give to the figures in his
extreme distance and to those in his immediate foreground an
equal amount of distinctness, would violate the laws of aerial
perspective ; just as he would violate those of linear perspective,
CHAP, iv.] PAINTING. 263
were he to disregard the convergence which this imposes upon
vanishing lines. This very convergence explains, in a certain
degree, the gradual obscuration of the image, and the suppression
of detail.
It is not at all intended to apply these remarks to miniature
painting. That branch of art reposes upon a species of conven-
tion which takes no note of the laws of linear perspective, and
when it seeks to be diminutive, it is with no wish to represent
distance. Miniature work is but painting on a small scale. It
maintains all the characteristics of the more important art,
except that, as it has to be looked at very closely, it need not be
afraid to accumulate details — far beyond what would befit a
picture of greater dimensions — so long as each occupies its proper
place and rank.
§ 6. Methods of execution : examples from Delacroix, Theodore
Rousseau and Rubens.
Must we here speak of practice, methods of execution, and
touch 1 May we not put these on one side as being purely tech-
nical, and unfit for examination in a treatise upon a3sthetics 1
Doubtless we might so conclude, and, doubtless, many will say
that it is so. It is quite certain that neither Plato, nor Kant, nor
Schelling, nor Hegel, nor Jouffroy, nor Cousin ever thought of
entering upon such an inquiry. Pure philosophy despises such
realities, as pure beauty spurns any alloy of human passion !
Those metaphysicians who inhabit a world peopled with beings of
their own creation, 1 a world which, with provoking irony, they
1 In appearance metaphysics is but a kind of algebraic language. It does for
abstract ideas what algebra does for abstract quantities. But there are capital
differences at bottom. To begin with — algebra works with absolute certainty in
accordance with scientific laws, whereas metaphysics has science only in appear-
ance. Besides, it has to do with living ideas, subject to progress and change.
Having borrowed these from real life, it is first obliged to denaturalize and
crystallize them into lifeless formulas ; and when thus deprived of life for tho
s.ikc of immobility, they are resuscitated to receive an antliropomorphic and
purely fantastic existence.
264 ^ESTHETICS. [rAirr n.
call the world of intelligence, can only support their absurd philo-
sophy upon grandiose phrases which but ill accommodate them-
selves to accuracy of detail. The subject upon which I am about
to enter is, then, quite unworthy of treatment as grandiose
aesthetics ; but I believe it is not less interesting from an artistic
point of view, and this seems to me the principal thing in such a
treatise as this.
We must here not forget that not only is the character of the
complete publication of which this volume forms a part, one of
reaction against those antique habits of thought which academic
tradition, contemptuous of fact, has propagated with so much care,
and, unhappily, with so rmich success ; but also that practice and
handling have a peculiar importance in painting.
We must stop here for a moment, to give the examples and
precepts of a few artists sufficiently illustrious to justify us in
receiving their practice as authority.
Let us take first Eugene Delacroix. Theophile Sylvestre, who
knew him well and has seen him at work, gives us a very clear
account of his mode of proceeding :
" The first sketches of Delacroix were very free. As he saw
things quickly and in their ensemble, in the best state for a rough
sketch, each of his pencil strokes was characteristic, generalising
and determining the volume and relief of bodies and the direction
of their movements."
"An example is necessary. Take for instance a statue in a
reclining position and half-plunged in water. The part that rises
above the water and can be seen, is certainly not a mere collection
of contours and detached lines, but a salient mass. What then is
to determine the importance to be given to its lines or contour i
Is not line in drawing, as in mathematics, nothing more than an
hypothesis 1 The chief preoccupation of Delacroix is therefore with
the volume of his objects, the analysis of their thickness. So he
built up his figures, by putting together their parts in propor-
tionate masses until their modelling was complete. Gros pro-
ceeded in the same way until he was turned from his natural bent
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 265
by an excessive respect for the principles of David. Gros gave a
condensed representation of the frame of a horse by a few ovals
properly arranged. Gericault obtained his energetic relief in the
same fashion. When a painter has established the correct salience
of his objects, he will not have exceeded that imaginary limit,
which is called their line or contour, but which in reality is their
finish. What would you think of a sculptor who, having a me-
dallion to produce, a head in profile, should execute it by simply
drawing the features upon his board, and then filling in the cir-
cumscribed space with clay 1 He could not really convey, with his
traced line, the real projections of the living figure. The procedure
of Delacroix had much in common with that of sculpture. His
large touch resembles the powerful brushwork of Gericault in the
Haft of the Medusa, or the thumb work of sculptors upon soft
clay. He first marks the culminating point of his projections
with his most luminous tone, and then surrounds it with one more
sombre. This gives at once an indication of the concavities and
protuberances of the topography of the human figure, land-marked
by lights and shadows."
" After the example of Titian, of Paul Veronese, and of Rubens,
Delacroix commenced by sketching out his subject in black and
white, so as to arrive simply and rapidly at a determination of
the general effect. He never wasted time in taking up first one
part of a picture and then another — here a head, there a hand or
an arm, details which dilettanti painters, like gourmets, are fond
of calling titbits. He always devoted himself to the life and
dramatic effect of the whole. If you take each of his figures sepa-
rately, you will be astonished at their excessive development, at
times even monstrous ; which, however, the artist has decided are
necessary to give energy of movement and intensity of expression.
Though we do not perhaps find such disorder as this in nature, we
do find it in our own imagination, to which the painter specially
directs his appeal. Delacroix has declared that ' painting is the
art of producing an illusion in the brain of a spectator through the
agency of his eyes.' This is why his heroes seem to dislocate them-
266 ^ESTHETICS. [part ii.
selves as they cut and thrust in the headlong melee ; why the
horses, driven giddily forward, fall and die at our feet, reeking
and bloody ; why the eyes of his furious warriors start from their
orbits, and the conquered stretch their arms to heaven in all the
violence of despair. The hand which calls to revolt, which com-
mands punishments, or adds emphasis to malediction, is endowed
with supernatural size and power ; the brush-strokes which form
it are like the strokes of a sword. The desired end is more than
attained, it is overpassed."
" Nature itself sometimes seems to be subject to these intensifi-
cations. Look at the people at the moment when a carriage or
waggon is about to run over a child or a woman in a crowded
street. A tragic thrill seems to run through the air. Fright,
anger, pity, flash in the eyes, play on the lips, cause hands to be
wrung, and eager heads to be thrown forward upon the shoulders.
All anatomic equilibrium is destroyed ; and alike vanish regularity
of proportion, and that cold and hard limitation known as line
or contour. But the majority of artists exaggerate this contour
just where it is most hurtful to the rotundity or movement of
bodies, and do not look upon it merely as a useful, though some-
what brutal, method of detaching figures from their background."
M. Ph. Burty has given us, in his book, Maitres et Petits Maitres,
some valuable information as to the practice and particular pro-
cesses of Theodore Rousseau, communicated to him by an old
pupil of the well-known landscape painter.
"The first study which I showed him," writes M. L. Letrorme,
" was not considered a success. He explained to me that drawing
did not consist only in the accuracy of the silhouettes, such as
the bounding outlines of trees ; that, in fact, a tree is not an
'espalier'; that it has 'volume,' like hills, fields, water, or
space ; that the canvas itself is the only thing that is flat : and
that from the first stroke of the brush every effort must be made
to do away with the sense of such untrue uniformity. ' Your
trees must embrace the earth upon which they stand, their
branches must come forward out of your canvas and stretch back
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 267
beyond it ; a spectator of your picture must feel as if he could
walk round them under their shadow. The form is the first thing of
which to make sure. In order to render it truthfully, your pencil
must take account of the meaning of the objects which it imi-
tates. Not a touch should be laid on without meaning ; the final
result must be constantly before you, and everything which you
do should lead up to it.' He always insisted strongly upon the ob-
servance of principles, and never spoke to me much about colour.
One day he said to me : ' You think, perhaps, that, as you have
come to a colourist, you will be allowed to neglect drawing."
" On looking over another study of mine, he observed that a
rough sketch need not largely partake of the special nature of a
study, the object of which is to lead to a certain amount of facility
with the brush — which facility, indeed, would come soon enough.
I promised to finish more carefully : ' As to that word, finish,' he
said, ' what finishes a picture is not the quantity of details put
into it, but the truth or completeness of the final result. A
picture is not bounded only by its frame. No matter what its
subject may be, it is sure to have one principal object upon which
your eyes will rest ; all others which it contains being merely its
complement. These others interest you comparatively but little.
After the one chief object, there is nothing to catch your eye. Here,
then, yon see the real limit of the picture. This principal object
or figure should be made to have the same powerful effect upon
everyone who looks at your work. You must therefore return to
it continually, and strengthen its colour in every possible way.'
He enumerated a few works of the great masters which bear out
this theory. He particularly mentioned Rembrandt, who compre-
hended it more clearly than any other painter. ' But, on the
other hand,' he added, ' if your picture contain the most exquisite
detail spread over the whole breadth of the canvas, people will
look at it with indifference. It will be all equally interesting ; or
rather it will all be without interest. It will have no real limits ; it
might be prolonged indefinitely in any direction without affecting
its character. You will never come to the end of it, so you will
268 AESTHETICS. [part It.
never finish it. A picture is finished when the effect of its en-
semble is complete. Barye's magnificent lion at the Tuileries has
every hair of his mane in greater perfection in reality, than if the
sculptor had laboriously carved them one by one.'
"He often spoke to me of the work of Rembrandt, Claude
Lorraine and Hobbema. Once while I was at work copying a
Van Goyen in his possession, he said to me : ' He had very little
need of colour to render the idea of space ; at a pinch you may
do without colour, but you cannot dispense with harmony.' One
day when I spoke of copying a picture by Huysman of Mechlin,
he said, ' You had much better go and paint at Montmartre or
Barbizon. That would not hinder you from going to the Louvre
to see how the great masters treated nature.' "
M. Philippe Burty adds : " This remark of Rousseau's upon the
subordination of colour to harmony, even in monochrome, is most
important. He returns to the point very frequently in his conver-
sations. I possess a small panel of his on which the first painting
is in mummy. He said to me, 'A picture should be first com-
pletely conceived in the brain. The painter should not build it
up upon his canvas, he should successively raise the various veils
which conceal it.' Then he placed upon the panel in question a
sheet of tissue paper and the smaller details at once disappeared.
He added a second sheet, and the outlines became dim and con-
fused. With the addition of a third, nothing remained but the
broad values of light and shade, the transitions having disap-
peared. The skeleton of the picture remained in all its robust
nakedness ! ' When I wish to carry out the conception of my brain,'
he added, ' I go through the inverse of the operation which I have
just shown you. I successively strengthen my lights, and dis-
engage objects gradually from nothingness, which is obscurity,
just as a man becomes visible step by step in ascending a ladder
out of a vault. Colour is a mere matter of ocular observation
and organization, and must always be in abeyance until the
end "
" To see him sketch out a picture is something wonderful.
chap, iy.] PAINTING. 269
First, he will take up the white chalk, next it may he a piece of
charcoal ; then he will work away with mummy or Indian ink,
drawing in, all the time, the principal lines of his composition,
both of the sky and the earth ; next, upon his horizon, he will
develop the silhouettes of his trees, the shapes and slopes of his
rocks, the voids and solids, if we may call them so, of his clouds
and masses of foliage. It is in the management of these almost
incorporeal lines, or at least of the masses that they bind together,
in which his high skill in drawing is chiefly displayed. Next he
indicates the rough plan of his minor masses — often with chalk.
Of this part of his practice some magnificent examples were seen
at his sale. The complete details of his work come with succes-
sive circumstances — as dawn, storm, or twilight, whichever it
may be, develops into completeness by almost insensible stages.
Here we have the explanation of the subtle but close relationship
that exists between his most momentary sensations and the most
laborious of his works. You might carry off the canvas upon his
easel at any moment ; you would be sure to have a picture."
Rubens' mode of work possesses an ecmal interest. We will
give it here as analysed by a man who has studied it very closely
and with extreme care. He had the good fortune to see the
Miraculous draught of fishes " placed upon the ground, leaning
against a plain white wall, under a glass roof which afforded an
abundant light, without frame, in all the crudity and brightness
of its first condition." He profited by the occasion, as we in our
turn must now do.
" Examined by itself from above, and so at some disadvantage,
this picture," says M. Fromentin, " is not exactly gross, because
its workmanship gives a certain elevation to its style, but it is
material, if that word can express what I mean — its construction, if
ingenious, is narrow in intelligence, and its character vulgar. . . .
As for the two nude torsos, the one bending towards the spectator,
the other turned into the picture, the shoulders of both being
most conspicuous, they arc celebrated as being among the finest
' academic ' studies in the whole range of the great Fleming's
270 ESTHETICS. [part ii.
work; the free but absolutely sure handling, indicating plainly
that the painter finished them in a very few hours without going
twice over any part — laying on every tint broadly and clearly,
with an impasto neither too thin nor too thick, a modelling
neither exaggerated nor slurred. . . . The fisherman with his
Scandinavian head, his beard streaming in the wind, his golden
hair, his bright eyes and rubicund visage, his great sea boots and
his scarlet night-cap, is marvellous. And, as is often the case in
Rubens' pictures, where an excessive amount of red is employed as
a sedative, this flaming individual tempers everything around him,
and so acts upon the retina as to dispose it to see green in all the
neighbouring colours. The most extraordinary thing about this
picture — thanks to the peculiar circumstances which enabled me
to examine it closely, and to follow its structure as easily as if
Ilubens had painted it before me — is the facility with which
it surrenders all his secrets ; a facility almost as astonishing as
total concealment would have been. . . ."
" Our difficulty is not to find out how it was done, but how,
being so done, it came to be so excellent. The means are simple,
the methods are absolutely elementary. Primarily there is a good,
smooth, and white panel, upon which the most magnificently facile,
adroit, sensitive and certain of human hands has been at work.
The impulse and passion which it displays spring from the feel-
ing of the artist, and not from any fault in his method of painting.
His brush is as calm and sure as his feelings are warm, and as his
intellect is quick and penetrating. In such an organization as his,
the sympathy between eye and hand is so perfect, the latter is
so immediately and implicitly obedient to the former, that the
habitual rapid workings of the directing brain, seem rather to be
sudden leaps on the part of the instrument itself. Nothing is
more deceptive than this apparent excitement, resulting from the
most profound calculation, and seiwed by a mechanical power
skilled in every device. The same observations apply to the
sensations <>f his eye, and consequently to his choice of colours.
They are very simple, and seem complicated only from the rule
chap, iv.] PAIXTIXG. 271
which the painter causes them to play. The number of his
important tints is very small, and his mode of balancing them,
and carrying them thi'ough their various gradations, simple in the
extreme ; nothing, therefore, could seem less laboured or more
unaffected than the results which he obtains. The colours in his
pictures are never of very fine quality taken separately. Take his
usual red, for instance — and you will see in a moment how he
gets it ; it is vermilion and yellow ochre, mixed at once and very
little broken."
" He generally uses ivory black, and with it and white, makes
every imaginable combination of heavy or tender grey. His blues
are accidental. Yellow is a colour that he feels and manages but
badly, except in the case of gold, whose richness, warmth, and
pomp he renders to perfection. It, like his reds, however, plays
a double part : first, it prevents all his light being contained in
his white surfaces ; secondly, it exerts the reflex action by which
one colour modifies others, giving, for instance, a sort of violet
bloom to a dull grey, which may be insignificant and too neutral
as it lies on the palette. All which, it may be said, is nothing
out of the common."
" Low toned browns with two or three more active colours, add
richness to his vast canvases. Grey medleys of pallid tints form
his middle stages between deepest black and highest white. So,
with few pigments he obtained great splendour of colour ; at little
cost, a great display ; plenty of light without too much glare ;
extreme sonorousness with a limited orchestra ; neglecting three-
fourths of his keyboard, yet he embraces the whole by leaping
at will from its one extremity to the other — thus, in language
borrowed from both music and painting, do we sum up the
practice of this great master of execution. He who has seen one of
his pictures knows them all ; and he who has watched him paint
for a day, has seen him at work at almost any moment of his
life."
" His method never changes. The same calmness and delibera-
tion, the same cool and skilful premeditation, regulate his most
272 iESTHETICS. [pabt ii.
spontaneous or accidental effects. We hardly know whence comes
his audacity, or how it seizes him. . . ."
" The simultaneity*of the execution is wonderful, and pervades
nearly the whole of the picture. We see it in the lightness of
the touch, especially in the figure of St. Peter, and in the trans-
parence of the darker tints — such as those of the boats and the sea,
and of whatever partakes of their brown, bituminous, and some-
times greenish colouring. We see it, too, even in those parts
which require a more studied, though not less rapid method ; the
parts where the impasto is thicker and the handling more patient.
The fresh clearness and brightness of tone remain. The white
and smooth surface of the panel gives to the tints entrusted
to it, the vibratory warmth which colour should always obtain from
a bright, hard, and polished ground. If the paint were thicker
it would become muddy ; if it were less even, it would absorb
rays which it ought to reflect, and the painter would have to
redouble his efforts to obtain only the same amount of light ; if it
were thinner and more timid, or less generous in the flow of its
contours, it would have that enamelled look which, admirable as
it may be thought in some circumstances, would fit neither the
style of Rubens, nor his intellect, nor the Romanesque spirit
which breathes in his fine works. The two torsos which we
have mentioned, rendered, let lis suppose, as a nude study for this
volume, or under the conditions of mural painting, could not have
shown fewer superposed brush strokes. . . ."
" Still more, then, does his hand dismiss hastily and without
insistancc all secondary parts or those which he wishes to keep
subordinate — large spaces of breezy air, boats, waves, nets, fishes,
and other accessories. A mighty sweep of one colour, of brown
which is brown here and green there, which is warm in the
reflexes and golden in the hollows of the waves, descends from the
sides of the boats to the bottom of the picture. Across this
abundant and limpid pigment, the painter has carried the touches
which bring out the real life and shape of his objects. II a trouve
sa vie, to use a studio term. A sparkle or two here and there, a
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 273
reflection put in with delicate touch, and we have the sea. In the
same way he indicates the nets, their meshes, floats, and corks ; the
fishes which plunge about in the slimy ooze, and reflect on their still
dripping scales the peculiar colours of the sea ; the feet of Christ,
and the sailors' boots. You would say it was the climax of the art
of painting : of painting severe in its purpose to represent, through
the mind, eye, and hand of one in whom greatness of style was
innate, ideal or epic subjects, whose object was to teach man to act
always after the examples which they afford, and to combine the
figurative, picturesque, and rapid language of modern times with
the austere ideas of Pascal."
" Such, at any rate, was the language of Rubens ; it was his
style, and was therefore consonant with his own peculiar
ideas."
" A little reflection will convince us that what astonishes us in
his work is something altogether outside the range of his own
deliberate intent — namely, the fact that an idea, no matter
what, which occurring to him has not been rejected, that idea
should result in a picture which, notwithstanding its neglect of
artifice and endeavour, is never commonplace. In fact, we are
amazed at the great results which he achieves through appa-
rently the most simple means. If the science of his palette is
extraordinary, its sensitive use is not less so ; and a quality, with
which he is not generally credited, adds to the attractions of
all his others, — namely the calculation, and even sobriety, which
he shows in a matter so purely external as the management of the
brush."
" In these times we forget, misunderstand, or attempt in vain
to abolish many things. I am not clear as to where our modern
school obtained its taste for thick painting, and its love for that
heavy impasto which constitutes, in the eyes of some of us, the
chief merit of many works. I have never seen any really im-
portant examples of such work, except among the acknowledged
painters of the decadence, and occasionally in the case of Rem-
brandt, who, though as a rule he did his best to avoid it appa-
T
274 ESTHETICS. [i-aht ii.
rently was not always able to do so. Such a method was happily
unknown to the Flemings ; and as for Rubens the accepted master
of passion, the most violent of his pictures are often the least
charged. I do not say that he systematically starved his lights, as
was too often done up to the middle of the sixteenth century ; or,
on the other hand, that he laid on his deeper tints w r ith a thick im-
pasto. His method, exquisite as he used it, has had to undergo all
the changes brought into it by the demand for 'ideas,' and the multi-
plex necessities of modern art ; but however far removed from
archaic practice it may have been, it was equally far from the prac-
tices which have come into fashion since the time of Gericault — to
instance a lately deceased and illustrious artist. His brush glides
smoothly ; is never choked ■ does not drag behind it that sticky
mass which, accumulating on the salient points of everything,
gives a look of relief which makes the canvas itself seem to stand
out. He does not load, he paints ; he does not build, he writes ;
his hand glides lightly over the ground, coaxing a little here,
strengthening a bit there : with thin and limpid drag he spreads
a broad glaze, suiting its consistency, degree of breadth or finesse,
to each separate passage of his work. He makes economy of
material or its prodigality, depend entirely upon local necessity ;
so that in the weight or marvellous delicacy of his touch, he finds
an efficient ally to show us what we should dwell upon, and what
we should dismiss with little attention."
I have ventured to give the whole of this quotation in spite of
its great length, because nothing can be so useful to painters
as accurate details and exhaustive explanations coming from a
competent man who has had the opportunity of close inspection.
To the public they are useful also, as enabling them to understand
the great importance of that material labour of which, as they
have never experienced it, they take so little heed ; of which in-
deed artists, too many of them, are neglectful, as though they
held the hand, that principal agent of the intellect, in unde-
served contempt. People often seem to think that the whole work
of a painter is merely to fill in with colour the space enclosed by
chap, iv.] PAINTING. -ijr,
a couple of lines, and that the method of the work matters very
little indeed.
I should much like to know what such sceptics as to execution
would say if — when invited to hear some great orator — they should
find his place filled by some worthy gentleman who, after explain-
ing that the discourse was a written one, takes it for granted they
would have no objection to hearing it read by a substitute; and
then sets to work to declaim it after the approved fashion of the
students of a certain learned university 1 How could they com-
plain ? - They would have presented to them the complete work
of the orator, with his arguments, composition, ideas and style.
What could they need more 1 Nothing — but action, intonation,
accent, tone of voice : in fact just those things which corre-
spond to execution and touch in painting. They would, however,
spare their ears by closing them ; in the fashion in which they
pass the pictures they theoretically admire with heads turned the
other way, because these are wanting in gesture, intonation, and
accent.
We can even, to a certain extent, judge the character and
intelligence of a man by the way in which he carries his head,
holds his arms in walking, or places his feet — and yet the hand
of the painter is to be denied the power of manifesting the sen-
timents and emotions of his individual soul! Sometimes after
hearing a man talk for a few minutes, even when we do not
understand what he is saying, we can form, from his tone and
accent, from the timbre of his voice, a close notion of his moral
temperament. We can discern that concord and harmony between
the different parts of him, which is so strongly marked in every-
day life that we need do no more than glance at a passer-by in
the street to decide his class, even if he do not belong to that
section of mankind, whose nature and profession alike it is, to be
more impressionable and more harmonious in their constitution
than their fellows. For artists, male or female, are artists, simply
because each emotion which seizes them, or each impression which
strikes their senses, so entirely occupies them for the time being,
T 2
276 AESTHETICS, [pakt ii.
as to subdue or elevate their vitality, as though it alouc had auy
power over them.
§ 7. Handling and touch from the ])oi?d of view of the artist's per-
sonality, and the individuality of his objects — Rubens — Franz
Hals — E. Delacroix — Faults of academic teaching.
Such a contention has absolutely nothing to rest upon. It is
evident to every one that the work of the hand is in direct sym-
pathy with the sensations of the eye and the operations of the
intellect ; of which it is, in fact, the immediate expression. A con-
trary idea would be, even theoretically, unintelligible. There are
many people who profess to be able to decide the character and
habits of a person from his handwriting. In such a matter there
must, of course, be a great element of uncertainty in the mere
fact that many handwritings are quite without significance, be-
cause many people are commonplace, and devoid of character. But
even this insignificance is not devoid of meaning. Every man of
observation must have often remarked how handwritings seem
lively, hesitating, precise or vague, energetic or smooth, calm or
impetuous, elegant or vulgar, in close accord with the tempera-
ment and salient characteristics of the writers. The mistake of
"graphology" lies in its pretence to divine the complete cha-
racter, and to paint an exhaustive portrait of a man from a few
written lines. To do so, is manifestly impossible ; but the study,
when confined within proper limits, does certainly rest upon a
solid basis.
For similar reasons, and under analogous restrictions, we may
assert that a general sympathy exists between the handling and
temperament of an artist, so long at least as the former is spon-
taneous and sincere. It is evident that when, from prejudice, a
painter substitutes an acquired, imitative and commonplace
manner for that which is natural to him, he places himself on a
level with the poor copyists who force their hands to the exact
reproduction of the stiff", ordinary specimens of calligraphy, the
ne plus ultra of writing masters.
.hap. iv.] PAINTING. 277
This calligraphy of touch is one of the characteristics of Italian
painters. They blend, fuse and polish, with unremitting care.
The first school to inaugurate a different system was that of
Venice. But it is in the Flemish and Dutch schools that touch
or handling is to be found in all its glory, boldness and indi-
viduality. 1 It is in these that we must look for the power of the
1 After speaking of the mistakes of the modern painters who neglect handcraft
under the idea that their imaginings can be worked out as well by one instrument
as another, Fromentin goes on to observe, with great justice : "To this miscon-
ception the able and gifted painters of Holland and Flanders have replied in
anticipation by their handcraft, which is the most expressive in the whole range
of art. The practice of Rembrandt, too, protests against the same error, and
possibly with a better chance of obtaining attention. Take away from the pictures
of Rubens the spirit, variety and appropriateness of their touch, and you deprive
them of a necessary phrase and indispensable feature ; you strip them of the
only spiritual element which they possess to transfigure their materialism and
their frequent deformities : because, in so doing, you suppress their delicate
sensibility, and, to go back from effect to cause, you kill all life and purpose by
producing a picture without a soul. I would even say that the absence of one touch
may destroy some artistic feature. This principle is so unfailing that in one
kind of production, no work which is thoroughly and truly felt, can fail to be well
painted ; and every work in which the author's hand is happily and honourably
visible is, from the fact alone, one which both springs from the intellect and
appeals to it. Upon this point Rubens sets an example which I commend to the
notice of anyone who is tempted to sneer at deliberate intention in brushwork.
There is not, even in the great works of his which appear sometimes so free
and even coarse in manner, one single detail, great or small, which is not
inspired by sentiment and instantly rendered by the happiest mechanism. If the
hand were less rapid, it would be left far behind by the fancy ; if the imagination
were less quick to improvise, the life infused would be diminished ; if the execu-
tion were more hesitating or more difficult to comprehend, the personality of the
work would suffer in proportion as its heaviness increased and its spirit dimi-
nished. Moreover, we must remember his unequalled facility and dexterity in
playing with obstinate matter and rebellious instruments, the fine management of
his tools, the graceful fashion of disporting himself over his surfaces, his fire and
spontaneity; in sum, the power and magic of execution which, with other men,
degenerates sometimes into mannerism, sometimes into affectation, sometimes into
pure but mediocre intellectualism, — but with him, as I repeat for the hundredth
time, is the direct expression of an exquisite sensibility, resulting from the union
of an eye of rare power and balance with a sympathetic and submissive hand ;
and not least, from the possession of a great, happy, and confident soul kept freely
open to every impression. Throughout the immense catalogue of his works I defy
any man to discover one which is entirely perfect ; but it is equally impossible
273 AESTHETICS. [paet ii.
brush carried to its full legitimate extent, and sometimes even
beyond it. There are artists who are equal or even superior to
Franz Hals, but in handcraft no one has excelled him ; he gives it
such a commanding j)ersonality that it takes the place of genius.
The infallibility of his hand and eye are extraordinary. He
launches his brush upon the canvas, and that with so great cer-
tainty and address, that it always falls upon the precise spot
where it is wanted, and never remains there one moment longer
than absolutely necessary for the production of the required effect.
His canvases have all the appearance of improvisation, and all its
advantages. We cannot conceive him deliberating over, retouch-
ing or correcting his work. He carries out his idea at once and
never returns to it. His free, audacious handling gives to his
works a strangely energetic appearance, which compensates for
the want of thought, and the absence of all the superior qualities
of imagination and poetic feeling which great artists possess, but
which he has not. He evidently cannot be placed so high as either
Rubens or Rembrandt ; but this does not prevent our deriving a
great deal of pleasure from his works, in which their powerful
individuality is the most important factor. His touch in itself
betrays so clearly the character and temperament of the man, that
we can easily imagine him as he sat at work ; at work so interest-
ing, fascinating and individual, that we leave it with the greatest
regret.
We have now got far enough away from the theory which places
perfection of art in that which it represents, and primarily requires
the artist to sink himself in his work. Judged from such a point
of view, no pictures could be more defective than those of Franz
Hals. Not only docs he always put himself forward, never allow-
ing himself to be forgotten for a moment, but we must also
acknowledge that he docs so with an amount of insistance and
to avoid the conviction that in the eccentricities, faults, ay, even in the fatuities
of this noble spirit, is to be found the mark of an incontestable grandeur. This
outward mark, the final seal upon his work, constitutes his sign-manual."
(Fromentin, Lcs maitres d' Autrefois, p. 71.)
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 279
freedom which is a little brutal, and not without an appearance
of excess which must scandalize over-fastidious purists. Such a
fault, however, does not shock us in the least; it only springs
from a little exaggeration, and we prefer it greatly to that affec-
tation of impersonal perfection which modesty extols — for others — ■
but which possesses no comprehensible utility. When the work-
man is allowed to sign his name at the foot of his finished work,
it "is absurd to forbid him to imprint his handwriting upon its
body.
Of course we do not wish artists to imitate the manner of Franz
Hals ; all imitation of what belongs to another man's personality
is not only bad, but leads directly away from the desired goal.
But no other example which we can think of, shows so clearly the
great importance of technical skill, especially of that part of it
which is called handling. Indeed chiefly through it, Franz Hals
was a great painter ; it is the principal and determinant cause of
his fame.
Manner in painting is not to be considered as a manifestation
of artistic personality only. It has also great importance from
the point of view of the individual expression of things. Colour
alone will not render the whole nature of objects. Besides form
and tint, every object possesses a density, lightness, softness and
durability of its own. How are you to render by one and the
same touch the elasticity of human flesh, the rigidity of stone or
metal, and the suppleness of woven fabrics 1 Silk, satin, velvet,
wool and linen — has not each its own peculiar texture ? Must not
the bloom on the peach, the granulation of the lemon or orange
be taken into account'? Does not the furry coat of the hare
require a different treatment from the plumage of the bird? Is
it not true that all these differences can be made known to the
eye by an undefinable something, of which the painter must make
himself master, if he do not wish to leave us in doubt as to the
essential nature of the objects in his pictures ?
His touch must be made to agree with the constitution of
tilings, and it must also accommodate itself to the character of
280 .ESTHETICS. [PART n.
the subject. It is possible to paint with a besom ; on the othcr
hand, a miniature requires the lightest and most tender handling.
A picture which has to be seen from a distance must be carried
out in a bold and energetic manner, with those vigorous brush-
strokes which give power and accent to a painting ; whilst too
much softening or fusion would cause the tints to seem emascu-
lated and insipid to a fatal degree. We have only to look at the
pictures of Guerin and Girodet to become alive to the faults of
too soft and enamelled a surface. The eye finds no repose in
the uniform and monotonous planes, over which it glides without
encountering anything able to arrest it. Without approving of
that thickness of impasto which makes some of the works of the
romantic school look like relief maps, full of valleys and moun-
tains, we are sure that a certain amount of variety is necessary
in order to prevent undue fatigue of the retina, so liable to occur.
The eye possesses strange susceptibilities, the effect of which is
felt long before we are conscious of them, and still longer before
we have discovered their cause. Wc all know how cold and mono-
tonous a perfectly-regular design, drawn with the compass, appears
to us. The same design, when drawn by hand, at once appears
more lively and interesting. Why 1 Simply because an abso-
lutely straight line, the continuity of monotony, annoys and
fatigues the eye by the mere absence of variety. The same line,
traced by the hand of man, becomes more artistic in character,
just because it is geometrically less perfect. The most careful
imitations of ancient jewellery and furniture are comparatively
valueless, because, in these days, the hand of the art-workmen is
ordinarily replaced by the unerring action of machinery. Whence
comes that peculiar charm of Greek architecture, never to be found
even in those monuments which have been constructed after the
most exact measurement of the most admirable remaining models 1
The causes of it are many ; but there is one which escaped ob-
servation until, as has been said, an English architect, Mr. Penrose,
bethought him to take careful measurement of every part of the
Parthenon- when he discovered that, instead of straight lines,
chap, iv.] , PAINTING. 281
curves were everywhere used. Almost imperceptible as these
were, they were yet sufficient to create that peculiar consciousness
of grace and variety, which is the property of this treatment.
Diversity and multiplicity of handling produce an analogous
effect in painting, while too much blending produces one quite
opposite. 1
For a similar reason, oriental stuffs and vases have a peculiar
harmony and " vibration " of their own, even when they are of
one colour. The Chinese and Japanese, who possess so delicate
a feeling for colour, always take care slightly to graduate even
the tints that are apparently the most uniform, by placing one
shade over another in its pure state; blue upon blue, yellow
upon yellow, red upon red. Thus they obtain a diversity of value
which prevents the eye from becoming wearied. M. Ch. Blanc, in
his Gmmmaire des Arts du Dessin, informs us that Delacroix made
use of a similar practice.
" Alive to this law, either through study or intuition, Eugene
Delacroix never attempted to spread a tint uniformly upon his
canvas, even when smoothness of surface — in sky or architectural
shadow for instance — was required. Not only did he break up his
surface by the use of superimposed tones, but he added to its
broken appearance by his peculiar mode of working. Instead of
laying down his tints with a sweeping brush, he dabbed ^them
on over more even preparations of the same colour ; and the
latter being more or less visible throughout, produced unity
of impression when seen at a proper distance, whilst giving to
the colours, so self-modulated, a singular depth and vibratory
power. For want of a comprehension of this law, many dis-
tinguished painters have pourtrayed African skies by a wide
expanse of tinted paper coloured and softened according to rule,
but stretching from left to light in desperate monotony, and dis-
1 This observation is universally applicable, even in printing. There arc some
kinds of type which quickly fatigue the eye, aud they are the most uniform
kinds. The Elzevir type is not at all fatiguing, because it is so varied and even
irregular.
2S2 .ESTHETICS. . [part n.
playing nothing but the pretended fidelity of the proces-verhal '.
•Compare with these fiat, cold and unbroken skies, that in the
heinicycle of Orpheus in the library of the Corps Legislatif, or
those in Demosthenes haranguing the sea and the Crusaders entering
Constantinople, at Versailles. We need not go so far as this, but
simply compare the paintings in the library with those in the
cupolas, where some decorator has achieved skies after the
ordinary formula, and the distance between a colourist and he
who does not care to become one, will at once be seen."
I will now transcribe, from Thore's Salon de 1847, an observa-
tion suggested by the Odalisque of Delacroix : " Besides style
and cpxality of colour, Delacroix manifests another peculiarity of
-execution which is nowadays very rare even with the most skilful
■executants ; his touch, his way of placing colour and managing the
brush, is always regulated by the forms on which it is employed,
and helps to mark their relief. As the modelling turns, his brush
turns with it ; and the impasto, following the direction of the
light, never breaks the rays which fall upon the picture. Sup-
posing a statue were carved against the grain ; whatever mathe-
matical exactness of form it might possess, it would never look
right. But in painting we do not in practice think so much of
a system so unbending ; most painters work as pleases them on
their canvas — often contradicting, without knowing it, the geo-
metry of nature and the natural construction of objects. In
building a wall we may use the trowel as we like ; but in caressing
the face of a mistress we do not commence with the chin."
We may then, it seems, look at manner from two distinct points
of view : one relating to the personality of the artist and necessarily
varying with it ; the other, to the objects rendered and the vibra-
tion of colour. It would be mere loss of time to attempt to teach
energetic and vigorous handling to a man of feeble and vapid
temperament. We cannot transform men. An ideal education is
one that teaches every man to develop to the utmost, the good
faculties that he possesses. Nothing will ever turn an imbecile
into a man of talent.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 283
But there is one thing which may be taught, and that is a good
method. This both the Dutchmen and the Flemings thoroughly
understood. Compare those amongst them whose individuality
' has hardly any mutual resemblance — such as Terburg, Metzu and
Peter de Hoogh — and you will be considerably surprised to find
that their processes are identical, that their education was the
same, and yet that it has not hindered each from preserving his
separate personality in its completeness.
This is what should be taught in the official atelier, instead of
the suppression of natural aptitude and intellectual tendency.
What sense is there in allowing young artists to grope in the dark
after methods of doing what has been so often done, to commit
themselves to pernicious practices, to waste a large part of their
time and their energy, and often to acquire faults from which they
never recover 1 Would it not be a thousand times more reasonable
to teach them at once, how acknowledged masters did such and
such a thing, and to leave them in their turn to make use of the
methods taught for the free expression of their own ideas; instead
of effacing all their originality, infusing superannuated traditions,
and leaving no outlet for their personality but in the search after
methods which they might have learnt at first not only without
danger but with very great advantage ?
The worst of it is — our professors themselves do not know much
more than their pupils about the processes of the great masters
of execution. They have either never studied them closely, or
have deemed themselves to be the better examples; and they
axe all more or less impregnated with the retrograde spirit of the
academies to which they belong. They are academic by nature,
education, habits and profession ; and so, of course, they teach
academic principles — imitation, docility, narrowness of spirit, com-
pact theories, predetermined admirations and dislikes, the dangers
of spontaneity. They care about nothing else. They absolutely
reverse the true order ; neglecting the practical teaching which
might be usefully given without danger to that artistic personality
which should meet with the most conscientious respect — because
284 JESTHETICS. [paut n.
it is the germ of all art — and reserving all their eloquence for the
explanation of what they call the immutable laws of the beautiful,
the eternal principles of the (academic) ideal.
§ 8. Monumental painting — Its conditions — Its decadence.
This question, like that of monumental sculpture, has been so
exhaustively treated by M. Viollet-le-Duc in his Bictionnaire
raisonne de V Architecture Francaise du onsieme au seizieme Steele,
that it is not possible to epitomise the article. His observations
are often so precise and so full of significant technical details, that
more than once we shall have to content ourselves with literal
transcription ; simply eliminating anything that may not seem to
be absolutely necessary to the object we have in view.
The differences between monumental and easel painting are
easily comprehended :
1st. An easel picture displays a scene which must be looked at
through a frame, as if through an open window. It must be carried
out with the intention of being viewed from some one point ; it
must have unity in the direction of light, and unity of general
effect. The one point from which such a picture can be well
seen, is always to be found upon a perpendicular line drawn
through that point upon the horizon which is called the point of
sight.
2nd. Easel painting has arrived at a most remarkable perfec-
tion of technical skill. Great artists are able to reproduce the
most delicate effects of light, and to concentrate the attention
of the spectator upon the point that is the chief object of their
efforts, and which they isolate from all its surroundings with the
utmost care.
3rd. Easel painting always seeks more or less to deceive the
eye. It must of necessity do so, as its aim is to produce the effect
of relief upon a flat surface. If a palace has to be represented,
its different planes must be shown ; and we must be able to see at
a glance that the columns of a peristyle, for instance, are not at
the same distance from our eyes as the rest of the building.
-hap. iv.] TAINTING. '_>35
These three observations will serve to mark very clearly the
principal obligations imposed upon the monumental painter.
1st. If unity of point of view be a sine qua non in a picture,
how comes it that we allow a scene — depicted according to the
laws of perspective, of light and of effect — to be so placed that
the spectator is forced to look at it from a position four or five
yards below its horizon, and possibly a long way to the right
or left of this correct point ] This has to be tolerated when-
ever monumental painting makes use of the processes proper
for easel pictures. In the great epochs of art such enormities
were forbidden. During the Middle Ages, in pictures painted upon
walls at all kinds of elevations, painters never took into account
cither horizon, locality, effects of perspective or the rigid laws of
light. Again, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they reso-
lutely grappled with the difficulty by composing the scenes to
be represented in proper perspective ; placing the personages and
objects to be painted exactly as the things or people would
themselves appear in the same situation. So we see, in the ceilings
of that epoch, people who show hardly more than the sole of the
foot, and others in which the knees hide the breast. Such bold-
ness resulted in a great success. It is obvious, however, that if, in
such a method of decoration, the horizon be supposed to be placed
at a height of two yards from the ground, there would be only one
point of sight, and that two yards above the floor of the room, for
the whole horizontal surface. Now, so soon as the spectator shall
move from this point of sight, the perspective of the whole deco-
ration will become false ; all the vanishing lines begin to dance,
and to give a feeling of sea-sickness to people who are accustomed
to trust to the perceptive power of their eyes.
This system, nevertheless, can give good reasons for its existence,
since it had its origin, at least, in a reasoned-out principle. It
possesses a disadvantage in that it condemns the whole scheme of
decoration of a room to appear true to one person alone, he who
happens to occupy the proper point of view. Yet we cannot
altogether condemn it.
286 .ESTHETICS. [pakt II.
But what are we to say of that so-called system of decoration,
which places flat, painted ornaments side by side with scenes in
which truth of effect, of light and shade and of perspective, is
aimed at 1 Representations, in which reality of appearance is
produced by the use of relief and varying planes, are altogether
out of concord with these fiat embellishments. We must acknow-
ledge, then, that those artists have reason on their side, who con-
tend that monumental painting, whether it depict scenes or
compose mere ornaments, has to deal with plain flat and solid
surfaces which should be so treated as to produce not illusion,
but harmony.
But in any case, even if we admit both methods, thei*e is one
fact which is beyond all doubt ; and that is, that the choice must
be made, because it is utterly impossible to combine the two.
2nd. As for this said choice — it seems to us to be easily made,
when we take the trouble to reflect upon the role which painting
should play when allied to architecture. It is beyond dispute
that the effects which form its legitimate aim, are effects of ensemblt .
in which the architecture should preseiwe its proper importance.
When the two arts are only brought into juxtaposition for the sake
of mutual destruction, it would be very much better to keep them
apart. They can only work together harmoniously through mutual
concession. Should the painter pretend to be indifferent to the
architectonic nature of his Avork, and concentrate all his efforts
upon his own particular department — as if he were working on his
own account — real decoration would become impossible, as such
conditions could only make it result in discord. We have seen this
very clearly, ever since pictures executed in studios replaced wall
pictures carried out on the spot. Since that change took place,
the true fundamental conditions of pictorial decoration have been
completely overlooked. The fault hail already become conspicu-
ous in the best works of monumental painting even in fresco of
the Renaissance. The better traditions of the past were forgotten.
When Michael Angelo decorated the vault of the Sistine chapel,
he never gave a thought to the building itself. His vault is
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 287
splendid in its unity, but what of the room which it covers'? The
master cared nothing about it, and Ins paintings altogether destroy
the architecture.
There has been no lack of artists who have been seduced by
this example, and who have acted as if the two arts were only
combined for mutual annihilation. In these days, the painter and
the architect work quite independently of each other, and every-
day the abyss which separates them becomes wider.
This divorce of two arts which for so long were wedded, ha
become more accentuated by the very efforts which have been
made in recent times to bring them together. It is obvious that
in the majority of such attempts, the architect has made no effort
to foresee the effect which paintings carried out upon the sur-
faces prepared by him would really have ; and that the painter has
only looked upon such surfaces as canvases stretched in a less con-
venient studio than his own, and has never troubled himself about
the surroundings of his work.
To make the combination fit and complete, the painter must
cease to look upon his picture as .an isolated piece of decoration.
He must condescend to allow his art to play the part of an auxi-
liary ; and, consequently, must impose upon it such restrictions
as may be necessary in order to render harmony possible.
One of the most imperative sacrifices which he is called upon
to make, is the abandonment of any attempt at realistic illusion.
"When easel pictures enter into a struggle with the realities of
nature, we do not condemn them, because they are only acting
after the law of their kind. But in the decoration of a building,
such attempts are out of place ; because even partial success is
impossible, on account of the disabilities imposed by perspective,
which makes everything seem untrue to such spectators as do not
happen to be placed immediately in front of the point of sight.
Any kind of painting which aims to deceive the eye — such as the
imitation of ornaments in relief — is equally out of place, and for a
similar reason. No attempt can be made to reproduce in their
true relative dimensions the real modelling and appearance of
288 AESTHETICS. [part ii.
reliefs, of mouldings, of columns and their capitals ; their forms
must be interpreted in such a way as to bring them within the
reach of paint. Indeed, when an effort is made to reproduce, by
means of colour, the modelling of such a thing, for instance, as a
stone arcade — even if we allow that from one standpoint a certain
amount of illusion is the result, a sidelong glance will at once
destroy its reality ; will cause its non-salient but unaccountably
visible parts, its mouldings and pi-ofiles, which refuse to accom-
modate themselves to the laws of perspective, to produce a most
disagreeable effect.
In the decorative painting both of ancient times and of the middle
ages, the greatest care was taken to avoid everything which
seemed to be an attempt at impossible illusion. The chief object
was always to please the eye ; never to deceive it.
We may divide monumental painting into two categories : the
representation of subjects and purely ornamental work.
Of the first kind we have very few specimens left to us from
antiquity. But the paintings upon the so-called Etruscan vases
discovered in the tombs of Corneto, are carried out after the same
manner as the Byzantine pictures of the eighth and ninth cen-
turies, and those on French monumental structures of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. In subject pictures, each figure is in the
form of a dark silhouette standing vigorously out from a light
ground ; or, vice vend, a light figure relieved upon a dark ground —
its features, the folds of its draperies, its muscles, &c, are merely
indicated by dark lines. Accessories receive hieroglyphic treat-
ment, the human figure alone being developed in its real shape. A
palace is rendered by two columns and a pediment ; a tree by a
stem topped with a few leaves ; a river by a serpentine stroke of
the pencil, and so on — like those landscapes which serve as back-
grounds in many of the productions of the Italian Renaissance.
We may say, then, that artistic races have regarded monumen-
tal painting as illuminated and but slightly modelled drawing; and
that when it gives us good design wedded to harmonious colour,
it has done all that wc should expect. The difficulty is no doubt
CHAP, iv.] PAINTING. 289
great, and the result considerable. It is by the use of these ap-
parently simple materials, that the great successes in coloured
decoration have been achieved that are impressed so strongly
on our memories. 1
We will give M. Viollet-le-Duc's observations upon this point in
his own words, premising that he has devoted fifty years of his
life to the study of French monumental art.
" Harmony in monumental subject-painting is always regulated
by essentially decorative principles. It changes in quality of tone,
but it always remains equally applicable to subject or ornament.
Thus, for instance, in the twelfth century it was absolutely
similar to that of Greek painting. Backgrounds were kept light,
figures and ornaments were put in with full local colour instead
of with what we call demi-tint ; reliefs were light, almost white,
in their most salient parts ; modelling was carried out in brown
for eveiy tint alike ; finishing touches, in light colour upon the
dark and sombre parts, and in dark colour upon the light parts,
corrected any spottiness in the ensemble. Colours were always
broken, at least in broad light surfaces ; black was sometimes
used to mark relief; gold was admitted in brilliant parts, such
as embroidery and the nimbus of a saint, but very rarely or never
as a background. The dominant colours were yellow ochre, light
red, greens of various shades ; and, secondarily, rose-purple, light
1 M. Yiollet-le-Duc, in the before-mentioned article in his Dictionnaire de
V Architecture, establishes two important facts which are very creditable to the
French artists of the middle ages. First, after the eleventh century we find, in the
decorative designs of our artists, a truth of expression and gesture which is never
seen in the Byzantine artists of the same epoch; they freed themselves entirely
IK i) 1 1 priestly tradition and sought their inspiration in nature. French artists
possessed truthful powers of observation in everything that related to drawing,
to gesture, composition and expression, and emancipated themselves before their
Italian contemporaries. The paintings and vignettes in such manuscripts of the
thirteenth century as have come down to us, prove that France possessed, fifty
years before the time of Giotto, men who had already achieved that progress in
art which is generally attributed to the pupil of Cimabue, and to him only.
Secondly, as early as the eleventh century they made use of colours ground with
pure linseed oil.
u
290 . JESTHETICS. [past ii.
violet-purple, and light blue. A brown line was always interposed
between neighbouring colours ; whilst we very seldom find that
the sense of harmony in twelfth century painters, allowed them
to place, in immediate juxtaposition, two colours of ecpial values
— they introduced between them some tint of value inferior
to both. Thus, for instance, between a light red and a green of
equal strength, we find yellow, or very light blue ; between a
blue and green of equal values, a light rose-purple. The general
appearance is soft, without harshness, but brilliant, and with a
great look of firmness resulting from the use of brown outlines
and white reliefs. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century
a change in the quality of tone took place. The primary colours
begin to prevail ; more particularly blue and red-green are no
longer used except for transitions ; backgrounds become dark,
reddish brown, deep blue, sometimes even black, and sometimes
gold — the latter always diapered. White appears no more but
in delicate lines for the sake of relief; yellow ochre is only em-
ployed for accessories ; modelling is carried out in local colour.
Tints are always separated by a very dark brown or even a black
line. Vestments and draperies are in gold which is always either
diapered or relieved with brown. Carnations are fair and bright.
The general appearance is warm, brilliant, evenly sustained ; atid
sometimes it would be sombre were it not relieved by the em-
ployment of gold."
" Towards the close of the century another change took place.
Tones became harsher. Black, reddish-brown heightened with
black, and deep blue were frequently used for backgrounds.
Vestments, on the other hand, were carried out in bright colours,
— rose, light green, reddish-yellow and very bright blue ; gold
was less often seen. 1 )raperies of white, especially of greyish and
greenish tint, were frequent. Some of them were polychrome,
having transverse bars of red embroidered with white, black and
gold. Carnations became nearly white."
" In the fourteenth century the dominant colours were different
tones of grey, grey-green, light green and light rose ; blue never
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 291
appears in a pure unmixed state except iu backgrounds, which
are kept light. Gold is rare ; backgrounds of black, reddish-
brown or yellow ochre, are most common. The brown outline is
strong, the modelling very weak and feeble; white reliefs dis-
appear, but those in brown or black are frequent. Flesh tints are
very light. The general aspect is cold. The colour is sacrificed
to the drawing, as if the painters feared to diminish the effect of
the latter by the proximity of brilliant tints."
"Towards the second half of the fourteenth century back-
grounds begin to be carried out in various colours, like mosaics
in which many tints are damasked into each other. Draperies
iind flesh-tints remain light ; black disappears from backgrounds,
and is only used to define form ; gold still exists in the mosaic of
grounds ; accessories are light neutral tint relieved with light
to 1
-colours and ornaments of gold. The general aspect is soft and
brilliant. Colours are much broken, whilst at the beginnino; of
the fifteenth century they appear in broad, intense masses. By the
latter time modelling is very much neglected, and the direction of
the light very vaguely determined. The most salient parts are
the lightest in colour, which is in obedience to the principles of
decorative painting. But in backgrounds and accessories — such as
trees, palaces and buildings generally — we already find traces of a
more realistic manner; linear perspective is sometimes attempted,
but aerial is not yet thought of. Fabrics are skilfully rendered,
and flesh delicately modelled. Gold is used more or less every-
where ; it is found in draperies, hair, in the details of every
adjunct, and we find none of those sacrifices which are rightly
looked upon as necessary in painting a picture. The most in-
significant detail is depicted with as much care and is endowed
with as much light, as the principal character. This indeed is
one of the conditions of monumental painting. Upon the walls of
a saloon, of necessity always viewed obliquely, that which the eye
demands is a well-sustained general harmony — a surface equal
in its solidity and richness, without imaginary hollows or blank
spaces, which, though meant as a foil to the surrounding beauties,
r 2
292 AESTHETICS. [part n.
derange the proportions, and destroy the meaning of their archi-
tectural framework." '
This is one of the principal inconveniences resulting from the
substitution of ordinary studio pictures for monumental painting.
How is it possible to reconcile the scries of planes, of reliefs, and
of hollows, and of various distances, with the preservation of an
architectonic character 1 ? We may refuse to admit the reality of
the optical illusion which is the object, more or less, of painting,
and we may not be carried away by its artifices ; yet it cannot
be denied that the impression conveyed to the brain from a picture,
is sufficiently like that which results from the reality, to make its
intrusion into the midst of architectural ealcidations, and across
the lines and surfaces of a monument, a cause of great in-
convenience.
The simplification in the method of execution demanded by
monumental painting, has necessarily considerable influence over
the conception of such works. In an article upon Jean Goujon r
Gustave Planche expresses his astonishment that the artist in
question should have given to his caryatides in the Salle des Gent
Suisses heads of so realistic a type, copied directly from models,
and therefore full of individual vitality.
They certainly do convey a regrettable feeling of contradic-
tion and unfitness. Women when reduced to act the part of
supporting pillars, are evidently called upon to abandon their
characteristics as individual women. We do not require tliem to
bring to the performance of their new function anything but
variety and suppleness in the leading lines of their figures.
Differences of character, of temperament, of intelligence, all that
is outwardly made manifest by modifications of physiognomy, can
have no place in this peculiar mode of employing the female form.
These, therefore, should be carefully eliminated ; not because life
and reality are vices in sculpture, as Gustave Planche seems to
insinuate, but because a caryatid is rather an architectural mem-
ber than a statue in the proper sense of the word.
1 Dictionnaire raisonne de I' 'Architecture Francahc, t. iii. pp. 67, 68.
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 293
We might interpret in a similar sense what the same critic has
elsewhere written on the subject of religious painting. He
declares that the principal merit of the Virgins of Raphael is their
want of vitality, seeing that, in his opinion, " life would profane
them ! " '
In reality there is no question of anything of the kind. The
truth is — monumental painting, whether religious or not, is pre-
1 Here is the whole passage (Portraits d? artistes, I. pp. 215-6) ; it is verycui-ious: —
"To every man accustomed to the study of living nature, it is evident that the Ala-
donnas of Raphael do not and could not live. The lips, so refined and pure, could
never talk ; the chastely downcast eyes could never look up ; the cheeks, whose
contours excite our utmost admiration, never glowed with such blood as runs in our
veins. That this is true, is the chief reason that Raphael was the greatest of
religious painters ; if life Le impossible for the beings whom he created, it is not
because he has stupidly omitted one or many of its elements, but because he has
simplified, through his own powerfid will, the forms in which life makes itself
known to us. In order to bring the human face within the true harmony of lines
of which he dreamed, he eliminated those petty details which nature presents to
us, with which actual life cannot dispense, but which, nevertheless, are not abso-
lutely necessary in a picture. He subdues that lively colour which indicates
rude force and health ; he softens those muscular masses which explain and pro-
duce movement ; he effaces the folds of the eyelids : and all this perpetual
simplification of the lines of the human figure, far from being an evidence of
ignorance or want of skill on the part of the artist, serves to signify that he has
conceived and is realising a form more pure and elevated than that of ordinary
humanity. His knowledge enables him to abbreviate ; his wish for generalization
causes him to simplify. Again, all the Madonnas of Raphael address the soul
rather than rejoice the eye. There reign in their eyes an innocence and a sin-
cerity so divine, that life, should it touch them, would but profane. They are, it may
be, incapable of movement, but then motion is not necessary for their celestial
reveries. They do not breathe the same air as we do. The words which their mouths
might pronounce would not have the same sound as ours. Although they resemble
the women of earth, we know that they were not born among us. " We ourselves are
far from sharing in the opinions, which are here quoted, of Jules de Goncourt; we
must, however, express our pleasure in the fact that Gustave Planche has not
carried his admiration of dead painting into subjects which have nothing to do
with religion. In the sequel he explains very learnedly that, though M. Ingres
did well to borrow the style of Raphael in his treatment of religious subjects, he
deceived himself when "he attempted to generalise particular truths; he mis-
understood the history of the art which he professed, when he attempted to treat
the ordinary run of subjects after the Roman manner." He recognises, in fact,
that outside religious painting, truth and life resume their rights ; and he re-
proaches Ingres in that he failed to understand so much.
291 2ESTHETICS. [rAKT II.
eminently decorative, because its alliance with architecture forbids
it to be anything else ; and under such conditions, any attempt at
exact and minute reality would be out of place, and inconsistent
with the sacrifices of all kinds which such subordination imposes.
The painting of ornament or coloured decoration independent
of any subject, also possesses great importance, and in many cases
is only properly applied with very great difficulty, because its laws
change with every variation of place or object. As M. Viollet-le-
Duc very justly observes, it may increase the size of a building or
reduce it ; it may make light or darkness ; it may break up pro-
portions, or give them additional value : it may bring things near,
or bear them away ; it may give either pleasure or fatigue, divi-
si< >n or unity ; it may hide faults or exaggerate them. Such art
is a fairy who may be lavish either of good or evil, but is never
indifferent. By its aid pillars swell or grow thin, grow tall or
short ; at its will, vaults are lifted or brought close to us ; sur-
faces are extended or curtailed, our eye is charmed or offended,
our impressions concentrated into one dominant thought, or all
sense of unity destooyed. With one stroke of the brush it can
ruin an ably conceived work ; but also it can turn the humblest
buildings into attractive dwellings ; it can make a bare and cold
saloon put on such an appearance that thenceforth it is remem-
bered as a bright and cherished spot.
Must we then conclude that the application of decorative paint-
ing requires colourists of undoubted genius, and that no man
should venture upon its practice unless he be a Veronese or a
Titian 1 Certainly not. The difficulties which seem so formidable,
and really are so to us, were the most simple things in the world
to artists who had before them the traditionary examples of na-
tions accustomed to paint the interiors, and very often the exteriors,
of all their buildings, within certain well understood limitations.
There is no necessity for colourists such as the Venetians or the
Flemings; the Thibetans, the Hindoos, the Chinese, the Japanese,
and the Persians arc equal to all that we want. None of these
races require artists of genius to enable them to produce porcelain,
chap. iv.] PAINTING. 295
carpets, and shawls of marvellous colour. They clo their work
naturally, and with the greatest possible certainty ; their pro-
cesses are childish in their simplicity. Let us examine a Persian
carpet or Cashmere shawl. " Leaving on one side the choice of
tints, which are always sober and delicate, we see that, out of
ten colours, eight are broken, and that the value of each comes
from its juxtaposition to another. Take an Indian shawl to pieces,
thread by thread ; separate its various tints and you will be sur-
prised to find how little brilliancy they individually possess. There
is not one of the wools but would appear very dull beside our
dyes ; but so soon as they have passed through the skilful hand of
the Thibetan weavers and have become fabrics, they excel all our
tissues in the perfection of their harmony. Now this quality
depends entirely upon a thorough knowledge of the reciprocal
power of tint, upon the correct arrangement according to the in-
fluence which each exercises upon the other, and above all upon
the relative importance given to broken tints. They clo not
attempt to achieve a startling combination, in which as many
crude colours as possible are brought into inharmonious juxtapo-
sition ; they aim to give some one point as much value as pos-
sible by surrounding it with neutral tones. A square centimetre
of turquoise blue upon a large surface of reddish brown, will
acquire so great a value and depth that at a distance of ten paces
it will still appear blue and transparent. Multiply its size by
five, and it will not only itself become dull and undecided, but it
will also cause the warm brown which surrounds it to appear
heavy and cold."
M. Viollet-le-Duc, who has given as much care to the study of
this class of decoration as to that which has been previously
mentioned, thus sums up the result of his observations :
" There are only, as everyone knows, three colours, yellow, red,
and blue — black and white being merely two negations : white
being uncoloured light, and black the absence of light. From
these three colours all the multitude of tints is derived by means
of infinite commixtures. Yellow and blue produce greens ; red
296 JESTHETICS. [paht n.
and blue, purple ; red and yellow, the various shades of orange.
In these colours and their various complications, the presence of
black and white gives increased or diminished light. Just because
black and white are two negations, and are foreign to the idea of
colour, their proper destiny in decorative work is to bring out the
values. White is luminous, and black both develops its luminous-
ness and acts as its limit. The decorative painters of the middle
ages, either from instinct or more probably from tradition, always
introduced either black or white, sometimes both, into their scheme
of colour. Arguing from what is simple to what is complicated,
we shall be able to arrive at an explanation of their methods. We
only intend to speak here of the decoration of interiors, where the
light is diffused. During the whole period of the middle ages,
when monumental painting played so important a part, we ob-
serve that the artist always began by adopting a key of colour,
to which he adhered throughout the complete work — church or
whatever else it might be. Now these keys of colour (tonal \i 'tis)
are not at all numerous ; they may in fact be reduced to three :
1st, that obtained by yellow and red ; 2nd,, by red and blue ;
these necessarily include the intermediary tints, such as green,
purple, and orange, always used with black and white or black
alone ; 3rd, the key obtained by the use of mixtures of all the
three colours, gold and black being used to extend its compass,
the former replacing white in the luminous reflexes.
" Now let us suppose that the value of yellow is represented by
1, that of red by 2, that of blue by 3 ; by mixing red and yellow
we obtain orange, value 3 ; yellow and blue produces green,
value, 4 ; red and blue, purple, value 5. Suppose, again, we wish
to place colours upon any surface in such a way that their harmony
shall not be injuriously affected, and that we have to begin with
red and yellow. We must make the yellow occupy at least twice
as much surface as the red. If we then add blue the harmony
becomes more complicated ; its presence necessitates either a pro-
portional increase of the red and yellow surfaces, or the use of
green and purple tints to give them strength ; and these two tints
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 297
must not occupy less than a quarter and a fifth of the total sur-
face respectively. These elementary rules of harmony were always
observed by the decorative painters of the middle ages. They
very rarely made use of all the colours and tones which were at
their command, on account of the innumerable difficulties result-
ing from juxtaposition and the relative importance as to surface
of each tint — a matter of rigid rule. When all three colours and
their composites were made use of, gold became indispensable ; it
was charged both with the completion and, if necessary, the
reconstitution of harmony. Going back to the most simple prin-
ciples — perfect harmony may be obtained by the use of yellow
and red (red ochre), especially when heightened with white. It
is impossible to obtain harmony with yellow and blue, or red
and blue, except by the aid of intermediary tints. Should you
wish to decorate a hall with red and blue, or yellow and blue
ornament upon a white ground, you would find harmony quite
impossible; for yellow (yellow ochre) and red (red ochre) are the
only two colours that can be brought together without the
mediation of other tints."
Obedience to other equally elementary principles is no less
indispensable. The same ornament apparently has dimensions
which vary according as it is carried out in dark upon a light
ground, or in light upon a dark ground. If, of two pilasters of
similar height and bulk, the one be decorated in vertical lines
and the other with ornamental bands, the firmer will appear, at
a little distance, both the taller and the thinner.
We need not go further into details of the kind. AVe will
content ourselves with recommending those who are intei'ested in
the question to study the article, to which we have more than once
referred, in the Diction naive raisonne de V Architecture Frangaise. 1
It is a veritable treatise upon chromatic harmony by a man
thoroughly master of the subject. It contains a multitude of faci a
1 Article Peinture, t. vii. The engravings after drawings by M. ViolIet-le-Duc
arc examples to the point.
29S AESTHETICS, [paist n.
as interesting as they are little known. They who read it will
see that the laws of the harmony of colours can no more be
grasped by mere instinct than can those of musical harmony ; that
attentive, exclusive and long-continued study is necessary ; that
the excellent decoration of the monuments of antiquity and of the
middle ages, and our modern ill-success in the same branch of
art, are due, the former to careful study, the latter to absolute
neglect of the laws of which we have been treating. Our artists
have lost their grasp of the true tradition ; nor is this the
worst, they imagine they can supply its place by chance inspira-
tions and individual instincts. What would they say of any
good fellow who, in blissful ignorance of the laws of harmony,
thought he could compose symphonies equal to Beethoven 1 They
would call him an idiot. Yet nothing will prevent us, in
our almost universal contempt for science, from treating as a
matter of individual taste the often peculiarly-complicated prob-
lems of the harmony of colours. There is much discussion at the
present moment on the subject of decorative painting. Attempts
are made to decorate hotels de ville and palaces of justice. We
hope, in case these projects are followed up, that those who are
invited to carry them out will be asked to begin their task by
the study of the essential conditions of monumental painting.
But no, to be strictly truthful, we do not indulge in any such hope.
Every report and circular handed about or published upon the
subject, shows clearly enough that there is no desire for monu-
mental art. A certain number of more or less famous artists, ill
or well chosen as chance may direct, are requested to furnish a
certain number of grand studio pictures, referring in a greater
or less degree to certain given subjects, and of a predetermined
size : when these are finished they are paid for, and incontinently
stuck on their destined place on the wall, without one thought as to
whether they agree or conflict with the surrounding architecture.
So the thing is done ; and this in modern France is called the
protection of art.
We cannot tell whether historic art will, or will not have
chap, iv.] PAINTING. 299
reason to rejoice at such a state of things. But one thing we
do know, and that is that monumental painting, in the true sense
of the word, will only gain from it an additional proof of the
contempt in which it is now held, from sheer ignorance of its first
and last principle.
300 AESTHETICS. [part u.
CHAPTER V.
THE DANCE.
The dance, like music, is a result of the reflex action of the
nerves of feeling upon the muscles. 1 Any moral impression, such
as joy, or any physical one, such as that caused by strongly
marked music, gives rise to an excitement which seeks interpre-
tation in gesture, movement and attitude.
The union of the two causes made dancing one of the arts. The
primary element is the movements and gestures resulting from
moral excitement. As may be supposed, the variety of these is as
infinite as that of the feelings to which they owe their birth —
anger, joy, fright, sorrow, admiration, and enthusiasm are out-
wardly expressed by very different signs. Other modifications,
again, spring from the general characteristics of nations, or from
the particular characteristics of individuals.
These disunited circumstances would never, if left to them-
selves, have produced an art ; it was first necessary that they
should be regulated and bound together by that common bond
of discipline which is called rhythm.
Each complete group of movements or attitudes, the expres-
sion of some definite sentiment, had to be brought into subordi-
nation to some particular rhythm, with the effect of combining
all its particular and individual manifestations within a common
limit, and condensing similar emotions so as to produce a single
1 We shall explain this action more fully in the succeeding chapter. The dance
occupies so inferior a place among the arts of our day, that we have not thought
it necessary to consider it in detail, notwithstanding its great importance in
ancient times.
chap, v.] THE DANCE. 301
and unique result : expressive power is increased by the banish-
ment of discord, and the concentration of movement is a potent
factor in the development of its general features.
This fact is very clearly seen in the case of those races with
whom the dance still subsists as a manifestation of collective
sentiments. National, war, and religious dances, are all essentially
expressive.
But, besides these spontaneous dances, there are the spectacular,
introduced into our operas under the name of ballets. These do
not necessarily exclude all idea of expression ; but their chief aim
is to delight the eye by grace of form, of movement, and of atti-
tude — and thus they may fairly be called decorative dances.
As for the dancing of the drawing-room — we do not mean to speak
of it, because to us it does not seem possible to establish any con-
nection between art and such mere rhythmic promenades, which
no more resemble national dances than a modern procession re-
sembles a dance of religion.
We may regret that this is so. The dance might, even in our
day, possess some of the utility which it could boast in former
times. It might become an efficient aid to physical, and even to
moral education. But how can we dance so long as we are
expected to invite three thousand people to do so in a space that
will barely hold five hundred'? There can be no doubt that the
general tendency of the time is to avoid the great crowd of pre-
tended duties which resolve themselves into formal ceremonies
and a mere matter of bowing. Clubs supersede balls ; everywhere
we hear the same complaint — the difficulty to find dancers. It
is not impossible that dancing may come into fashion again some
day in this western world, but this cannot be until it has under-
gone some vast modifications, which shall do something to rein-
state it in its ancient position as one of the arts.
At one time the dance was a real art, having a serious import
of its own. Greek tragedy itself was the offspring of the sacred
dances of the Dionysia, the traces of which lingered to a late date
in the dramatic chorus. Dancing is to be found in the first rank
302 JESTHET1CS. [part ii.
of the arts among all the peoples of antiquity. Up to the twelfth
century it was preserved by our ancestors in their religious cere-
monies in churches and cemeteries. Its life was prolonged even
to the seventeenth century in certain districts — near Limoges for
example. They footed it gaily at the court of Henry IV. ; whilst
at that of the Grand Monarque the measure was almost grave.
But now, apart from ballets, the dance has lost its significance in
France, so far as the fashionable world is concerned ; if it may be
said that character dances are still found in certain country places,
and in the public casinos of some of our great cities.
Pantomime, necessarily included in any definition of the art
of movement, may be considered in connection with dancing,
though the association would seem to be founded upon analogies
more apparent than real. Pantomime is almost always a mere
corruption or exaggeration of dancing — in the sense that it too
often strains the natural signification of movements in the at-
tempt to make them convey ideas which would be much more
easily and cleai'ly expressed by words. This, it need not be said,
is a complete violation of the first rule of art.
Tableaux vivants, which for some years have enjoyed consider-
able popularity, may also be looked upon as hybrid productions
devoid of artistic value. In fact, their first condition, immobility,
places them in absolute contradiction to the definition of dancing.
Neither do they fall within the same category as painting or sculp-
ture, for of these, the essential characteristic is the interpretation
of life by means of purely conventional processes. Besides, in most
cases tableaux vivants are nothing but pretexts for the exhibition
of women in different degrees of nudity ; a fact of itself sufficient
to place them without the limits of art. The impressions which
we receive in looking at the Venus of the Louvre, have nothing
in common with those inspired by the sight of a naked female.
.Such spectacles may be in complete accord with the habits and
.sentiments of the society which has brought them into fashion,
as, too, may be the short petticoats of the ballet girl; but these
things, or the like, arc happily entirely foreign to our subject.
chap, vi.] MUSIC. 303
CHAPTER VI.
MUSIC.
§ 1 . Brief review of the History of Music.
The music of savages usually consists of the mere infinite
repetition of one movement, which, if varying in rapidity, is
always regular. With the negroes the number of singing notes is
limited to four, when there are no external circumstances to
cause modifications. Melody is but vague in form and without
variety. The monotonous dwelling upon a single note satisfies
them ; the rude rattle of the drum forms their most lively
enjoyment.
The Mongolian races, particularly the Chinese, are very
superior to the negroes ; but they, too, seem long ago to have
reached the limit of their capacity for progress. The imperfec-
tion of their artistic organization is manifested by their want of
skill in perceiving and rendering delicate gradations.
The gradation and harmony of sound are as unknown to Chinese
musicians as those of colour and perspective are* to their artists.
Their scale is composed of but five notes. "What is still more
surprising is the fact that having learnt, both theoretieally
and by the experience of their instruments, the use .of the
chromatic scale, they still refuse to employ semitones, without
which no musical art is possible. They sing but little. Like the
negroes they prefer the sound of instruments to that of tin'
voice ; and, in sound as in colour, loudness is the quality which
most delights them. It is impossible for a European ear to
304 .ESTHETICS. [paet n.
discover whether there be a key note or not to govern the differ-
ent parts of a Chinese air. Their composers seem to begin,
continue, and end by the help of pure fancy rather than by any
rules. They have no notion of harmony. To produce their
melodies, they use wind and stringed instruments, contrivances
made of sonorous stones, bells and sheets of metal or of wood,
while drums mark the time. At the caprice of the conductor,
trumpets and cymbals, gongs and tom-toms overwhelm all melody
with tempests of deafening noise.
So far as we are' able to trace the past, we sec that the music
of the white race, although also springing from the desire for
rhythm, has a very different character from that of negroes and
Chinese. Its chief characteristic seems to have been a vague and
dreamy sentiment ; its movement was measured and even slow,
although in the dance it became accelerated into an extreme
rapidity. The pictures which have been recovered in the most
ancient Egyptian monuments, indicate the predominance of song
by the presence of singers in the act of beating time. And
besides — the important part played by the harp, the lyre, and other
instruments of soft and modulated effect, sufficiently shows how
different the music of such a people must have been from that of
the Mongolian races.
The most striking of these differences is contained in the fact
that the Mongolian races never arrived at either the conception
or the employment of semitones. The white races, endowed with
more sensitive organs, and therefore capable of grasping and
comparing the most minute intervals, exaggerated the number of
these semitones in their earliest tonic scales. The most ancient
and authentic Sanskrit treatises upon music, divide the scale into
seven intervals, and between these again, twenty smaller and
unequal intervals are distributed. The Persians admit twenty-
four; the A nil is seventeen. The Pclasgic system also, was that
of the octave divided into twenty-four quarter tones. A little
later, an important modification ftmnd its way into the musical
system of the Greeks, in the complete transformation of their
CHAP, vi.] MUSIC. 305
scheme, and the creation of the diatonic system. This distributes
the succession of sounds into one series of intervals called tones
and semitones, which formed the basis of the music of the
middle ages and the Renaissance, and began by the substitution
of the tetrachord, or series of four sounds, for the simpler division
of the octave. In this new system the chromatic style, as it is
now called, was first introduced by the supersession of the
quarter — by the semi-tone.
In spite, however, of all these modifications, Greek music
ever retained its intimate connection with speech. It never
emerged from the condition of melopceia. Its office was to guide
the voice, to mark the rhythm of verse, and to accentuate the
ruling character of a poem by that of its accompaniment.
In the Greek dramas each personage sang or intoned his part
on a particular note, determined by the prevailing sentiment
of his role, and by the kind of mask which he had to wear ;
which, in their turn were naturally gay or sorrow-struck, terrible
or benignant, according to the individuality represented. Every-
thing had to be kept in subordination to the dramatic situation.
Character and its accidental peculiarities were suppressed for the
sake of a general and unchangeable type. The number of their
masks was very small, and, for the same reason, all their music
could be brought into three main categories or styles — the Lydian,
expressive of sorrow and complaint ; the Phrygian, of violent and
excited passion ; and the Doric, consecrated to the interpretation
of tranquillity, calmness, temperance, manly and dignified courage.
The last named is the majestic style, as well in music as in archi-
tecture.
Declamation is governed by musical rhythm. This regulates its
movement and determines its cadence, with a tyranny so absolute
that in these days we should be hardly able to endure it; although
in ancient times no man thought of complaint, because rhythm was
then universal, even in conversation, and its monotonous cadence
grateful to the ear.
We must remember that only within the last half-century, we
30G .ESTHETICS. [part n.
have begun to emancipate the Alexandrine from that solemn
uniformity both in versification and recital, which, to our fathers,
alone seemed worthy of tragedy, or in keeping with epic dignity.
Even the form of poetic works was once regulated by rhythm.
It has been quite recently demonstrated that the tragedies of
.Eschylus are made up of a series of parts which mutually
correspond in number of lines, in movement of phrases, and even
in choice of woi'ds. An anonymous and very ancient Greek manu-
script which has been translated by Mr. Vincent, shows us that
the Greeks made a distinction between two different kinds of
melody — that of prose, produced by variety in the successive
accents of a phrase ; and that of music, consisting in "the fitting
arrangement of consecutive sounds." The musician " who would
well compose a song, need only take account of the natural affinity
of sounds and of the quality proper to each." There is not a word
as to sympathy with the sentiments to be expressed ; because in
the ancient conception, such sympathy was confounded with and
formed part of the sound itself — just as the moral impression of
an object or spectacle was looked upon as an integral part of it.
This point is of great importance, because it is so completely in
accord with what we learn of the Greek genius from the other
arts. The theorists of antiquity looked upon their harmonies and
their musical styles as different modes of establishing a connection
between sounds in general and the musical scale, explaining their
moral effects as the consequences of the mutual connections of
the various sounds. They looked upon it all as a mere matt'
mechanism ; as an arrangement of means to an end, possessing as
its own special characteristic and inherent property, the power to
communicate a certain impulse to the soul — as though the feelings
of men were the effect and expression of his moral impressions,
instead of being their cause. The creative power of music lies in
its ability to recall forgotten impressions ; it works in a manner
directly opposite to that insisted upon by the ancients. The
power of melody does not reside in itself, but in the human
soul, which uses it as a means to convey ideas. This perpetual
CHAP, vi.] MUSIC. 307
substitution of exterior effect for internal cause in the theories of
the Greeks, is a most important point, and one to be carefully
token into account by anyone who desires to comprehend the
extent of the revolution effected by modern artistic science and
practice.
Even at the epoch when the Greek system was most complete,
it was still much less extensive than ours. The tables of Alipius
contain only three octaves and a note, both for instruments and
voice ; moreover, one of these octaves was entirely neglected in
practice.
But it may perhaps here be said that the diagram of Plato con-
tains a system of almost five octaves. True, but Plato, himself, ac-
knowledged that his musical laws were not meant for practical use ;
they were not fitted for mortal ears, and may therefore be looked
upon as purely ideal conceptions. The sentiment of tonality was
much less pronounced among the Greeks than it is with us ; and
the employment of simultaneous and different sounds, or harmony,
so thoroughly developed in modern music, was with them in
embryo. Their only use of harmonic combinations, was in the
accompaniment of the voice by instruments.
Greek music, when carried into Italy after its fatherland had
passed under the sway of Rome, made no progress, and passed
into complete decline in the first centuries of the middle ages ;
for it fell under the general anathema pronounced against every-
thing attached to Pagan forms of belief. Charlemagne attempted
to rescue it from this state of neglect, but in vain ; and after his
time, all further recovery was prevented by scholastic influence.
From the mere fact that it was partly founded upon mathematical
calculations, it became the prey of the doctors, who condemned it
to the petrified immobility which was the fate of everything that
fell under their hands. They found a pious amusement inariMnuinu:
its notes into rosaries, crosses, ovals and lozenges, without troubling
themselves about any useful results from such labours.
After many unsuccessful experiments, then, the beginning of the
seventeenth century at last witnessed the establishment of the
308 JESTHETICS. [part ii.
diatonic system, with unequally divided intervals between the
tones and semitones. When once the modern system was dis-
covered, progress was extremely rapid. Melody, being the direct
expression of individual sentiment, naturally took the lead, and
for a long time possessed a practically undivided empire — as
was the case with line in the arts of design. Then, in the
musical drama, as the instruments of the orchestra increased in
number, complications were gradually introduced. The Italians
led the way in the search after these new vehicles for effect. By
their action they gave a great impulse to the development of
harmony, although it was not their deliberate intention to do so ;
for they looked upon it merely as an auxiliary of melody. The
orchestra, which, it appears, should be the proper domain of har-
mony, set itself to sing, and the singer complacently accompanied
it. In fine, all the apparent progress made by harmony ended
in the triumph of melody. To this end Guglielmo, Paisiello
and Cimarosa consecrated all their labours. The genius of the
Italian race has never felt itself called upon to penetrate the
psychologic mysteries which form the real raison d'etre of harmony.
It makes use of it as a method to enliven or deepen the effect of
melody, but never attempts to analyse its power to manifest the
tempestuous feelings of the soul. The Italian mind has never con-
ceived that harmony may possess as much dramatic power as
melody. It has failed to comprehend that the latter expresses
rather the passions that can be defined, reproducing only that side
of our nature which can be easily perceived and grasped ; while
the other, the obscure and shadowy side, that underflow of agitation
which eludes definite portrayal and the precise narrowness of
expression proper to melody, is the natural domain of the former.
Harmony is as a deep and distant echo of the internal tumults
that disturb the depths of man's nature. It adds the noise
of the tempest to its other effects. Such is its real function in
human music. It is so understood by all the great composers —
such as Gluck and Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The Italians
have never arrived at a conception of this fact ; they have .con-
's
chap, vi.] MUSIC. U09
fined themselves too rigidly to the cultivation of the music of the
senses. According to their notion, the chief function of harmony
is to soften the somewhat dry precision of naked melody ; to
bathe, so to speak, all over-defined contours, and too rigid lines,
in demi-tint, and so to add much to the power of pleasing. It is
a kind of oflazins; to which the artist has recourse for the softening
CO ©
of his colours ; it gives them a sweeter tone, acting in fact the part
of chiaroscuro in painting.
It is not then in Italy that we shall find the real inventors of
harmony. The Italian composers invented the orchestra, but
only in exceptional cases did they assign to it its proper role.
Gluck seems to have been the first man to make proper use
of it. Side by side with the drama which was being developed on
the stage, he installed the true orchestra to act as a running com-
mentary. The story of the representation of Iphigenia in Tauris
has been often told.
When Orestes sings that calmness is returning to his soul, the
accompaniment becomes gloomy and tumultuous. "When Gluck
was reproached with the contradiction, he impatiently answered,
" Never mind Orestes ! he says he is calm, he lies ! " Haydn, at
nearly the same period, was an equally powerful agent in bringing
about the revolution ; but the credit of its complete accomplish-
ment is due to Mozart. Ever since his time, harmony has enjoyed
a clearly defined office. All hesitation has disappeared. The or-
chestra has finally taken its proper place in the action of the
drama, developing the characters and rendering them complete.
Harmony in the hand of Mozart became a living tongue, indi-
cating the darkly understood enigmas and the undefined obscuri-
ties buried in the human soul.
But one man has surpassed him in expressing the mystery of
the passions, in interpreting the agitations of the heart and mind
It is difficult to imagine expressive power greater than that of
Beethoven. Music has now embarked, like all other arts, upon
that psychological voyage of discovery which has been its goal for
ages. Harmony has gradually become the equal of melody, and
310 ESTHETICS. [part ii.
even threatens to deprive her rival of a large share of such
importance as is still left her ; that is if we believe a man who
adds to the most remarkable genius, musical theories of startling
audacity. Such is the programme sketched out by Wagner for the
"music of the future." Yet he is too true a musician to fail to
perceive, that, if such a programme were pushed to its extreme,
it would result in a mutilation of the art and the destruction of
one of its chief means of expression. The exaggeration would be
quite as bad as that of the Italians, although in an absolutely
contrary direction. Because harmony was long sacrificed to
melody, is that a reason why the reverse of the process should
now take place 1 What good would be got by it 1 The answer is
beyond doubt, when we examine the constituent elements of
music, and enumerate the conditions of its expressive power —
which we shall now endeavour to do.
§ 2. Music both a science and an art. — Signification of sown?*.
Music, like architecture, is at once a science and an art. The
internal relations of its elements are mathematical ; and, although
most musicians omit to study their art from this point of view, it
is impossible thoroughly to understand its nature if this con-
sideration be put on one side.
It may be said that music is the art of choosing, arranging, and
combining sounds. Such a definition implies, again: first, a know-
ledge of the meanings and possible relations of sounds ; and,
secondly, a directing idea to govern the selection and combina-
tion of them.
We can only acquire a knowledge of the significations and
mutual relations of sounds by observation. This study forms the
scientific part of music; the artistic part, on the other hand, lies
in the arrangement and composition.
We have not here, however, the materials for a complete
definition.
Have separate sounds an absolute signification of their own?
CHAP, vi.] MUSIC. 311
What do we mean by possible relations 1 These questions must
be answered before we go any farther.
It is obvious that sounds have no absolute meaning within
themselves. They only obtain one by their connection with our
perceptions. Their signification is entirely relative and subor-
dinate to the conditions of human intelligence and sensibility.
We may say the same thing of their possible mutual relations.
In reality any combination is possible, but some are agreeable
to us, and others disagreeable. As music is an art, and one of
its duties is to delight the ear, it must perforce select the former
and reject the latter.
Hence we must consider the whole question from the triple
point of view of physiology, physics, and mathematics, before
considering it artistically.
Signification of Soimds. — We know that every impression pro-
duced at the extremity of a sensory nerve is transmitted to a
ganglionic centre, whence it is usually reflected, by the agency of
a motor nerve, to the one or many muscles which it has power
to contract. This is what is called reflex action.
This action plays a very important part in our life. It affects
not only the muscles but all the contractile organs. The heart,
the circulatory system, and the organs of digestion are all within
its province. Every sensation a little more lively than usual,
accelerates the circulation of the blood and quickens the action
of the heart. Sometimes, though rarely, it produces a contrary
effect. Sudden news of misfortune strongly affects us internally.
In most cases, when the excitation is moderate, it is merely
transmitted from one part of the nervous system to another. A
sensation calls up ideas and emotions which again give rise to
others. Successive waves, following and replacing each other quite
independently of our will, fill us with that consciousness of the
unity and permanence of our being, which has been so greatly
abused by philosophers ignorant of physiology.
There are three methods through which nerves in a state of
high tension may obtain relief : the excitement may be passed on to
312 AESTHETICS. [part ii.
other nerves which are not in direct relation with the mnscles, and
so produce a series of sentiments or ideas : or it may communicate
itself to one or more of the motor nerves, producing muscular
contractions ; thirdly, it may excite the nerves of the ganglionic
system, and by its rebound stimulate one or more of the vital
organs.
It would possibly be more accurate to say that, in the majority
of cases, relief is obtained through all the three issues at once.
Nevertheless the proportions, as a ride, are so very unequal that
the afflux of nervous force may be said, speaking generally, to be
localised in this or that part of our organs to the complete
exclusion of the rest.
But what has all this to do with music 1 This : as every
active excitement of the nervous system is manifested by a con-
traction of some part of our organism, it is but natural that
the muscles which contribute to the production of the voice,
should not be exempted from this general law. All animals, man
included, express their sensations not only by movements of the
body, but also by cries of joy or pain, according to the feeling
that agitates them at the moment ; and from these cries we
can tell the sensation which has caused them.
Mr. Herbert Spencer, the eminent English philosopher, has de-
monstrated, by a series of experiments, that variations in the
voice are the physiological results of changes in the sentiments
of the singer. Each inflexion or modulation is the natural con-
sequence of the predominant sensation of the moment ; and he
concludes that the human voice possesses a power of expression
far excelling that of any instrument, because of the relations exist-
ing between mental and muscular excitation. The significance
of musical sounds must be studied through observation of this
constant mutual connection in the median ism for rendering our
impressions manifest. Our habit of referring every cry and accent
of the voice to some particular sensation, lias the result of making
us unable to hear such sounds without at once being reminded of
their cognate sensations. This, then, is simply the result of
chap, vi.] MUSIC. 313
association of ideas, founded upon a habit of physiological observa-
tion.
We must not attach too much importance to this conclusion.
The simple fact that our impressions are almost always expressed
by the same sounds, is sufficient proof that we are physiologically
predisposed to manifest each emotion by an ensemble of particular
signs.
There is nothing to surprise us in the fact that we are able
to recognize the meaning of such signs, without the aid of much
experience or deliberation. The face and voice of an angry man
will frighten a child so soon as it is old enough to notice them ;
indeed such comprehension is so natural, that it is found even
in animals.
We do not insist upon this objection, because the observations
of Mr. Herbert Spencer hold good in a much more important
point : namely, that every moral impression reacts upon the
muscles and organs of the voice, giving to the sounds produced, a
particular character which conveys a rigidly determinate moral
signification, easily recognisable by everyone, whether through
natural instinct or experience.
Mr. Herbert Spencer fortifies his theory by a series of examples
which show how much moral impressions depend for their mani-
festation on the clearness, the timbre of the voice, on its loudness,
and on the intervals and comparative rapidity of its variations.
Now these peculiarities of the voice, which are regulated by the
excitation of nervous sensibility, form the distinction between
singing and ordinary speech. The inflexions of the voice, which
are the physiological results of ■pleasurable or painful sensations,,
are, in vocal music, carried to their utmost power. The charac-
teristics which to us seem the exclusive property of singing, are
simply those of passionate speech exaggerated and systematised.
These resemblances may even be carried farther. Although
emotions usually excite and contract the muscles, they may, in
some cases, produce absolutely contrary effects. Anger, fear, hope,
joy, when they reach a certain point, manifest themselves by a
314 AESTHETICS. [paiit ir.
general collapse of the body ; and of this the symptoms most
marked are a sudden relaxation of the muscles and consequent
tremor. This tz-emor naturally spreads to the organs of the
voice, and affords a method of expression of which some singers
make very effective use in passages of extreme pathos. The
staccato, on the other hand, is suited to passages which express
gaiety, abandon, resolution, confidence ; precisely because these de-
mand from the vocal muscles efforts analogous to those which
produce decided, resolute, and energetic movements of the body
through the muscles of gesture and locomotion. Tender and peace-
ful sentiments are expressed by flowing sounds demanding from
the singer but a small expenditure of force. The variations of
effect produced by changes in the time, are to be explained by the
same law. From it, we obtain the different measures which regu-
late such changes : some slow, as largo, adagio ; others rapid, as
andante, allegro, presto. Everyone knows how much the impres-
sion of a musical passage may be modified by the substitution of
one of these movements for another. The same observation is
•correct concerning rhythm. Every kind of human effort demands
intervals of repose. Such intervals when systematised, result in
rhythm.
We may conclude, then, from what has been said, that the choice
-of sounds, viewed from the point of their moral significance, is
never left to chance, as is supposed by those theorists who only
see in music the mathematical relations of sound, and reduce
melody to a kind of geometrical arabesque. It is quite true that
the choice is quite unconscious, and that the composer never dreams
of analysing his notes, before combining them, after the fashion
of Mr. Herbert Spencer : in this we find the great distinction
between art and science. The artist makes use of the materials
furnished him by reality, without any other pre-occupation than
his desire for a complete manifestation of his ideas : bis choice is
partly instinctive, and partly guided by experience. The business
of the philosopher, on the other hand, is to seek out the reasons
of things. He is quite justified in his endeavour to find those
chap, vi.] MUSIC. 315
hidden motives of selection to which composers give so little
heed. It would be absurd to deny the existence of such motives,
simply because they do not always make themselves strongly felt.
It would be quite as reasonable to deny the mathematical relations
of the notes. Has music only existed since scientific men have
been enabled to invent instruments capable of enumerating the
vibrations of sounds 1 Most certainly not. The ear made spon-
taneous choice of the sounds which suited its construction ; and
science has had to be content to prove, subsequently, that such
suitability was the result of certain numerical relations between
the vibrations composing the different notes. The same law will
be found governing their moral signification.
§ 3. Sound considered by itself.
What we have already said about the discoveries of M. Helmholtz
will justify us in passing rapidly over this subject.
Sound is the result of vibration upon the ear. To be convinced
of the fact we need only strike a tightly stretched cord. The
quicker its vibrations, the higher will be its sound, and vice versd.
As for timbre — it is caused by the fact that a vibrating cord is
divided into a series of bands of different lengths, in such a way
that, in addition to the fundamental note to which it is tuned, it
produces a whole chorus of harmonics of both higher and less
intensity. The number of vibrations in these harmonics exceeds
that of the fundamental notes four or five times. They will be twice,
thrice, or four or five times as numerous, according as the knots
produced by vibration divide the cord into segments, decreasing by
division into two, three, four or five. The quickness and length
of the vibrations always maintain the same relative proportions.
And these vibrations go on at once without any confusion or con-
tradiction. 1
1 The harmonics are not the only notes which have to lie added to the funda-
mentals. When two notes are vibrating together, they give spontaneous birth to
two more : the one is called the differential note, because the number of vibrations
which, produce it, equals the difference between the vibrations of the two principal
316 '.ESTHETICS, [part ii.
Every vibratory body becomes the centre of several systems of
independent waves of sound, each of which corresponds to a par-
ticular note ; but all bodies do not possess similar powers of
vibration, and this difference is the cause of the great varieties of
timbre or tone. In musical instruments, strings are the most
prolific in harmonics. From them we may obtain as many as
sixteen at a time. As for the form of the curves described by
vibratory molecules, M. Helmholtz has shown that they exercise no
influence on the quality of sound.
Whence comes the pleasure which we experience in listening to
the simultaneous vibration of certain notes, whilst, in the case of
certain others, we feel only pain or weariness 1 It would be evi-
dently a mistake to refer it entirely to the numerical connections
between vibrations, because we should then have to inquire why,
among these connections, some should be pleasing to us and others
displeasing. We must look for the reasons elsewhere.
Since the times of Euler it has been believed that the reason
why simple concords please the ear is that they suggest ideas of
order ; while discords excite notions of disorder, of numerical an-
archy. Such explanations have been long fashionable, and they
have been all the more acceptable from the fact that they really
explain nothing. It is a case of metaphysics applied to music. We
must not believe, however, that because they have been accepted
for so many centuries, such reasonings are no longer in fashion.
They are the whole life of official aesthetics.
The real causes of the different impressions ai*e purely physio-
logical. We all know that when we sing above a closed piano, the
corresponding strings of the instrument vibrate in concord with
our vocal notes.
The three thousand fibres which terminate the filaments of the
acoustic nerve may be considered as three thousand separate
strings, each of which seizes and reproduces the fundamental
notes ; the other, which was discovered by M. Helmholtz, is called by him the
additional note, because the sum of its vibrations is equal to those of the two
notes from which it springs.
chap, vi.] MUSIC. 317
vibration to which it is attuned, whatever may be the complexity
of the waves of harmony set in motion. But these waves, instead
of following one another and combining into a series of parallel
movements, mix with and cross the one with the other, causing
mutual annihilation at the points of intersection. In this case
the nerve cord, instead of receiving a single impulse, finds itself
subjected to the influence of two vibrations which, not being in
unison, produce intermittent sounds, alternately strong and feeble.
These changes are manifested by what are called battements,
that is, by successive swells and falls. The resulting sensation
is most disagreeable to the ear, just as intermittent light is
to the eye. The annoyance is greatest when the battements are
produced at the rate of from thirty to forty per second. Above
and below that figure the effect is less unpleasant. 1
These battements do not spring only from discord between funda-
mental notes. They may be produced by conflicting secondary
notes, or by discord between a fundamental and a compound note.
In such cases they are less perceptible, but we cannot be sure of
their limits ; much depends upon the delicacy of the ear affected
and the kind of instrument employed. 2
1 The reason why the irregularities of a lamp fatigue the eye so quickly is that
they compel the retina to be continually accommodating itself to the changes of
light. The irritation of the ear under similar circumstances is also to be explained
by purely physiological causes.
- This does not prevent the continual employment of discords in modern music.
The note markedly occupying the chief place in the music of to-day is a dissonance
serving to contrast and point the tonic, or key-note. In fact, in it discords prevail,
acting as does antithesis in poetry, and may be said to be the necessary result of
" temperament," as explained by M. Laugel. In the major scale, pure and simple,
there are not two intervals of exactly equal length. If the attempt he made to
keep a series of octaves pure — that is to say, to keep at distinctly true harmonic
intervals, the octaves, the fifths, the fourths, and the thirds — insuperable diffi-
culties at once arise. It will unhesitatingly appear convenient to solve the problem
by keeping to intervals of octaves, so as to preserve the principle of tonality,
and then to subdivide each octave into equal parts. This system, by its simplicity,
has done an immense service to music. It lightens the labour both of composi-
tion and instrumentation. It admits modulation ; that is, the passage from one
tone to another with flexibility and ease. Be it understood, nevertheless, that
318 iESTHETICS. [part 11.
To the Greeks the third was a discord : some discords which
are very disagreeable in singing or in stringed-instruments, are
hardly perceptible on the organ, flute, or piano.
M. Helmholtz, after very numerous experiments, has established
the following classification : —
Absolute Concords : octave, twelfths, double octave. Perfect
do. : fifths, fourths. Medium do. : sixths, major thirds. Imper-
fect do. : Minor thirds, diminished sixths. Within these there
are nothing but discords marked by more or less rapid battements.
By this we see that purity of concord depends upon the iden-
tity of harmonics ; and that the numerical coincidence of vibration
between fundamentals is not sufficient to ensure it.
We need not push our examination into the discoveries of this
learned physicist any farther. It is enough for our purpose to
have shown, that the rules which govern the arrangement of notes
equally with those governing the choice of sounds, depend en-
tirely upon the facts of physiology ; and that the more or less
mystic explanations of metaphysicians, are mere idle fancies
without any sort of scientific value.
From these premises we must now endeavour to arrive at such
conclusions as, from an aesthetic point of view, they may seem
legitimately to bring forth.
§ 4. The musical " arabesque " — Expression in music.
We shall not trouble ourselves to consider the cloudy excursions
of those who wish to make music a kind of cabalistic art, in which
in this displacement the notes alter ; for there is a difference, if a fractional one,
between the vibratory relations of qualified and those of true, or harmonic notes.
Small though it be, it is sufficient to cause battements (one in a second, between
the false and the true fifth). It then becomes desirable to compensate on one
hand, for the loss in the other of harmonic purity ; and the salve of wounded
sensibility is to be found in discords. From this spring their influence and rapid,
overwhelming growth.
The inconveniences of the system arc so patent and grave that M. Helmholtz
demands the sacrifice of " temperament," and a return to pure concord. To this
end, he has constructed an organ-harmonium. But unfortunately its complication
is greater than that of the piano, and must of necessity hinder its success.
cHAr. vi.] MUSIC. 315-
a revelation of what they are pleased to call " the infinite " is to
be found. This school of declamatory sentimentalism has r
happily, seen its best days : it has left its place to another,,
which, by a reaction, would reduce the musical art to an arabesque
of sounds.
This latter theory, the offspring of pure dilettantism, is perhaps
still more dangerous. It acknowledges that " a musical sound has
the same internal power of pleasing as a pleasant smell or flavour ;
and that certain combinations of sound, provided they do not
violate the mathematical laws which govern vibration, also afford
considerable pleasure to our sensibilities." ... It admits that the
human ear is so constructed as to be able to enjoy certain special
delights which have no name in our language, and consequently
cannot be explained to those who have never experienced them.
These sensations and pleasures consist in the perception, through
the ears, of a series or an assembly of lines forming vibrations or
sonorous waves, which are superimposed or combined in the atmo-
sphere. "These combinations of sounds and movements are to
the ear, what the pure arts of decoration and ornament are
to the eye : such as fanciful arabesques, and tail-pieces, flowing
designs for stuffs and tapestry. Philosophic ideas, sentiment,
imitation, literary illustration — these things have no more to do
with music than they have to do with the design of a damask or
brocade, or with the decorative painting of our old cathedrals
.... Such designs as the decorator evolves out of his own con-
sciousness, and carries out with the help of line and colour ; are
composed by the musician in sounds, which are his materials.
Rhythm is his chalk, and harmony his colour-box. A symphony
is, in fact, nothing else than a vast decorative painting, in
which all the lines are in movement, and in which the different
parts of the picture are successively discovered by the ear, instead
of simultaneously by the eye. . . . The general impression con-
veyed by music to the ear, is very similar to that which the eye
receives in looking into a kaleidoscope." 1
1 Charles Beaucruier, Philosophic de la Musique, p. 103 et
320 ESTHETICS. [part ii.
This mode of estimating music seems to us to have no practical
value. At most modern concerts one is sure to hear applause
lavished upon the ingenious individuals who can so far falsify, for
instance, the sound of the clarionette, as to make it imitate the
hautboy and the flute ; passing ten times in a minute from forte
to piano ; swelling its sound only to let it die ; picking up a dying
note and carrying it to the most tumultuous crescendo. An in-
strumentalist, who, by force of hard work and the torture of a
good violoncello, succeeds in playing in such a way that a blind
auditor would believe that he was listening to a mediocre violin,
may count upon a complete success before such amateurs : who,
to be sure, have reason, for they have learned by experience how
difficult it is to teach a bear to dance lightly, or to render upon
an old shoe the effects of the piccolo.
Side by side with the virtuosos who transform concerts into
musical gymnastics, we must place the composers, who, instead
of devoting themselves to the expression and development of the
motives and sentiments which form the natural domain of music,
attempt to extort our admiration of their dexterity by the fan-
tastic arrangement of notes, and by the manufacture of musical
fireworks.
Is it necessary to say that these are nothing but musical pueri-
lities, caprices always more or less inconsequent and absurd, idle
follies only acceptable to irrational dilettantism ; anything rather
than music 1
M. Beauquier does well to admit that music exercises an
influence over our feelings which we can hardly ascribe to the
kaleidoscope : " Impressions caused by music are physically agree-
able on account of the general activity which the vibrations in-
duce in the nervous system. It is, so to speak, an access of life
resulting from a shock, and the sensation is all the more pleasur-
able that the movement is regular, governed by the general laws
which render matter appreciable by the senses As an
immediate corollary of this sensation, we go through a certain
condition of activity, bringing in its train feelings which may be
CHAP. VI.] MUSIC. 321
described in general terms as, of joy or sadness, of comfort or
uneasiness, of energy or languor."
These concessions are not sufficient ; there is something in
music over and above all this. That something is expression.
We have no desire to look upon music as a language, in the
complete sense of the word, after the fashion of the times. We
believe that the author of Alceste and Iphigenia in Tauris was ill-
advised when he endeavoured to find in music a power which it
does not possess — namely, that of analytically expressing the pas-
sions of humanity. A language should possess an amount of pre-
cision which is totally wanting in music, not only for the expression
of ideas, but even for the manifestation of sentiment. There is
one fact, however, which is striking and undeniable — the marked
analogy existing between the works of all our great composers and
their own individual characters, their habits of thought and dis-
tinctive feelings. Mendelssohn, who was characterised by a broad
and cultivated intelligence, wrote to a relation of his who asked
him to set some descriptive poem to music : "Music for me, you
must know, is a very solemn matter ; so solemn that I do not feel
myself justified in trying to adapt it to any subject that does not
touch me heart and soul. I should almost look upon it as a false-
hood, because notes really possess a meaning quite as determinate
as that of words, if it cannot be interpreted by words."
Perhaps this is saying rather too much. But, without going
to this extreme, we may safely say that, between a certain number
of sentiments and certain combinations of musical sounds, an un-
doubted connection exists. The remarks of M. Beauquier would
apply to keys, considered from a general point of view. The minor
and major keys affect us in two ways entirely different. But it
would be going too far to reduce all music to impressions so vague
and general. We must take account of the more definite impres-
sions which result from the choice and combination of the indi-
vidual notes. For without these, the whole art would resolve
itself into a mere question of technical skill ; every morceau in a
minor or major key would be, in its meaning and expressive power,
Y
322 AESTHETICS. [part II.
identical with any other composed in the same key. Facts are in
direct contradiction to any such supposition.
A disposition to sing, marks a particular condition of the mind,
a special exaltation resulting from the disturbance caused by some
definite sentiment. For the expression of that sentiment, it
chooses those sounds or notes which are most in harmony with
it. If, then, the theories of Mr. Herbert Spencer be correct, as
we believe them to be ; if it be true that every lively emotion
makes itself felt by muscular contractions which affect the clear-
ness of the voice and modify its tone and power, influencing also
its time and the rapidity of its vibrations : how can we possibly
deny that all these modifications may be and are reproduced in
music, which is nothing but a systematised idealisation of the
language of passion 1 How can we contend that we are incapable
of recognizing in music the identical intonations which we our-
selves use whenever impelled by some determinate emotion 1
Nevertheless, those who believe that music is an art entirely
founded upon mathematics, in which the numerical combination
of vibrations plays the ruling part, practically set up such a con-
tention. They must have forgotten the rather important fact that
the art existed long before their scientific experiments, and that
these have done nothing to show why previous composers gave a
preference to certain notes. Physicists and mathematicians weary
their intellects, not in trying to divine the moral significance of
sounds, which, indeed, they care little about, but in examining
their relations from the narrow point of view of their respective
sciences. They have been enabled to give us the reasons for a
number of very interesting phenomena, which, notwithstanding
their great importance, do not by any means constitute the whole
art of music. They have put aside everything that belongs to
the moral impression as not being part of their especial province ;
but this is no sufficient reason to deny the existence of such
things.
Would they look upon the moral signification of sounds as an
illusion, on the ground that it only springs from an association of
chap, vi.] MUSIC. 323
ideas % " From the mere fact that the perfume of a particular
species of rose may recall, in all its freshness and distinctness,
some long forgotten scene of our existence, should we be justified,"
asks M. Beauquier, " in concluding that different odours possess
definite powers of influencing our imaginations 1 It is the same
thing with music : it produces the effect of clouds, in which each
man may see whatever he wills." This objection would have con-
siderable force were these associations of ideas purely individual
and accidental. But we have only to recal the observations,
quoted above, of Mr. Herbert Spencer, to be convinced that the
associations of ideas which determine the selection of musical
sounds, have universality as their special characteristic ; and that
the diversities which have been discovered between the musical
systems of different races and ages, are founded almost invariably
upon differences of numerical relation, rather than upon the signi-
fication of the sounds themselves.
The objection has its root in a prejudice of the metaphysicians.
They wished sounds to have their significations in themselves and
by themselves. And when compelled to abandon this idea, they
refused to admit any other explanation. It is ontology again ;
and we need not repeat our opinion of that species of intellectual
infirmity.
§ 5. Personality in music — Union of poetry and music — Melody and
harmony — The special domain of music.
Once more we find ourselves face to face with that conception
which, in our opinion, is the foundation of all the arts alike — the
intervention of human personality. Music is an art, not because
it reposes upon an assembly of more or less pi-ecise and scientific
facts, but because these facts are of such a nature that they give
the artist an opportunity to express his own personal sentiments ;
to manifest his own mode of feeling and thinking ; and to in-
fluence by such manifestations the feelings of all who are like him.
Whether he address himself to ears or eyes is simply a difference
of process, to be explained by individual predominance of either
Y 2
324 2ESTHETICS. [part n,
organ, but possessing no power to change its fundamental artistic
character.
No man has all his organs in perfect equilibrium. Physiology
has not arrived at sufficient perfection to enable us to understand
all the differences; but it is certain that all men, either hereditarily
or by education, have received or acquired certain special apti-
tudes which are explained by the predominance of this or that
part of their nervous centres. And more, this predominance ever
induces them to exercise the most developed organ ; that which
constitutes their relative superiority. Their activity naturally
takes this direction and, when it manifests itself soon enough,
determines the vocation. This observation applies just as much to
manual trades as to other employments. He who makes a first-
rate statesman would have made but a mediocre philosopher.
But it is specially in the arts, that these natural differences
become most evident. The painter lives for his eye, the musician
for his ear. While the former expresses himself by the help of
line and colour ; the latter does so by the choice arrangement
and composition of sounds — just as the logician proceeds by
reasoning, and the mathematician by formulas.
Doubtless these differences of procedure imply corresponding
differences in the manner in which common matters affect them.
It is certain that the impressions of the musician are less precise
and palpable than those of the painter ; but they are not the less
genuine. His art is not the less on this account a true manifesta-
tion of himself with all the emotions through which he passes,
and its power depends directly upon the depth and vivacity of his
feelings. Music in which every man can see, as in clouds, whatever
he tries to see, must necessarily be superficial, betraying mediocrity
in its author. We must not conclude from the fact that we may
change the whole character of a piece of music by modifying its
rhythm or its time, that therefore it has no real expressive power.
So much only proves that rhythm and tune are of the highest im-
portance to the art.
The critics Avho deny all expression to music, or who, to say
CHAP, vi.] MUSIC. 325
the least, allow it but the vaguest and most indefinite significance,
are consistent when they declare that they are unable to admit any
classification of this art, to them so essentially indeterminate in its
character, with the dogged precision of conventional language.
They condemn opera as a hybrid refinement of bad taste only
worthy of the present age of decadence.
To them we may answer that there is nothing more discordant
in the association of words with music, than in the association
of painting and sculpture with architecture. As to the accusa-
tion of over-refinement, it is to be presumed that they mean it to
apply to the very invention of the art. It is not easy to imagine
instrumental music as existing before singing, which latter most
probably consisted, from the first, in the union of words and
music.
Melody, which arranges sounds, has often been compared to
drawing ; and harmony, which combines them, finds its counter-
part in the management of colour. The analogy is striking. From
it, however, the false conclusion has been drawn, that melody is
everything and harmony nothing. For those who see in melody
nothing but drawing, and in drawing nothing but hard and dry
outlines, it is natural that harmony should seem to be of small
importance — because, in fact, it brings confusion rather than pre-
cision into clean-cut melody. It is a very different matter to
those who look upon music as a vehicle for expression. In the
hands of a genius — such as Gluck, or Weber, or Beethoven — har-
mony adds untold force to the significant power of melody, giving
it a breadth and largeness of accentuation which it could never
attain by itself.
Very few composers know how to use harmony in the way that
Rubens and Rembrandt used colour. They are, most of them, so
to speak, of the school of Ingres ; they prefer form, and either
fear or despise the complications of harmony. And if they are
admirable musicians, just as the great draughtsmen of the French
school are admirable artists, the fact does not prevent our belief*
that genius of a different sort might have succeeded in obtaining
32C .ESTHETICS. [part ir.
from harmony such results as the Venetians and, still more, some
of the artists of Flanders and Holland have obtained from colour.
Neither must we forget that harmony is quite a modern dis-
covery. The ancients knew nothing of it. It is only within
the last two hundred years that a really important part has been
assigned to it. Purely instrumental music, such as the symphony,
is quite a recent invention. How can we foresee what develop-
ments the future may have in store for it ?
It is true that upon the symphony do those critics chiefly rely,
who wish to confine music to the province within which Ingres
did his best to enclose painting. " A symphony," says M. Beau-
quier, " is an architectonic structure made up of sounds, with its
parts in movement, and signifies absolutely nothing in a literary
sense. ... In most cases composers would be very much
puzzled to say what they meant to express. They arrange
musical forms, and combine sounds, without thinking of any-
thing beyond."
Yes, but why do they select one arrangement more than
another 1 Why does one individual composer go to work in one
way, and another in another 1 Why have the compositions of to-
day a different character from those of yesterday 1 Can it all be
a matter of chance 1 And how comes it that in all these combina-
tions and " architectonic designs " of sound, we ai'e able to recog-
nize the nationality and character of their authors; and often even
the moral situation in which they happened to be when they
traced their " arabesques " 1 How are we to explain the asserted
fact that by pure chance effects are produced upon crowded
audiences which can be predicted beforehand with consummate
certainty 1
Of course such a thesis is entirely unsustainable. As Mendels-
sohn said — we must not conclude that, because the significations
of notes are not immediately translatable by words, therefore
they do not exist. It is true that there is no common measure
between words — which represent the results of intellectual ana-
lysis — and notes — which are the spontaneous echo from the
chap. VI.] MUSIC. 327
concrete and deeply-felt impressions of our sensory life. Must we
declare that such impressions have no existence .but in our indi-
vidual fancies, simply because analysis has not yet succeeded in
explaining them ; nor language has found words to indicate their
natures 1 Do we even believe that words themselves, precise as
they seem, convey exactly the same meaning to all intellects ;
and that all the auditors of the same discourse receive therefrom
the same ideas 1 We know well that they do not. Yet no one
would dreain of saying that words are not susceptible of accu-
rately determinate interpretation.
To be quite sure of our ground, we must remember that music,
like all the other arts, has its own special domain. It addresses
itself to one particular little group of sentiments, which its method
of expression is admirably qualified to interpret ; and which,,
indeed, can not be interpreted in any other way. If we endea-
vour to explain them by means of words, they vanish like a
cloud of impalpable dust • like water vanishes when we attempt
to grasp it in the hand. Yet both dust and water exist.
We all know what disastrous effects purely literary criticism,
such as that of which Diderot was the chief exponent, had upon
painting. The great idea of that critic was to reduce painting to
be the handmaid of literature. Without taking any account of
the particular exigencies and capabilities of each form of art — the
critic would take away both colour and light from painting, or,
at most, would assign to them a very inferior part : reasoning-
must take the place of imagination ; and every painter renounce
the special aptitudes given to him by nature, in order to become
the slave of a purely logical and philosophical combination.
It is the same with music. The critic, accustomed to analysis,
desires to find in it, the clear and trenchant precision of his own
analytical conceptions. He refuses to resign himself to the fact
that the reason why art is not science — is exactly because it
does not analyse, because ideas are outside its province and that
its object ever is, in a greater or less degree, the personality of
the artist himself, who thus expresses not only the impression
328 .ESTHETICS. [part ii.
of the moment, but the very compound of qualities and methods
of thought by virtue of which he is a poet, a painter or a musician,
rather than a philosopher.
The emotions of the musician penetrate to his soul through his
ears, and become outwardly manifest through different combina-
tions of sounds ; just as those of the painter reach him through
his eyes, and are interpreted by arrangements of line and colour.
To blame either the one or the other for his manner of feeling ;
or to pretend to apply to him the rules which we find useful
in analysing ideas and logical syllogisms : is about as reasonable
as if, in reading an English book, we should be shocked at the
violation of French grammatical rules.
A very simple physiological observation explains this fact. You
may submit the optic nerve to every disturbance caused by elec-
tricity, heat, sound, and the like, but you will never get it to
convey any other impression than that of colour. Irritate the
auditory nerve in any way you please, and you will obtain no
impression but that of sound. This brings us to the conclusion
that the musician has for distinctive character a particular irrit-
ability of the organs of hearing ; and as a result the acoustic
nerve partly usurps the functions of the other organs, and
becomes the principal intermediary agent between him and the
exterior world. Everything resolves itself into sound and is
expressed by notes, the measure of such predominance being an
exact indication of his musical aptitude. Precisely the same
thing takes place in the case of the painter. We have here the
cause of the very common difficulty felt by men who are not so
constituted as to form a true idea of artistic conceptions. An
analytical intellect, however developed it maybe, is not sufficient.
Goethe, in spite of all his conversations with Mendelssohn, never
could be made to understand music.
As for the musician himself — although lie is perfectly conscious
of his impressions, he is no more able than anyone else to explain
them in a precise manner. He cannot do so, because analytical
language does not suit them ; and because, in fact, their only
CHAP, vi.] MUSIC. 329
adequate expression is to be found in the very combinations of
sound of which an explanation is demanded. The only way to
explain a sonata is to play it. To attempt to do it in any other
fashion, would be not only useless, but harmful.
If then we leave the purely technical parts on one side, the
aesthetics of music may be reduced into a very small compass. It
may be summed up into the following proposition, which M. de la
Palisse has not disavowed : To compose good music, the first con-
dition is to be a born musician.
330 .ESTHETICS. [pabt n.
CHAPTER VII.
POETRY.
§ 1. What is poetry ? — Qualities ascribed to the poet.
Taken in its widest sense, the word poetry means that combi-
nation of natural aptitudes which gives birth to artistic creations.
It consists in a peculiar excitability of the senses, and in a par-
ticular turn of the imagination, predisposing it to that kind of
half conscious and half voluntary hallucination, without which
genius in art would be incomprehensible. The effect of this hal-
lucination is to add to real and elementary sensations an indefinite
train of wonderful imaginings.
It places a poet before certain aspects of life, as if he were
looking at them through a magnifying glass : with this ever-
present and grand difference, that the magnifying glass would be
external to the man, and would magnify equally everything to
which it might be applied; while poetical hallucination only trans-
forms those facts which happen to be en rapport with the peculiar
humour of the poet, and the measure of this transformation is in
accord with his varying excitability. This is the cause why, in
the comparison of one set of things with another, modifications
arise that contrast will render all the more perceptible.
The poetic faculty, as in the case of all special and sharply
defined aptitudes, springs from a certain combination of qualities
and faults. These of course vary in the different intellects offered
for our study. Every man, if he be not an idiot, is a poet,
chap, vii.] POETRY. 331
that is, to some extent, and "on his day." For poetic emotion
is but an exaltation of the intellect, more or less durable and
frequent, above its ordinary level. Every deeply moved man is a
poet so long as his emotion lasts ; so long as the images, sen-
sations, and ideas rush into his brain ; so long as he feels the
super-excitation of his sensory and intellectual life : and his poetic-
aptitude is great, in proportion as he is capable of deep, lively, and,
above all, easily aroused emotion. These things constitute inward
and, so to speak, individual poetry ; but they are not sufficient to
make a poet, in the usual acceptation of the word. It is obvious
that whilst this emotion remains buried in the recesses of the
soul, or only obtains outward expression in a half intelligible form,
it can have no influence over other men. Now, as we are obliged
to judge everything by its effect upon ourselves, that poet is no
poet in our eyes who, besides the faculty to feel emotion, does not
possess the power to communicate it to others.
But this talent is very rare, because it demands a combination
of very numerous and complex conditions.
The first is, that emotion must be strong enough in the soul of
the poet to make him feel compelled to give it outward manifesta-
tion ; it must also be definite enough to be capable of reproduction
in a recognizable form. These two conditions are very seldom
found together. The stronger the passion, the less easy is its
literary expression. It manifests itself by the language of nature ;
that is, by gesture, by the movement of the body, by the looks and
workings of the countenance, by intermittent and incoherent
speech. In its first outbreak, it is too vivacious, too tumultuous,
too lost to all external considerations, ever to stop to relate or
explain its sensations. Great though may be the faculty for a
kind of moral introspection observed in certain people, — a gift
enabling them to be more or less calm observers of their own
transports — it is certain that the poet as a rule derives his
pictures of passion from memories of the past. He reproduces
rather an echo of passion than the sensation itself. It is necessary,
then, that his memory should preserve sufficiently lively impres-
332 AESTHETICS. [part ii.
sions to enable him to reconstitute a true image of his past
emotions.
Now nothing is more difficult than to preserve the features
of dead passion ; to fix them permanently before the eyes
with precision sufficient to allow of their communication to
others. We can easily imagine a generalised portraiture of a
passion which has once been experienced ; but so soon as any
attempt is made to depict it with accuracy of detail, the whole
thing fades away. Imagination, the common possession of every
man, is not always or often strong enough to give substance to the
vague perceptions of the memory. The same kind of difficulty is
experienced when we endeavour to reproduce the details of physi-
cal form. To grasp and reproduce by an effort of the memory an
exact portrait, even of an intimate friend, requires rare aptitude.
AVhen we hear people talk of a beautiful view, or of a fine statue
— we all are certain we quite comprehend them, and that we are
able to figure completely to ourselves all the beauties of either the
one or the other. But suppose we test our powers by experiment.
Let us fix our eyes with all the concentration of which we are capable
upon the vague and indefinite image which rises in the recesses
of our brain; and, when we have thoroughly examined it on all
sides, let us attempt to reproduce it externally — either by means
of accurate verbal description, or by the pencil. Unless we are
poets or artists, we shall either fail altogether, or else produce a
simple and accurate copy of some scene which we have formerly
beheld. In the latter case memory supersedes imagination. In-
stead of the passionate, creative kind of memory which constitutes
artistic power and originality, we find a cold and barren recollec-
tion of some elementary physical impression.
Poetry, then, is possible only when emotion finds external
manifestation in terms precise enough to be generally recogniz-
able, and warm enough to be easily communicable.
If this observation be as well founded as we believe it to be, we
may from it logically conclude that poetry is purely human — that
is, purely personal and subjective. It exists entirely in the
chap, vii.] rOETRY. 333
emotion which we experience in the presence of certain spectacles
or sounds, or on the perception of certain ideas ; and it varies in
harmony with the depth of our sensibility, and with the general
character of our intellect.
The intrinsic value of a poetic work must then be measured
aesthetically by the qualities of sensibility and imagination which,
it implies, are the possession of its author ; or, to put it more
simply, by the power with which he depicts his impressions.
Facts, however, do not always seem to be in accord with this
theoretical deduction.
If a poet be endowed with a fantastic or extraordinary imagina-
tion ; if he be stirred by ideas or facts of a strangeness so novel as
to be unintelligible to his contemporaries : it is obvious that, how-
ever stupendous may be his genius, he will live unnoticed and die
in obscurity.
The only way in which he can exercise his due influence upon
his generation, is by reflecting some of the ideas, habits of thought,
sentiments and aspirations which animate it. His merit will then
lie in giving to these a superior, a more complete and more vibrant
impression ; and thus that his contemporaries may recognize in his
productions their own ideas and emotions elevated by one or many
degrees.
§ 2. Conditions of poetic impression.
We must not, however, imagine that the influence of a poet over
his audience is to be explained only by the transmission or trans-
fusion of the ideas of the one through, or into, the language of the
other. Such an explanation may have been thought sufficient in
the days when poetic frenzy was referred to the direct inspiration
of the Deity. The poet, passive himself, received his emotion
from some power above, and passed it on mechanically to his
equally passive auditors. We now know that such an idea is
utterly untrue. Both poet and auditors have to look within
themselves for their emotions. The emotion of the former is
334 .ESTHETICS. [part II.
communicated to the latter because it becomes the basis of internal
movement in the soul. Emotion alone can warm him ; if he
were quite passive he would also be impassible. It is this neces-
sity for active personal receptivity and assimilation which explains
the poetic power that such things as ruins, unfinished works,
vanishing lines, falling waters, and inaccessible summits, exercise
over us. All these things possess an element of mystery, and,
therefore, strike our imaginations on their most vulnerable side —
the imperative wish to see and to understand. Absolute blackness
is hateful to us, because it is the utter negation of light and life.
Full sunlight also, by bringing everything into evidence, acts as a
check. But twilight is poetic ; because it gives us the opportunity
to fill up and complete at will, objects which are half buried in
shade. Our soul at such a moment is able to spread its wings,
to float from object to object, divining, creating, and reconstructing
the scene according to its own poetic fancy.
Among the etchings of Piranesi, there is one which represents
part of a church interior — an immense vault supported by slender
columns stretching from top to bottom of the plate. As the
lower part of the building is not represented, the vault and
columns appear as if suspended in space. High up between two of
the shafts, and close to the springing of the roof, a light wooden
bridge, a mere plank, is thrown across, and upon this a man
stands with drooping head, gazing into the void below. The
attitude, the downward gaze upon nothing or upon some object
which we cannot follow, compels us to measure the depth of the
bottomless abyss. The Alps themselves do not give us a more
complete sensation of height.
Poetry, to have power to move us, must have something of the
kind. A poet whose meaning is obscure and hard to understand,
does not give the necessary shock to our sensibilities. On the
other hand, should he say everything, describe with complacent,
care and completeness every object, every sensation, every senti-
ment ; should he insist upon all the details, and leave us noth
to find out for ourselves, and while pretending to supply our every
>hap. vii.] POETRY. 335
want, fatigue and worry us : we throw down his book. We want
a mental stimulus, not a treatise on anatomy. If he wished to dis-
sect the soul, he should have called himself a psychologist and not
a poet. If he had done so, we, being properly forewarned, might
have followed his descriptions with interest ; we should at least
have had no right to complain of deception.
Besides — the calm and careful attention, which is necessary if we
wish to omit no detail of our emotions, is quite inconsistent with the
existence of emotion in the observer. It is a faculty of the philo-
sopher. It has often been remarked that neither poets nor artists
shine, as a rule, when they attempt to play the part of critics. I
do not know that, among the great poets, another could be men-
tioned besides Goethe, who' combines these two different and often
contrary qualities. We must remember, too, that the poetry of
Goethe is founded upon reason rather than inspiration.
From this cause also metaphors and images so often greatly aid
poetry. A direct and psychological expression of emotion always
seems to circumscribe it, by mixing with it too much of our own
distinct personalities — which, under such conditions, become ob-
stacles to our freedom of development. We are too much diverted
from the presence of the poet, and consequently from the exteriority
of the emotion, whose progress in his soul we are following. But
metaphor, by bringing us back every now and again to the ele-
mentary, we might almost say impersonal, impression (in the
sense that it belongs to us as much as to the poet) restores to
our imagination its first vigour and independence ; for it connects
this impression with the whole chain of emotions which would be
experienced in presence of the spectacle itself. Metaphor abounds
in the poetry of the ancients, forming, indeed, one of its chief
characteristics.
But we must not allow ourselves to push our theory too far.
Although metaphor is useful in poetry from its power to awaken a
series of fitting emotions, it only keeps up a proper esthetic im-
pression by an illusion founded upon a wrong estimate of its effect.
In fact, to enable us to receive that impression, a good deal more
y:JU .ESTHETICS, [r.vr.T II.
is required than the reproduction by the poet of its external form .
It is necessary that our own emotion, — fused in his though not
destroyed by it, should be accompanied by admiration of the
genius or talent of the author who has so greatly excited our
sensibility. We have, here, the reason why that too exact imita-
tion of merely elementary impressions, which would go far to make
lis forget the poet in the effort to get together our own recollec-
tions, could never constitute a work of art. It is the great error
of unflinching realism. The effect may be very powerful, if the
reality chosen for presentation be possessed of a striking character
of its own. But it is not art; and, in the great majority of cases.,
the impression that comes of it is anything but an aesthetic one.
A moment's reflection will be sufficient to convince us of this.
Everyone who has ever read the fourth book of the vEneid must
have a very tender recollection of the description of the death of
Dido. When reading of the touching end of the unhappy woman,
betrayed by her love — we feel the emotion aroused by the art of
the poet ; we experience an inward and profound pleasure, arising
from the union of our admiration of the author with a lively senti-
ment of compassion for the victim.
But it is absolutely necessary to lay aside, once for all, the
realistic notions which form the basis of so many aesthetic theories.
Let us suppose the scene in question imitated with a realism so
absolutely perfect that we believe ourselves to be in the presence
of the reality — in such" a case, should we not feel repelled rather
than gratified ? The sight of a miserable woman slaying herself
before our eyes, would overwhelm us with sorrow. Take again the
episode of Laocoon — would not the result be the same ? Whether
the scene be sad or gay, we shall always find the same distinction
between real and aesthetic emotion. It is a necessity that if the
latter is to be ,possible, the former must be made to disappear.
The auditor or spectator must never forget that, between himself
and the fact, an intermediary something is fixed, which gives the
Litter its poetic power. Yet though the poet should be careful
not to weary us with his personality and the intervention of self,
CHAr. vii.] POETRY. 337
it is not the less on that account necessary that we should preserve
a sufficiently lively recollection of him to prevent the fact (or sub-
ject of our contemplation) from absorbing the whole of our atten-
tion. The neglect of this principle explains the great inferiority
of certain works which specially direct themselves to move our
physical sensibilities. On the other hand, some of our melo-
dramas have an effect almost equal to that achieved by the brutal
spectacles of the Roman Amphitheatre, or of the Spanish bullfight.
These observations bring us back to the principle which we set
before us as our goal : that art is the result, less of communicated
emotion, than of the participation of human personality in that
emotion. A work must display some human individuality if it is
to have the power to inspire true aesthetic emotion. This is the
quality which, more or less consciously, compels us to admire ; and
it is precisely the admiration thus evoked that first makes us alive
to artistic beauty — as we have proved in the earlier chapters of
this work.
These remarks are equally applicable to every age and every
people. The soi-disant impersonal art of the ancients does not
really, any more than the art of modern times, escape this law.
The only difference is, that, in classic poetry, the personality is
collective, rather than individual. Such poetry may seem im-
personal to us ; but it does so because, instead of conveying the
peculiar characteristics of such and such a man, it is stamped
rather with the common features of the race. How could it be
otherwise at an epoch when man was surrounded by the necessities
of a collective life, and was acquainted with no occupation beyond
those required by such a mode of existence. The development < »f
individuality found itself restricted by community of interests, of
dangers, of customs, of ideas. In our civilised societies, the indi-
vidual has every chance to develop himself according to his own
nature and aptitudes. Provided that he do not violate a certain
number of laws and conventional rules, he is free to make what
use he pleases of his liberty. The ideal of modern progress is to
arrive at absolute freedom for every individual ; upon the one con-
z
33S ESTHETICS. [PART II.
dition — that every individual shall respect the equal right of his
fellow-men to such freedom. In primitive systems of civilisation —
for reasons too numerous to be stated here — the individual de-
pended upon the whole community, and reflected its characteris-
tics. Everyone had a share in the regulation of maimers and ideas,
and this power was made use of to enforce uniformity. Usage
and tradition provided rules for every occasion, which no man
could neglect with impunity. 1
In truth no one ever thought of doing so, because the spirit of
discussion had never been aroused ; the desire for intellectual
independence was still dormant. As a natural consequence, the
ideas, sentiments, passions and habits of every man were almost
identical; and, although races differed, and possessed strongly-
marked general chai-acteristics, individuals of the same community
had few traits that were not in common. The subjects of their
poetry were generally confined to a more or less considerable
number of traditional legends ; which latter formed the founda-
tion of their national literature, being created by the unconscious
collaboration of every unit of the race.
Such were the beginnings of the great national poems of India,
of Greece, of Germany, of Scandinavia. These indeed have much
internal resemblance, because all these nations came from one
common stock ; and yet great differences in detail and arrange-
ment, because each separate race, in the long series of its migra-
tions, was brought into contact with circumstances widely different,
and therefore received very dissimilar impressions.
It is this race-personality, made manifest in the works to which
we have referred, which has given us poetry.
1 Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his treatise On Liberty, insists upon this fact at
some length. He shows that, though English laws are almost invariably more
Liberal than those of France, the Englishman is in reality less free than the
Frenchman, because he is preeminently a martyr to custom and traditional
2>rejmlice.
chap, vn.] POETRY. 339
§ 3. Human sympathy — Its influence upon cesthetic judgment.
It is true, so far, at least, as we are concerned, that the poetic
value of these poems is rather to be measured by the amount of
sympathy between the sentiments which they express, and the
thoughts and ideas of our own times, than by any power of
personal manifestation which they may display. Theoretically, such
a method of estimating them would be as unfair, as if we were
to measure the intellectual power of Aristotle or Archimedes by
the effort which it would demand, in our days, for anyone to acquire
the knowledge that they possessed. But such injustice is a
necessary consequence of the fact which we have before stated :
that a work of art moves us only by the stimulus that it gives,
to our personal sensibility, which, when once it has been put
in motion, develops itself freely in the direction of its natural
preferences. Now, whatever effort we may make to keep our
judgment within the true aesthetic limits, it is almost impossible
to prevent some interference on the part of our sympathies ; for
these at once attach themselves to anything that strikes a chord
within us.
Whatever may be the purely aesthetic merits of the Edda, or
of the Niehelwigen Lied, it must always seem impossible that we
should compare them with the Iliad or the Odyssey. And why ?
Because, traversing the diversities of time, race and civilisation,
we recognise a more or less vivid reflection of ourselves in the
personages of the immortal Greek epics. In them we find a naive
and sincere expression of the moral ideas whose development con-
stitutes our social ideal. Hector, Andromache, 2 Penelope, have an
2 In the Iliad, the vanquished Trojans are clothed with a moral superiority
over the Greeks. Evidently this was no part of the intention of the authors of
the poem, whoever they may have been. How is it to be explained ''. 15y the
simple fact that the domestic virtues of the Trojans, which possess so great
a charm for us, had no counterpart among the Greeks, to whom power and
strength were above everything human or divine. All judgments are affected
by similar differences in points of view. The development of this idea may be
found in the fourth chapter of the second part of my work, La superiority it,
Vart modcrne sur Vart ancien.
z 2
540 ^ESTHETICS. [PART ir.
eternal attractiveness for us by the sympathy that exists be-
tween their morality and our own ; while the ferocious savagery of
the personages in the Edda and the Niebehmgen Lied simply repels
us. The manners of these truculent warriors have nothing in com-
mon with our ideas ; their acts and words, instead of touching our
hearts, only disconcert and surprise us. They ever remain with-
out the circle of our affections ; and this fact is enough to cause
it to be very difficult that we should do justice to the very poetic,
though real, power contained in these poems.
Such feelings do honour to our morality. They prove that we
possess more elevated and more just ideas of the social duties of
mankind, than did the heroes and authors of the great epics
of Germany and Scandinavia ; but they have nothing to do with
.Esthetics, properly speaking. Theoretically, the critic must look
to the work, and to the work only, for the motives of his apprecia-
tion. There is only one true criterion — the sum of poetic ability
which the author, by the production of the work, proves that he
possesses. Nothing else has any real, scientific value. So soon as
we attempt to substitute, in our judgment of art works, the deve-
lopment of our own intellects for the development manifested in
such works — we no longer have any sure and common basis for
our opinions, and we are reduced to acknowledge the truth of
the theory that, on account of the unavoidable changes in indi-
vidual taste, denies all value to criticism. The whole business will
become a matter of chance ; the decision will be left to the number
of votes on the one side or the other. What right should we then
have to abuse the taste of the public, which places the Madonnas
of Raphael and the pretty women of Guido and Albani above the
breathing and thoughtful figures of Leonardo da Vinci, of Michael
Angelo, and, with somewhat better excuse, of Rembrandt Van
Rhyn 1
Poetry, considered by itself, is, in fact, the result of personal
excitement and exaltation, when these occur in a nature gifted
with the faculty to observe, arrange, and to preserve or resus-
citate such emotion at will. The poet has no right to the
chap. vii. J POETRY 341
name if, like the generality of human beings, his emotions fail to
leave behind that enduring recollection which acts as an echo in
prolonging the sensations that animate and inspire his songs.
Whatever may be the cause and object of this personal exaltation,
it is certain that every work in which it is found — whether it
be beautiful and of moral intent, or the reverse — gives evidence
of true poetry or art, in exact proportion to the amount of the
personal element which it contains.
Here we have the principle, and it is very simple in theory. But
practically it is, as we have seen, a very different matter. We
have to do much violence to ourselves to put aside all extraneous
circumstances, and to replace the poem in the same conditions
under which it was originally produced. It is very difficult, not
to say impossible, to get away from our accustomed habits of
thought and our individual preferences. Sympathy works in us
without our knowledge ; and inclines us, in spite of ourselves,
towards the sentiments which have most in common with our
own ; or, at least, towards those which we have come, as a matter of
habit, to look upon as the most generous and elevated. It is for
similar reasons that we can never get the public to become recon-
ciled to see either in poems, novels, or plays, crime triumphant,
and virtue oppressed. They demand that art should compensate
the stern realities which are unhappily their too frequent ex-
perience. Their sympathy with what is good, imperiously demands
satisfaction ; and the poet who should refuse them such gratifi-
cation, would surely incur their displeasure.
It is a point in which it is almost hopeless to expect that theory
should ever triumph over practice. All that we can reasonably
ask from the critic, is that he shall conscientiously do his best to
eliminate all foreign elements from his aesthetic judgments. And
it is because we fully admit the great difficulty of the effort, that
we insist so strongly on the faithful attempt of it.
But we must not conclude that, because ^Esthetics and morality
arc two essentially different things, they cannot, therefore, be
brought into harmony with each other. I think it is a great
342 ^ESTHETICS. [past 11.
mistake to make either physical or moral beauty the foundation
of Esthetics. T am convinced that art could dispense with them
both and yet not cease to be art. Such a belief may be well founded
without implying that an artist who prefers virtue to vice, even
in fiction, is dishonest. A painter or poet who makes use of his
powers to inculcate generous ideas, does not become any less an
artist by so doing, although it is not by the possession of such
feelings that he deserves the latter name. Love for and compre-
hension of what is good, imply the possession of an exalted con-
ception of the conditions of individual and social life ; but this,
which is as necessary for artists as for any other men, has no direct
connection with artistic qualities, properly speaking. 1 Much better
would it be for all parties to possess both advantages : much better
for the public, who would find, in the works, the gratification of
their own love for moral beauty ; and much better for the artist,
who, in such love, would have a guarantee of his own success. But
true art-criticism in forming its judgments, must banish all such
considerations.
§ 4. The language of 'poetry. — Poetry considered separately from
versification. — The true province of poetry.
In all languages poetry enjoys the privilege of a particular
language of its own, which is so composed as to give a certain
musical effect to the general expression, and greater relief and
accentuation to individual passages. The form of this language
and the rules which govern its employment, are very diverse ; but
we may perceive in it a universal characteristic closely con-
1 We must make one observation upon this point, however, and that is —
it is very much, easier to paint vice than virtue. Balzac, who lias painted
villains with so great success, almost always grievously failed when he attempted
to describe honest men. While his villains, both high and low, are truthful and
lifelike, his virtuous characters are generally dull, insipid, and ill-conceived.
They are nothing but puppets, badly contrived and put together, having neither
real life nor moral sensibility. Men of true genius, poets of the highest rank, such
as Shakespeare and Moliere, painted men of lofty nature ecpially as well as they
painted criminals. This is one of the distinctive proofs of their greatness.
chap, vii.] POETRY. 343
nected with the nature of the moral conditions that imply the
existence of poetry. Among all peoples, the practice of poetry
sanctions a certain amount of licence in language : changes, in-
versions, abbreviations and figures that would never be allowed in
prose, and which are only to be explained and understood as the
expressions of a peculiar mental condition. Just as music may be
defined as the natural language of sound carried to a maximum of
intensity, so the language of poetry is nothing but conventional
language exalted by the exaggeration of every expressional method
which it possesses. If we analyse this statement, we shall see
that it develops into a double series of equally important con-
siderations ; the first having reference to the poet himself, the
second to his auditors or readers.
We shall put the first of the two on one side, because it only
leads us back to what we have already said on the subject of
poetic emotion. It is clear enough that poetic emotion cannot be
transmitted to reader or auditor, unless it have a previous existence
in the heart of the poet himself. It remains to be determined in
what measure it can be communicated ; and, therefore, we must
inquire into the conditions and methods of which it can make
use. t
In speaking of painting, we had occasion to remark upon the
rapidity with which monotony of colour or form will fatigue the
eye. The observation holds good of the ear. The necessity for
variety is as vital in music, and it is obtained by successively
putting different fibres into vibration.
Like our organs of seeing and hearing, our intellectual powers
are only able to expend a very limited amount of energy at one
time. If we wish a poetic expression to have full effect, we must
begin by husbanding as much as possible the receptive faculties of
our auditor.
Every man will allow that if too great or troublesome an effort
be demanded of him to enable him to grasp the elementary
meaning of phrases, he will, at the end of it, be but little disposed
to comprehend the poetic signification. What is language, in fact,
344 ^ESTHETICS. [part II.
but a combination of symbols for the transmission of thought ?
Now in everything of the nature of a combination, one of the first
things to be done is to eliminate and reject whatever may be found
harmful or useless to the desired end. If a piece of machinery
have bearings which do not run easily, or an exaggerated number
of frictional points, the work done by it will be diminished in
exact proportion to such friction ; that is, to the amount of force
required to overcome it. The same law applies to intellectual
labour. If we be called upon to expend three-quarters of our
mental energy in disentangling and interpreting the symbols, it is
obvious that we shall have but one quarter left for the appre-
ciation of the ideas of the poet ; in precisely the same way as we
find ourselves ill fitted to enjoy the beauties of a scene, if we be
half dead with hunger, thirst, or fatigue.
Without entering into an enumeration of all the practical rules
which bear upon this class of ideas, we may say that the essential
point is to choose words that, either by their shortness, their
volume, or their sound, seem to have most in common with
the idea to be expressed. This kind of connection explains the
happy results sometimes achieved by imitative harmony. By pro-
ducing upon our senses a sensation similar to that of the idea
itself, it gives it spontaneous birth; or, at least, relieves us of part
of the effort which otherwise we should have to put forth, and
thus leaves us more free to devote our attention to the idea itself.
It is for an analogous reason that exactly appropriate words
communicate a thought with much greater force than general
terms. We think of a thing under its particular form; and as
a consequence when spoken of under its generic name, a mental
translation which uses up part of our energy is necessary.
The arrangement of words is no less important. From the
point of view of accuracy and clearness of imagery, the French
custom of placing the determinative after the thing to be deter-
mined, is most detestable, and to poetic effect absolutely ruinous.
When we say un arhre dm&cM, we compel our auditor to go
through a double task. The word arbre naturally calls up in his
chap, vir.] POETRY. 345
mind a tree like other trees, clothed in verdant foliage ; and when
we add desseche, we force him to retrace his steps, and to obliterate
an already formed image in order to replace it with another;
unless indeed he has taken the precaution to be on his guard and
wait for further information before completing the mental picture.
The latter result, if habitual, is no more agreeable than the
former ; because it must necessarily accustom the intellect to a
certain slowness and impassibility, which will end by impairing its
susceptibility of poetic excitement. It is true that, in a certain
number of cases, custom permits us, under pretext of a figure
of speech, to replace words in their natural order. Possibly
some day we may come to recognize the necessity of establish-
ing harmony between the structural meaning and the arrange-
ment of phrases. But we must first shake ourselves free from
the strange tyranny that certain people calling themselves gram-
marians are allowed to exercise over us. These gentlemen have
persuaded us to look at language entirely by the light of external
rules, sacrificing intellectual needs to mere tradition and fantastic
routine.
Tropes and metaphors assist thought much in the same way as
imitative sounds. They place objects more vividly before us, and
in such a way that we look upon them from the right side.
The whole thing may be summed up in one principle : that
whilst our endeavour should be to suggest as many ideas as
possible to the intellect, we should, at the same time, aim to
demand from it a minimum of effort.
Other methods to diminish the strain of continuous effort are
the careful management of the intervals of repose; variety,
which brings different organs alternately into play ; careful gra-
dation, which is, however, nothing but the skilful use of variety;
and the employment of contrast or antithesis, the more striking
as the opposition is more marked. All these may be easily ex-
plained by physiological causes. A black spot upon white paper
seems blacker to us than if the paper were grey. This is anti-
thesis. If we had to carry 50 pounds weight for half-an-hour, we
346 ESTHETICS. [paut u.
should find it very heavy ; but if we had previously had to carry
100 pounds, we should think the former weight light enough.
Again, if, after climbing a steep ascent, we turn to retrace our
steps, we feel an immediate relief — the effect of variety. The
change seems to annihilate fatigue, because it brings a new set of
muscles into play. Rhythm also produces a sensation of repose,
by the measured intervals which it places between the repetition
of the same sound.
We can not enter into these considerations in detail : we must
be content to indicate their general direction. It will be seen
that the processes of poetry are essentially similar to those of
music. The former borrows from the living reality for the pur-
pose of systematising and idealising its methods of expression
and of adding to their intensity, precisely in the same way that
music builds up its melodies by the combination and arrangement
of sounds which do their work by recalling and reproducing the
very emotions that gave them birth.
These observations justify the importance which the revivers of
the romantic school attached to versification, considered as an
instrument ; for mi til their time, it was very deficient in one
indispensable quality — suppleness. In spite of the efforts of a
true poet, De Rousard, Malherbe had succeeded in impressing upon
the language of poetry much of the stiffness and monotony of his
peculiar genius. Thanks to the obstinacy of academic pedantry,
poetry found itself imprisoned as if in a strait-waistcoat. But
the oppressive weight of this tyranny led to its destruction : a
new school arose to protest against a ridiculous usurpation,
which bid fair to cause art to be looked upon as nothing but a
difficulty overcome ; and, as it had the great good fortune to
number a poetic genius among its disciples, the public declared
for it and the irreconcilable despots of classicism had, in their
turn, to submit to the law of the strongest.
But, notwithstanding the great importance of form, it would be
going too far to limit poetry to works written in verse. Poetry is
less the result of versification, than of the intervention of person-
chap, vil.] POETRY. 347
ality in a state of emotion. Moliere's L'Avare is not written in
verse ; but can we refuse to see true poetry in the accumulation
of characteristic details, in the abundant invention, in the powerful
and energetic pictures which could only spring from an imagina-
tion stimulated by meditation, warmed by long and active internal
labour, and by the ever increasing interest which he must have
felt in his own creation 1 ? 1 Who would dare to say that, in order
to deserve the name of poetry, the story of Don Juan had to wait
for the day when Corneille made it the subject of his verse !
No. Versification does not constitute poetry ; and it would not
be difficult to name many poems in prose which it would be im-
possible to improve in verse. Suppose Paul et Virginie, La Mare
an Viable, or L'Oiseau had been written in verse : is it a possibility
that the change could have improved them 1
On the other hand, there are works which it is difficult to
imagine in any other form than verse : such are the poems of
Victor Hugo, for instance. This feeling is partly caused, no
doubt, by the fact that so many of his works are odes, and lyric
poems in prose are outside our powers of conception. And inde-
pendently of this, the matter and form of his works are so intimately
connected, that it seems impossible to separate them.
Eloquence from more than one point of view enters into any de-
1 It would be a strange mistake to suppose that because the imagination of the
poet is personal, it is therefore egotistic ; or even that it is connected, even
indirectly, with his own person. We do not use the word personal in any such
sense. The emotion of Moliere which led to the creation of L'Avare, Don
Juan, Le Misanthrope, and Tartuffe, was personal, because even though these
characters were suggested to him from without, he remodelled them in his own
brain ; he re-created them by a purely personal use of his imagination, which
was stimulated by the aesthetic excitement produced in him at the sight of his own
.slowly growing creations. With such emotion, plagiarism, which is ever sterile,
has nothing in common. Plagiarism is content to calculate. The poet restores,
completes, and finishes, even when he does not invent. The fertility of genius
springs from the power which it possesses to interest itself in whatever it
takes in hand ; to ally itself to its own productions, and to derive intellectual
stimulus from them. Like a healthy stomach, it digests and stimulates every-
thing which it takes in. This is what Moliere called " prendn ton Men oil on,
1c ti'ouve."
348 2ESTHETICS. [past ii.
finition of poetry. Doubtless the art of oratory rests mainly upon
reasoning and logic ; its aim is to convince, by discussion of facts
and ideas. But when the orator — catching fire from his own con-
tention ; exalted by the energy of his convictions, and by the justice
or grandeur of the ideas in behalf of which he puts out his strength
— allows himself to be carried away by such passion as penetrates
men's souls, by the force of human sympathy which was excited
in the first instance by the power of his own logic : what difference
is there, then, between his emotion and that of the poet ?
How many passages might we not quote from Demosthenes,
from Cicero, from Bossuet, from Mirabeau, that by their power of
expression, grandeur of imagery, trenchant language, and depth of
emotion, deserve to be placed in the very front rank of poetry !
There is, however, one difference which aesthetic judgment must
take into account. Although emotion is of so huge an importance
to the poet, there is yet another faculty which he must have. If it
be a faculty with which the orator may dispense, it is one without
which no one can claim to be a poet ; for to a poet nothing can
supply its place. I mean that creative imagination which trans-
forms a dream into a reality ; that sane and fertile hallucination
of which I have already spoken.
We may say that poetry is to be found even in the exact
sciences themselves. What could be more stirring than the dis-
covery and successive mastery of the great scientific facts that
are being accumulated and marshalled under general laws, by
which their seeming disorder is reduced to the clear regularity of
the human intellect'? Astronomy, chemistry, physics, natural
history, mechanics — all these admirable instruments invented by
humanity for use in its never-ceasing strife against the brute
forces of nature, arc inexhaustible sources of poetry ; that is, of
moi*al emotion and intellectual excitement. We do not feel called
upon to enter into this question here, because, in the exact
sciences, poetry is, at most, an accidental result or accessory.
The subdivision, which in our art nomenclature we call poetry,
does not include the effects produced by accidental emotion in
chap, vii.] POETRY. 349
non-poetic works, but only those which are direct and intended.
We consider that this is the only serious criterion.
For a similar reason it seems to us impossible to refuse poetic
character to the novel ; for this entirely consists in the creation
of characters, and the portrayal of passion. It has been the
fashion for the last fifty years to abuse novels on every opportunity.
Would-be serious criticism looks down upon them as beneath its
notice ; in the eyes of Litterateurs of the academy, they are guilty of
the grave fault of degrading art, by placing heroic fictions on the
same level as descriptions of common manners and of the world
as we see it.
To this very fact does modern fiction owe its success with the
public. The public, in spite of all the critics may say, has a natural
affection for what is true ; it demands sincerity, and will never
be long satisfied with any kind of artificial literature. The drama
has supplanted the tragedy for the same reason that the epic has
had to give place to the novel. This double substitution, especially
the second, marks a real advance in the intellectual condition
of humanity. We shall presently attempt to prove that it is so.
But before considering the different kinds of poetry, we must
finish what we have to say upon the art as a whole.
The most obvious advantage possessed by poetry over the other
forms of art, is the wide extent of its domain. By means of
rhythm, versification and accent, it is able to rival music in a
certain measure ; by means of description it appeals to the eyes,
and can convey to them sensations of form and colour almost as
vivid as those of the plastic arts themselves ; and, in the expres-
sion of sentiment, it surpasses every art — music alone excepted. In-
deed over the latter it has a certain advantage in the facility to
express delicate shades, which music has not, in the same degree.
Thanks to the precision of the language which it employs, it
can penetrate into details, into refinements of psychologic analysis
quite beyond the somewhat indefinite art of the musician.
And this is not all.
Of all the arts, poetry alone has the privilege directly to inter-
350 AESTHETICS. [pakt ii.
jjret thought, and to address the intellect without any intermediary.
Didactic poetry is founded upon this fact. It is a secondary
form of the art, because it lies upon the very limit of poetry and
prose, but not the less on this account has it given to the world
some remarkable works : the Works and Days of Hesiod ; the
Creation of the World, of Lucretius ; the Georgics, of Virgil, amongst
others. Directness of expression, although less dominant, is a
chief characteristic of all other kinds of poetry, especially in satire
and the drama.
Sculpture and painting, if also able to excite ideas, cannot give
them so direct an expression. They require to make use of asso-
ciations, and as a rule have to go to work in a roundabout way.
When they do attempt to act immediately upon the intellect,
they run much danger of outstepping their proper limits.
Michael Angelo and Nicholas Poussin succeeded in giving a philo-
sophical expression to many of their works, because they had
certain individual preoccupations which gradually permeating
their imaginations, tinted them with their colours. These pre-
occupations form an integral part of their artistic personality, and,
so to speak, overflow into their works. But this saturation with
one idea, this intimate amalgam of the thought and sensation, is
extremely rare ; it is, in fact, as we have said, one of the most
important of the constituents of genius. Outside these ex-
ceptional cases, any direct effort to express an idea, either by
sculpture or painting, is doomed to almost certain failure.
Complete fusion between the two elements, either does not take
place at all, or is imperfect : the result is like unsuccessful
veneering.
Poetry lends itself much more easily to a successful mingling
of ideas and sensations. It passes from one to the other without
effort, and often obtains admirable effects from the union. When,
in addition to the special faculties of the artist, the poet displays
loftiness and generosity of thought — he appears doubly great to
us, and his works possess twice their natural power.
To give an example : it is difficult to imagine any poetry with a
chap, vii.] rOETRY. 351
more human and sincere charm than that of Alfred de Musset.
No one can compare with him from this point of view. But if
we compare his compositions with those of Victor Hugo, we feel
at once that they lack something ; and that that something, is
elevation of intellect. The grandeur of thought in Victor Hugo's
poetry gives it an immense superiority. De Musset may give
more pleasure to those who seek in verse for that peculiar de-
lectation which the dilettanti choose to consider the chief aim of
all the arts. But no one can read Victor Hugo without adding,
to their admiration of the work before them, a deep and inward
joy at the discovery, in the poet himself, of a thinker devoted
to all the problems which interest humanity. Ideas as well
as sensations have their poetry, and there is no reason why art
should neglect so admirable a source of emotion.
§ 5. Character of modern poetry.
What we have just mentioned is one of the salient characteris-
tics of modern poetry; and it is probable that it will become more
marked with the further development of that scientific movement
which constitutes the originality of the nineteenth century. In
spite of anything which the exclusive admirers of the classic ages
may say — the gradual unfolding of the wonderful working of
nature, a sure corollary of the researches of contemporary science,
cannot well be less capable of warming and exalting the imagi-
nation of poets than the childish notions of primitive ages. For
in truth the raison d'etre of primitive mythology was nothing
but an attempted explanation of natural phenomena by existing
human laws ; everything was reduced to a physical and intellectual
anthropomorphism.
Must we see in this faculty for giving ideas a concrete appear-
ance, some peculiar gifts of the races of antiquity; some inventive
faculty which we have lost— a loss that condemns us to poetic
inferiority 1 People are never tired of saying that it is so. The
rich and graceful imaginations of primitive writers are lauded by
352 .ESTHETICS. [part ir.
every tongue ; and we have even seen a stray spirit here and there
attempt to revive, in this nineteenth century, the polytheism of
ancient heathendom. All such ideas repose upon very easily ex-
plained mistakes, and are the immediate result of a psychological
ignorance which is only too common.
It is true enough that the men of primitive times were full of
imagination, if we accept that word in its etymological significa-
tion — which is the faculty to see, on all hands, nothing but
external images in place of internal ideas, and of conceiving
everything, tangible or intangible, in the disguise of figures
borrowed from visible reality. They possessed this faculty in a
supreme degree : it was imposed upon them ; they could not
shake themselves free from it ; it is the characteristic that most
strongly marks their intellectual inferiority. As for true imagi-
native power, which consists in facility of invention, of trans-
forming things voluntarily, and with full comprehension of what
is being done — they were simply without a particle of it. They
invented nothing ; they simply spoke of what they believed they
saw : and the fact that their ideas are nothing but descriptions,
is to be explained by the psychologic inexperience which com-
pelled them to an endless objectivity. The instinct of progress,
however, never ceased to act upon their imperfect intellects ; it
continually urged them on to seai'ch for explanations of such im-
pressions as they could not understand. Like ourselves, they
strove to get to the bottom of all their sensations ; their guesses
were absurd because they were so completely ignorant. We have
chosen to look upon them as fictions, as poetic flights of the
imagination. Their natural philosophy was comprised in the
belief that each of their impressions was the result of the direct
intervention of some living external being. Their emotions,
thoughts, sensations, dreams, all seemed to them to be caused
by divine interference, exactly in the same way as the phenomena
of the outside world. The sun is a chariot driven by a god; light
itself is another divinity. Storms arc the conflicts of Ahis and the
Titans against Indra and Jupiter. The whole universe is a great
chap, vii.] POETRY. 353
clock, in which the wheels are turned by a crowd of mysterious
beings with human forms.
That all this is poetical and ingenious, I admit ; but it does not
go to prove that science is fatal to poetry. Would it not be very
curious if the progress of natural science should have the effect of
preventing us from understanding and enjoying the beauties of
nature 1 or if an acquaintance with the marvels of vegetable life
should render us insensible to the beauties of a well-wooded land-
scape 1 Have valleys and mountains lost their poetic power, be-
cause geology — by teaching us to trace the convulsions which have
agitated the crust of this world, and by placing before us the
different stages of its evolution — has extended our knowledge to
the earliest ages of the universe and made us live in the days
when men were not 1 How can we believe that a comprehension
of the law which binds the stars and our earth together, and makes
them rush in their proper order through the infinities of space,
which again are peopled with literally an innumerable multitude of
similar worlds and systems, can prevent us from being more deeply
stirred by the sight of the midnight sky, than the men who looked
up at it and thought they were gazing at a vault sprinkled with
golden nails 1 Has man become indifferent to man, since the
human race has become his chief object of research, and since he
has given so much time and effort to the penetration of mysteries
of which the ancients had no suspicion 1 Upon what, then, is that
insatiable curiosity founded, which has the most obscure psycho-
logical questions for its aim ; which has made the portrayal of
character, sentiment and passion, the chief point of interest in the
dramas and novels of our day 1 Must it be said that as we have
been taught to know men better, we have learnt to love them
less 1 What shall we say, then, about the sentiments which
are the true glories of our age, — charity, toleration, respect for
womanhood, for childhood, and for human life 1 Pity for animals,
is not that, too, a sign of the times'? How comes it that all the
sympathetic feelings — such as humanity, compassion, family affec-
tion, devotedness — rare enough among the ancients, have bee imq
A A
354 /ESTHETICS. [pabt II.
sacred duties to us, binding upon our conscience ; while the senti-
ments of self — such as hate, anger, revenge, cupidity, cunning
and falsehood — which were looked upon as the virtues of antiquity,
are viewed with universal contempt, and punished like crimes'?
How is it that men are found to devote their lives to the instruc-
tion of the ignorant, to the relief of the distressed, to the champion-
ship of those who are too poor to defend themselves ; doing all this,
too, at the expense of their own comfort, and to the damage of
their own interests 1
All this has more effect upon poetry than people think. But,
even if it were completely transformed, it would be not the less
a living fact. The series of transformations through which it has
progressed in the past, and those which are before it in the future,
prove that the sentiments with which it is imbued, become ever
more and more human and more independent of exterior or ego-
tistical considerations.
§ G. Moral and psychological development of poetry. — Novels.
The two principal forms in which poetry first clothed itself were,
in their chronological order, the hymn and the epic. The dramatic
form was the product of a later time.
The hymn, which at first was purely religious, expressed nothing
except fear or hope. It was addressed to the gods, either to in-
voke their protection or to avert the consequences of their anger.
In it man was entirely pre-occupied with self. The dangers with
which he was surrounded, forbade him to withdraw his attention
from his own concerns. This instinctive egotism forms the chief
characteristic of the Yedic hymns and of the Psalms.
It is also to be found, though in a less marked degree, in the
ancient epics. The main difference is the substitution of heroes for
divinities. The poet, instead of celebrating the exploits of Indra
or of Jehovah against the baleful genii of the night and its storms,
sings of the lusty limbed warrior returning from battle after the
.slaughter of the hostile chiefs. The strength which thinks nothing
CHAP, vii.] rOETHY. 355
of danger, is still the object of his admiration. His homage is paid
to the heroes who kill like destroying gods. He must have person-
ages from a sphere above his own. It is always more or less the
same thing ; the adoration of the strong by the weak. When such
adoration no longer receives any direct expression, it still survives
in the enthusiasm with which wholesale massacres are described ;
and, in fact, it cannot be denied that such deeds were looked upon
as the best claims which any mortal being could show to ever-
lasting glory. Everything else was a mere accessory; even with the
people who were the first to develop some rudiments of a human
sympathy.
This latter development is the point of departure for a new
state of things.
Little by little, as the progress of observation armed man against
danger and ameliorated the conditions of his existence, his primi-
tive egotism became less imperious. The level of his morality was
gradually raised with the development of his family affections and
the increased solidarity of his national life. Traces of this advance,
are to be found in some of the Vedic hymns and Hebrew psalms.
Its influence becomes very marked in certain parts of the Iliad
and Odyssey, and in many episodes of the great Hindoo poems. It
may be followed through all literatures ; though it has more or less
prolonged intermittent periods, to be explained by the variability
■ of social conditions among nations constantly subject to the
chances of war and invasion.
Its progress has become very much accelerated in modern times;
thanks in part to increased security resulting in a less rude civili-
sation, but chiefly to the greatly increased communication be-
tween different races. The gentler sympathies which, after mo-
mently appeai'ing as though on the very eve of triumph at Athens
and Rome, were brutally trampled under foot by the barbarian
inroads, have obtained a decided influence, and have given rise to
a rapid transformation in poetry and in every other kind of litera-
ture. Ilomo mm, human i nihil a me alieuum puto, is to-day 1 1 ir
universal motto. We care no longer for gods or heroes ; Ave care
A A 2
356 AESTHETICS. [past ii.
only for man. Man inspires both the songs of the poet and the
labours of the savant. Psychology invades alike literature, philo-
sophy, and science. In lyric poetry, the religious hymn has given
place to the passionate portrayal of human sentiment ; a new kind
of epic has made its appearance in the modern novel ; philosophy
has thrown aside metaphysical speculation for the practical study
of the facts of humanity : and, side by side with physics, chemistiy
and natural science, a new science has made its appearance, to which
we have given the name of anthropology. All recent discoveries
help on the same conclusion, by bringing nations into closer union :
railways and telegraphs, industry and commerce, are gradually soli-
difying all our interests : and, in spite of the dangers with which
the criminal ambitions of a few despots are threatening the world,
it is easy to see that the new-born sentiments of universal sym-
pathy, seconded as they are by an effective community of moral
and material interests, grow in Europe day by day ; and that we
may, without temerity, predict their final triumph, and this in
no distant future.
In dramatic poetry the same progress may be easily traced.
Tragedy, which with /Eschylus was almost entirely religious, be-
came gradually emancipated under the hands of Sophocles, and
with Euripides arrived at the deliberate and skilful portrayal
of human passion. This movement was continued through the
comedy of Menander and Philemon, down to the borrowed art of
Plautus and Terence.
We find it still more marked in the modern theatre. Amid
all the diversities which distinguish one nation from another, we
may easily discern one common motive — the imperious desire for
a complete knowledge of man with all his sentiments and passions.
We may say that this desire has been the peculiar feature of
European civilisation ever since the close of the fifteenth century;
that it is that of the time in which we live.
This desire is so powerful, that it seems as though it were about
to triumph over even the most firmly established conventions. One
would have thought that one of the essential obligations of art,
CHAR vn.] rOETRY. 357
was to preserve itself in a region superior to every-day reality, to
confine itself to the portrayal of general features instead of de-
scending to the infinite details of individual anatomy. But every
one is now so tired of artifice, so much in need of truth, that
these feelings bid fair to drown all others. Scott has given us
the historical novel, imbued also with a little of the epic feeling.
Balzac, in his Comedie humaine, has painted the peculiar features
of each of the many classes of society : but his aristocratic pre-
judices made him less capable than other men to seize and
understand, in all their complexity, the sentiments and passions
of the populace ; he saw nothing but the evil side of their natures.
We must add, that the dominant faculty of Balzac was imagina-
tion ; and this, although it made him a first-rate story-teller, often
made him disregard the results of direct observation.
George Sand ignores all passion but that of love. The psycho-
logical novel, in the complete sense of the word — that is, the
sincere and careful study of man in all his good and evil mani-
festations — is a thing of yesterday. Doubtless, this school must
look to Balzac as its chief, but it shows differences on more
than one side. We may even say that the two are separated by
their fundamental conceptions. Balzac, in spite of his more or
less justifiable pretensions to observation, is above all a stage
manager. His chief desire is for effect. He only makes use of
his powers of observation as a means to supply his imagination
with materials which he works up and, as often as not in order to
strengthen the final result, transforms.
A new school has now sprung into existence which has already
produced a large number of remarkable works, with most various
titles : Mme. Bovary, Manette Salomon, Germinie Lacerteux, Rene
Mauperin, Lea Rougon-Macquart, I'Assommoir, Fromont jeune et
Risler aine, le Nabab, and others. The principal members arc
MM. Flaubert, De Goncourt, Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Hector Malot.
This school, which unquestionably takes its origin from Balzac,
founds all its art on supreme accuracy of observation. Such
naturalism implies a condition of mind always open to impressions
358 /ESTHETICS. [PART H.
of a realistic nature ; and which follows them through every change
of form or of surrounding. Man, the real man, is the object of its
study. Not that ideal of which it knows nothing, but man as he is
moulded by society, with all his individual manifestations, be they
good or evil. We may even say that such a bent of intellect seeks,
in poetry, for a realism similar to that of Courbet in painting ; but
with the one capital difference, that it does not separate it from life.
While Courbet, setting himself up as the apostle of a true idea of
which he only understood the half, attempted to reduce the artist to
the condition of a mere instrument of precision, and painting to
an ensemble of lines and colours absolutely governed by physical
reality — the realistic writers import living man into their books,
with all his virtues and vices, his habits and fashions. They were
not satisfied to tell its how he acted, how he thought, and how
he spoke ; but they made him do all three under the very eyes of
the reader. Strange ! that this mad realism, which hesitates at
nothing, is to be found here and there cropping out in the works
of men who were more than a little tempted to range themselves
on the side of its enemies. As Michelet said of history, they wished
to make art a resurrection, and their method of painting resembles
that of Theodore Rousseau: "Painting," said the latter, "does not
lay the picture upon the canvas, it raises in succession the veils
with which it is hidden." So naturalism applies itself to the re-
suscitation of the people which have come under its observation.
It calls them up and makes us acquainted with them, not by a
description, but by the introduction of them bodily. We enter
into relation with them directly, not through the intermediary
of description ; and thus our appreciation of them becomes inti-
mate in the highest degi'cc. In old days, a thousand ceremonies,
oxplanations and introductions, were required. They are all sup-
pressed now : the reader is at once brought tete-a-tete with the cha-
racters, who continue to go about their usual employments, without
troubling themselves about the inspection to which they are being
subjected ; and above all, without ever striking those absurd atti-
tudes which are so frequent a cause of our disgust with the heroes
chap, vii.] POETRY. 359
of the old dramas and romances. This downright way of doing
things, shocks the delicate feelings of the admirers of academic
tradition; but what offends them still more, is the audacity of that
modern practice, which opens the pages of the novel or of the
drama as freelv to the most vulgar individuals as to the most dis-
tinguished; which does not hesitate to give an equal prominence
to the manners and ideas of a street porter as to those of a mar-
quis. All this is vehemently opposed by the successors of the
men who were so righteously indignant at the introduction of such
words as chien, bouc, and such like, into poetry. Buffon, in his
treatise upon style, insisted that it is the duty of a writer to avoid
particular terms whenever he can ; to substitute by preference
general expressions. And Delille, faithful to the precepts and
genius of his time, did not hesitate to replace the words of
ordinary language by so-called definitions in the lofty style ;
which, if they did give an opportunity for the display of all the
subtleties of his intellect and the refinements of his mode of
writing, were too often wanting in perspicuity. The good sense
of the public has estimated, at something like their real worth,
these fantastic distinctions between the language of the nobility
and that of the middle or lower classes ; but they still exist in
ultra-aristocratic and in plebeian minds. We are very willing
that the poet should paint for our benefit, the tempests of a more
or less tragic passion which are the destruction of the personages
authorised by the academy. But we are amazed, forsooth, that
he should hope to interest us in a moral analysis of the mental
conditions of the outcasts of contemporary society ; in the cor-
roding effects of constant discouragement and temptation : in
the hereditary transmission of the vices that spring from igno-
rance, disease, chronic suffering, or ceaseless strife against misery !
We do not mind well-bred vice — graceful prostitutes, skilful hypo-
crites, and fashionable sharpers. But why? Are the malefactors
of the great world more interesting than others 1 Far from it.
To anyone who will take the trouble to think for a moment, they
must be infinitely more detestable, because, on account of the
360 .ESTHETICS. [part ir.
greater means given them to resist temptation, their ignominy is
the less excusable.
This sentimental kind of prudery has nothing to do with any
moral feeling (in such a case we might have some shadow of respect
for it). It is nothing hut pure aristocratic prejudice, over which
the new school of writers will obtain as complete a triumph as did
the romantic school over classicism ; and will do so by securing
the interest of the public by the production of master works. The
victory is already more than half won ; a little more and it will
be complete. Already justice has been rendered to the sincerity
and truth of observation that distinguish many recent works.
What fault has been found with them ] The exaggeration of a
few repellent details, not, perhaps, indispensable ; and the mul-
tiplicity of features which divide and fatigue the attention whilst
destroying unity of effect. On these points the objectors arc
right. However important we may consider absolute truth, we
are not obliged to tell everything : first, because it is impos-
sible ; secondly, because in all collections of facts, there are
some more important than others — and, if we overwhelm the
former with the latter, we find ourselves compelled, by our very
scniples in favour of truth, to render that truth either totally
undiscernible, or, at least, much less conspicuous than it ought to
be. There can be no art without selection ; and upon such selec-
tion the total impression must always depend. Some of the
descriptions of M. Zola, remind us of pictures in which the
painter, from sheer ignorance of what should be left out, has-
finished by compromising the truth of everything. Everything
is there, but there is no salient point. Such a state of things
presents a great danger to art. We may say the same thing of
his characters. However intense the life breathed into them by
the author, they do not leave in the memory so powerful a re-
collection as one might, on a first reading, imagine. When wo
look back upon them afterwards, we may be able to recall details
and scenes whose impression is ineffaceable ; but the personages
themselves have already become somewhat vague and undefined.
CHAP, vii.] POETRY. 361
It is the inevitable result of the want of condensation of which we
have already spoken. 1
We may safely affirm, however, that these writers are on the
right path.
§ 7. The drama.
These observations apply with equal force to the drama. Action,
dominant so long, has given place to psychology ; or perhaps it
would be more correct to say that these two elements are gra-
dually becoming more and more intermingled. At first the plot
was everything. Personages had no importance, except through
their connection with the action, of which they were the instru-
ments or victims. They were indeed necessary to the drama. But,
in spite of this necessity, they only occupied a secondary position
in the estimation of the poet. This characteristic was universal
in epic writing, and in the drama as it was understood by
iEschylus and Sophocles.
It is this exclusive, absolute, inexorable domination of action
1 Is it really necessary to bring together so many unpleasing individuals ? I
believe this to be a land of exaggeration from which e«'en the most scrupulous
observers do not escape.
Were it not that I might seem to be attaching too much importance to the
writing of fiction, I should like to establish a comparison between the novel of
observation and the novel of ideas, to which Eugene Sue and George Sand have
respectively given so high a position. The latter school is being upheld by a writer
possessed of both knowledge and taleut, who is far from receiving his proper
deserts from the public.
The Cure da Doeteur Pontalais, and Mmc. Frainex, by M. Robert Halt, arc
both works of the highest literary and moral value. The same author has lately
published several novels in which moral observation is closely allied with various
tiieses which he sets himself to uphold. They are not mere pieces of patchwork,
as is too often the case with works written for a purpose ; for they display a
most admirable unity of conception. And to this must be added a rare generosity
of heart and intellect, a lively but well regulated imagination, great powers of
composition, life-like characterization, a remarkable psychological insight, and
the most profound love of humanity and of everything which may help on its
progress. In M. Halt's last volume, Le Ccxnr f inexorability to action, which renders the effect of his works so
striking. For want of patient analysis the critics have included it all under the
simple and convenient term — fatalism.
CHAP, vii.] ■ rOETEY. 363
gives so extraordinary an originality to his predecessor, his per-
sonages are not nearly so much absorbed in the action of his
tragedies. He goes so near to establish an equilibrium between the
two elements, that it is sometimes difficult to say which of the two
is the more important. Sometimes we even find passages, as in
Philoctetes, Ajax and Antigone, in which the portrayal of character
holds the first place. "We may be permitted to believe, that,
among the great number of this author's works which has not
come down to us, we should have found many in which psycho-
logical study would be conspicuous in the same degree. But
in (Edipus Rex, CEdipiis Coloneus, Electra and the Trachinice,
action resumes its sway : it governs the action of the characters,
and moulds them to its will.
We find, in the construction of his works, the same prin-
ciple as that which, as we have shown, governed the development
of Greek sculpture. The first idea was taken from some legend ;
and the work of the sculptor was confined to bringing out and
giving due prominence to its particular signification, by empha-
sizing those special characteristics which distinguished the person-
age who was to be represented in the national mythology.
Sophocles adhered to the same principle. He always sought
for his poetic inspiration in the sacred legends. But, instead of
allowing himself, like zEschylus, to be, from the first, entirely
absorbed in the thought of the inevitable doom and the desire to
give progressive development to all its terror — he applies himself,
like the sculptor, to perfect his personages in the moral aspects
that bind them to the action. Instead of looking upon them in
the light of victims — he regards them, if not as the agents, at least
as the instruments of the plot ; and, governed by this idea, he
unfolds their characters in harmony with it.
Still man remains subordinate to action. Therefore the general
conception of Sophocles is nearly identical with that of ^Eschylus ;
with one exception — he takes care that such subordination shall not
be carried to the point of total absorption. The psychological beni
of the poet is not strong enough to make the personality of his
361 ^ESTHETICS. [part II.
heroes prevail so far as to constitute the cause and explanation of
the plot. The result is quite the reverse ; it is the plot which
explains their characters and roles. Yet his personages do possess a
character, and this fact gives his drama something in common with
that of modern times. A lyric genius is the dominant characteristic
of ^Eschylus. His tragedies, altogether epic in their first elements,
are composed like an ode, framed, so to speak, in a unique impres-
sion which leaves no room for external pre-occupation. Their pro-
gression consists exclusively in ever increasing terror, like that
which a man chained to a post might feel at the gradual approach
of a wild beast. Sophocles is more complex. His unity is already
that of harmony. He displays a combination of different ele-
ments, and his progression is no longer rigidly direct. The
strictly lyric form of drama disappears. Through this diversity of
methods and elements, he is the first to step on to the path of
modern drama.
But with Euripides a new conception appeared on the scene.
Legend, until then all powerful, fell into the second rank — at least
in a certain number of his tragedies. It almost came to be nothing
more than a pretext for psychological study. We instinctively
see that man, almost annihilated by /Eschylus, kept subordinate
by Sophocles, will soon take his place as the real hero of the
drama. First the victim of the plot, next its instrument, he
finally becomes its agent. He himself is the author of the course
of events which lead to his own death. He himself sets the stone
rolling ; and, unconsciously, perhaps, but directly, guides it on its
way, until, as the consequence of his own action, it finally crushes
him. Passion becomes the great motive-power, and the confines
of modern tragedy are at last reached.
Corneillc and Racine, in spite of the very considerable differences
between their respective methods and intellects, are in almost com-
plete accord in their conception of the relations between the per-
sonages and the action of their dramas. They may give more
sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other, following now
Sophocles and now Euripides ; but the tendency of man to become
CHAP. VII.] TOETRY. 3G5
ever more and more preponderant, goes on without interrup-
tion .
There are more cases than one in Racine of discord between the
historic subject from which the plot is taken, and the picture of
passion constituting its real interest.
His elementary conception is that of the tragedy of action.
When he first chooses his subject, he thoroughly intends to ex-
tract a play from it analogous to that of Sophocles, and in harmony
with the rules laid down by Aristotle. But later, when his plot
is partly developed, he allows himself to be carried away by the
bent of his own intellect and the predilections of his fellow-men ;
and thus psychology obtains the upper hand. Passion, particularly
that of love, becomes not only the active principle, but the very
centre and foundation of his tragedy. His characters are not con-
tent with helping on the action — they substitute themselves for
it, by the great importance and interest which the poet gives to
the development of the sentiments which animate them. Some-
times he forgets all else, and his dramatic framework disappears
behind his men and women.
This change in the respective roles is all the more easily felt,
because in the plays of Racine the portrayal of passion is some-
times a good deal more academic than dramatic. In them descrip-
tive development, often of a very subtle kind, occupies an amount
of space which is not excessive if the special character of the
audiences which the poet addressed, be considered. At that time
courtiers had a weakness to be thought wits ; over-refined dis-
cussions were in vogue, and women always took pleasure in
listening to discourses on the metaphysics of passion. But, in
proportion as the theatre took more account of public matters,
it had to submit to a series of transformations imposed upon it
by the necessity to conform to the general taste. Action gradually
reconquered much of the importance of which it had been deprived,
and ended by ousting, to a certain extent, the development of
•character and passion. Theatrical effects, the mise en scene, and
sensational incidents absorbed the attention of authors ; and the
36(5 .ESTHETICS. [part ii.
time came when plays appealed to the nerves and eyes of the
public rather than to its intelligence. While some expected nothing
from the theatre but gratification for their violent and even brutal
emotions ; others, asking from it nothing but amusement, paved
the way for the more or less trifling and licentious scenes of the
minor opera.
It is obvious that the theatre is, at present, in a transition state.
After having held rank at various epochs of history as one of the
principal forms of art. it must now be looked upon as an industry.
May we look upon this decadence as apparent rather than real —
to be explained less by a fall in intellectual culture, than by the
temporary necessity to adapt dramatic effort to the general level
of intelligence of the crowds which modern facilities for locomotion
bring to every great town 1 Must we suppose that Paris — at one
time only visited by a superior class of travellers — has been, for
some forty years past, invaded by ever increasing multitudes of
people more or less incomplete in their civilisation ; who visit it
mainly for the sake of dissipation ; and who, by right of their
numbers, impose their taste upon us and shall continue to do so
until the day when they themselves become educated to better
things 1
Perhaps it may be so. But, in any case, we must acknowledge
that the theatre is not just now in a state of progress. It is very
difficult to say what the future may have in store for it. We shall
not attempt to guess. We shall be content to point out the
general direction which most of those who deserve to be called
dramatic authors appear to be taking.
The present tendency seems to be to identify action with the
development of character, by reducing the former until it is merely
the consequence of the latter. All difference between action and
persons is thus made to disappear. Active personalities, that is
to say, characters and their passions in the conflict of their mutual
interests, are the sole constituents of the drama.
We do not mean to say that this system is a new one. It is
that of Shakspeare and of Moliere. Even Euripides, as we have
CHAP, vii.] rOETRY. 3C7
explained above, made use of it in some of his tragedies! But he
did not carry out his reform to its utmost power — indeed, he did
not comprehend its capabilities. He never completely aban-
doned the framework of Sophocles, continuing to take his plots
from the heroic and mythological traditions ; but his mode of
conception was different, and his system encountered all kinds of
difficulties, from which resulted not a few incoherences.
Now-a-days the dramatic poet deals as he pleases with his sub-
ject. He is no longer obliged to draw all his plots from a common
source, as were the Greek poets and even those of the seventeenth
century, upon whom tradition imposed the narrow limits of ancient
history and mythology. It will be remembered that Racine con-
sidered himself obliged to offer a formal justification for the act
of borrowing a plot from modern Turkish history, and to submit
that possibly distance of scene might be held to excuse proximitv
of time.
This necessity to make use of subjects consecrated by mythology
or history, and consequently more or less generally known, greatly
hampered the freedom of the poet ; for under it, he could not
introduce the changes that he might think desirable. It is one of
the reasons explaining the long subordination of the characters to
the dramatic action. They were, in fact, nothing but mechanical
puppets. People Avere convinced that the public would take no
interest in anything that did not come either from ancient Greece
or from Rome. Thus the poet's sole duty was to adapt characters
to the rules marked out for them in advance, and to fashion them
with an eye to the deeds imposed upon them by an unswerving fate.
Comedy was free from this servitude. The poet, free to choose
his characters as he pleased, profited by the privilege to give rein
to his imagination; and, when psychological interests began to
overwhelm all others, he was able, without hindrance, to make
such combinations as he deemed most in accord with the new
aspect of things. Thus it was that the comedy of character was
added to that of action, and soon came to be considered the
superior from an artistic point of view.
368 .ESTHETICS. [part ir.
But even when, thanks to the deadly warfare waged against it
by the romantic school, the fetish worship of the antique ceased
to be paramount, absolute freedom was not achieved all at once.
The field for tragic subjects was at first extended so as to embrace
the middle ages ; but to this time it was hardly allowable to
make use of anything or everything for the purposes of plot or
character in the serious drama, although such freedom had long-
been enjoyed by comedy. There were still limits which could not
be overstepped ; and these, indeed, it may be said still exist. No
mixture of the different kinds of dramatic work was allowed. After
the example of Shakespeare, a mixture of what was very serious
with what was absolutely grotesque was allowed, the one as a set-
off to the other ; but never any confusion between the two.
These distinctions will not last. In short, what is the real ob-
ject 1 ? It is to represent men in action, that is to say, characters
and passions. These characters and passions, by their gradual
development in life, and their friction against others which are
either different or contradictory, produce consequences of all kinds,
both grave and gay. The whole art consists — first, in the gradual
development of the personages represented, so that they shall be
placed before an audience with sufficient truth and life to gain
their interest ; and secondly, in so managing their surroundings,
that the natural logical consequences of their moral acts shall con-
stitute a plot having the power incisively to touch men's hearts,
whether in one way or the other.
Everything else is of slight importance : whether the characters
are well-known heroes, or simple bourgeois ; whether their names be
Charlemagne, or Durand — these things arc mere accessories with no
influence either upon the merit or the effect of the play. It is
absurd to found theories upon considerations of this kind. What
is wanted is that those placed upon the stage shall be, not great
men, but men; and to do it in such a way that the principal
personage is the centre of both interest and action. In comedy as
in tragedy, this is the essential point.
Another point of considerable importance in modern treatment,
chap, vii.] POETRY. 369
is the substitution of individuals for types. "With the ancients,
the constant search for types represented the subordination of the
poet to the legend. In the sixteenth century, everything of the
nature of particular portraiture was thought unworthy of the
dignity of tragedy. The generic type of passion, as conceived by
the petits-maltres of the court of Louis XIV., was imposed upon
all persons, without any reference to the circumstances. Pyrrhus
recited madrigals to the mother whilst threatening to kill the son
should she refuse his love. He talked like a wit and acted like a
savage. Such contradictions shocked nobody. The refinement of
passion and etiquette mlphigenie en Aulide went naturally enough
with human sacrifices !
In these days, character and passion are both individual — at
least to a considerable extent, for it is a condition that they
remain in accord with epochs and civilisations. It would evi-
dently be absurd to push particularity to the point of eccentricity.
We do not go to the theatre to wonder at phenomena. What we
do look for is a certain amount of variety, which in fact is human
nature, and which adds an attraction to emotion without in any
way disconcerting it. "We have made the same remark when
speaking of the novel ; indeed the novel has a great many points in
common with the drama, but these do not require to be specified.
§ 8. Lyric and satirical poetry — The superiority of poetry over the
other arts is to be explained by its mode of expression — Poetry
and science.
Lyric poetry — which may be called exclusively religious in its
principles, for its great object was to obtain the assistance of the
gods— has succeeded, like the epopee and the drama, in singularly
enlarging its province under the hands of Pindar, Catullus,
Horace, and the poets of England and Germany.
This kind of poetry, so long neglected in France, has recon-
quered an extraordinary amount of favour in our day. The
seventeenth century had to be content with Esther and Athalie ;
the ode upon the taking of Namur, without being thought a chef
1! B
370 ESTHETICS. [part ii.
(Vceuvre, obtained plenty of readers, like the epopee of Chapelain.
The eighteenth century had but little better fortune. It seems
to have been tacitly agreed that lyric poetry did not suit the
French genius : it would be difficult to sustain such an assertion
in these days.
This branch of poetry owes its resurrection, in France, to that
romantic revival which gave the signal for the revolt of spon-
taneity against tradition, and delivered artistic individuality from
the fetters in which it was bound by academic conventions. It
was a veritable sursum corda. Poetry, petrified by three centuries
of pedantry and plagiarism, was warmed with the breath of a new
life ; and its restored liberty gave it an amount of ardour and elan
that it had never known before. This sudden exaltation, in-
creased by incessant struggles and a long succession of victories,
becomes in its emphasis often exaggerated even to the point of
declamation. This is one of the salient characteristics of the
romantic school, when considered as a whole. We may safely
say that from 1825 to 1840 the literary and artistic classes of
France lived really in a state of constant fever, which evoked
many works of great ability, but at the same time led to the com-
mission of many absurdities. To their over-excited brains, things
appeared in fantastic proportions. But still the period is one of
the most curious and interesting in the whole history of the arts.
Although by tempting a number of men to form false estimates
of their own powers, persuading them by force of incessant dis-
cussion that they were born artists, and spurring them into the
conflict with no better arms than a contempt for classicism and
for tradition — although by so doing it produced many works
which arc now looked upon as ridiculous ; we must yet acknow-
ledge that, at no time, have circumstances been more favourable
for the development of talent in those who really possessed its
germ. Audacity was permitted, nay, encouraged to excess.
Poets were stimulated to put forth their whole force ; and their
imaginations, intoxicated with such liberty, naturally became
filled with wonderful dreams and with language not less extra-
cnAr. vii.] POETRY. 371
ordinary. It matters little whether odes were written during
these fifteen years, or not; the essential point is, that the lasting
glory of the century was insured. When we remember the height
to which poetic imagination rose upon the breath of that exalted,
almost mad, lyricism, we see how difficult it was always to keep
splendour of conception in perfect harmony with magnificence of
outward form. It would have required men of rare genius to
create bodies capable of satisfactorily filling such vestments, or to
raise their poetry to the level of contemporary ambition. As a
consequence of this disproportion between their contents and their
forms, between the ideas and the language, most of the works of
that time have perished. Victor Hugo has almost completely
succeeded in vanquishing this difficulty, but in this he stands
alone. We may say that he is the absolute incarnation of the
spirit of that epoch ; he is the lyric genius par excellence.
There is no need to insist upon the personal and psychological
character of lyric poetry. Through it, the poet expresses his
sentiments in a form which allows us to feel no doubt upon the
point. We may say the same of satire.
Poetry is, then, the most human of all the arts ; even more so
than music. It is so from a double point of view, both from sub-
ject and object. It manifests the personality of the poet, not only
indirectly, as do all the arts — by accent, by its choice of motive's,
and by the character and depth of its emotions — but also directly,
through the voluntary and deliberate expression of sentiments and
ideas. Its object, too, is quite as closely allied to humanity, for
it is the portrayal of man with all his passions and characteristics.
This superiority, as we have seen, must be referred to the
nature of its instrument, language, at once the most direct and
the most complete of our means of expression. Another fact,
not less essential, must be mentioned here. The arts that
appeal to the sight can only make use of a single moment of
time. Simultaneity is their law ; as a consequence, they are
obliged to concentrate all their efforts upon that moment, and
so to dispose all the parts of a spectacle, as to give, to their simul-
n ii 2
372 ESTHETICS. [part n.
taneous presentation, the utmost possible effect. Thus they find
themselves deprived of the passages of preparation and transi-
tion which constitute the most powerful resources of music and
poetry. Now it is precisely when the pourtrayal and gradual
development of passion and character are in question, that these
resources find their proper field of action. It is, therefore, but
natural that psychological tendencies should become more rapidly
and more completely perfected in poetry than in the arts of
the eye. David, indeed, has succeeded, in his Death of Socrates,
in expressing by a gesture the sublime indifference of the philo-
sopher absorbed in the endeavour to make clear his idea to his
disciples ; but this is an exceptional case. We may, without
exaggeration, affirm it to be a general law, that painting, the
most expressive of the arts which appeal to the eyes, could not,
without being foolhardy, attempt to compete with poetry in the
expression of ideas and characters. Its domain, in this respect,
is bounded by the narrower limits of natural language ; that is,
of attitudes, gestures, and the play of the features. In the use of
these materials it has some advantages, and consequently may
produce certain effects which poetry itself cannot hope to excel.
But complications are forbidden to it, and, therefore, the psycho-
logical subjects that it can touch are singularly few in number.
Music, although it belongs to the same group as poetry, and is
able, like it, to make use of the progression of time, is confined
within still narrower limits than those of painting. Like poetry,
it arrives at its maximum of effects by gradation and accumula-
tion; but it is able to express only a very small number of passions
and sentiments, and these the most general. Everything which
possesses any individuality escapes it ; the world of ideas is
entirely closed to it. No art can rival it in the expression of such
sentiments as are within its grasp ; but it finds itself reduced to
utter impotence, when it attempts to move outside the circle
within which it is all powerful.
Poetry, then, is much the most complete of the arts. Inferior
to each in special methods ef expression, it is superior to all
chap, vii.] POETRY. 373
in that it can, to a certain extent, fill their place by adding to its
own resources a part, not only of each of the other arts, but also
of prose. Again, its domain is practically almost without limit,
as it embraces every emotion of the soul. Nor is this all : for,
besides manifestations of sensibility and imagination, it ineludes
those of intelligence ; and thus its province becomes evermore and
more extended with the advance of science.
We have already noticed this fact, without, however, explain-
ing it.
Science, so long as it was kept down by the prejudices of theo-
logians and metaphysicians, could hardly be a source of poetry ;
but the reason was simply that it had no real existence, and was
incapable of affording any new food for the intellect. Served
by fantastic methods which could give it no real help, it did
nothing but repeat the lessons of priests and philosophers. It
was reduced to a mere examination and classification of the prin-
ciples imposed, reaching their logical results by a simple process
of deduction, without any care to inquire into their validity as
premises ; and so it arrived at an unvarying reproduction of the
principles from which it started. It was the triumph of the
syllogistic system. Science worked round and roimd in an en-
closed circle, in which theology and metaphysics exercised absolute
authority.
When this empire received the first severe blow, when first
experience and then experiment took the place of theology and
ontology, real discoveries began. A crowd of new facts presented
themselves, and began to play havoc with official explanations.
And as these were gradually added to and classified, they ended
in forming new generalizations, irreconcilable with those gone
before. A new world gradually stood revealed, to account for
which the theories so long accepted were quite inadequate. All
earlier systems were upset, and transcendent hypotheses found
themselves cast down from their places of honour.
Thus have men been brought, little by little, to believe only
what is scientifically proved to them; that is, what they can verify
374 ESTHETICS. [part II.
for themselves by direct observation. And this new form of faith
is all the more fervent because it dates its rise from the downfall
of error. It is faith in science — a new sentiment ; but one not
the less deep and powerful because free from the intolerance of
religious faith.
We now see that the physical and natural branches of science
are gradually beginning to exercise influence over the moral group.
Through chemistry, physiology, paleontology and anthropology,
they react upon and transform philosophy, psychology, and all
the studies related thereto. We may safely predict that, in a
future approaching more or less rapidly, the habits and pro-
cesses of human thought will undergo a change analogous to that
through which science has passed. The aims of individual activity
will be transformed ; general civilisation will be drawn into the
movement through the pi'ogressive substitution of the universal
principles of science for the hateful particularism of national or
religious selfishness. People will come to understand that the
well-being of the individual, far from being a necessary cause of
harm to the many, on the contrary directly operates to amelio-
rate the lot of all. And, when once this conviction has entered
every brain, principles of justice and sympathy will become general
amongst all civilised races of mankind : there will be a community
of aim and effort, instead of the hostility that causes an appa-
rent contrariety of interests.
Ami then a new poetry, the daughter of science, will arise.
CONCLUSION. 375
CONCLUSION.
There is, in ^Esthetics, one thing to be guarded against ; and
that is, any confusion of the conditions and characteristics of the
critical intellect, with those of real artistic genius. Such con-
fusion is the source of a great many errors to which we are not
sufficiently alive. The faculties required by the critic have abso-
lutely nothing in common with those which give to artists their
creative power. The work of the former is only rendered possible
by his habit of analysis and the predominance of his reasoning
powers ; while, to be fertile, the artistic temperament must be
essentially synthetic. We see that, while between the critic and
the artist there is one point — love of art — in common, this does
not prevent the two from being placed, so far as the essential
qualities are concerned, almost at the opposite poles of humanity.
Their intellectual constitutions are different. That which consti-
tutes the superiority of the one in the special order of concep-
tions that belongs to him, corresponds to the most frequent
defect in the other. Calculation and reason, excellent things in
their proper places, only play a subordinate part in the work of
inspiration. Artistic genius consists essentially in a faculty to
see things in their ensemble ; to gather into one harmonious
vision the principal features that combine to produce a certain
effect. The true artist does not compose his work by the juxta-
position of parts separately and painfully sought after. The
peculiar character of his imagination enables him to call up com-
plete and spontaneous images from the depths of his brain ; and
from these he selects that which gives most complete expression
376 .ESTHETICS.
to the ruling idea. The action of his brain is like that of the
judge in a competition, who gives the prize to the work which to
him seems the best. 1
Nothing can be less like the exercise of this judgment, than the
laborious and patient meditation of the philosopher or man of
science who proceeds from point to point, from one discovery to
another, towards some usually unforeseen conclusion. The facul-
ties made use of by the one and the other, are very dissimilar; and
it is in consequence of the omission to take account of this fact,
that philosophers, who write upon ^Esthetics, make mistakes so
strange as to the very nature of the intellectual operations which
they pretend to regulate.
It was precisely this impersonality in the intellectual labour of
artists, which gave rise to the belief, so general in classic times,
in the direct intervention of deities specially commissioned to
preside over the inception and production of works of art. It
was the special business of Apollo, of the Muses, of Dionysus.
These inspired all artists and poets; that is, they actually breathed
into them the ideas, and dictated the substance of their works.
That which we persist in calling inspiration is, in fact, nothing
but a moral condition : it is a cerebral excitement of a peculiar kind,
without which an artist, in the complete sense of the word, would
be impossible ; a kind of conscious hallucination, that, while it
communicates an appearance of exterior reality to the dreams of
the imagination, remains subject to certain predetermined aims
which never lose their directing power.
The effect of this hallucination is to set the brain at work — first,
to call up, from the stores of the memory, such recollections as
may be useful in the development of the desired impression ; next
by a process of quasi-spontaneous fusion, to combine these into
1 See, for example, the series of sketches in the museum of Lille, made hy
Eugene Delacroix in preparation for his picture of Medea. The picture is com-
plete in each. There is nothing to remind us of the piece work of logical and
analytic labour.
CONCLUSION. 377
one unique result that becomes both the model and the criterion
of the effect expected from the finished work.
"When we compare the works of men of spontaneous and rapid
genius, with those produced by the system of combination and
reasoning, we are chiefly struck with the difference of their struc-
ture. In the former, everything is connected with the one idea by
invisible but intimate bonds, explained by the unity of the first
impression ; in the latter, all kinds of solutions of continuity,
joinings, and discords are visible. However careful and pains-
taking the connexions may be, they are never adequate substitutes
for fusion. Whence comes the superiority of Shakespeare and
Moliere, if not from the peculiar power of intuition with which
they were endowed, and which enabled them to see each character
in its ensemble ; to conceive it, from the beginning, complete in
both essence and development ?
It may seem strange to compare the complex characters of
Shakespeare and Moliere with the simplicity of the Greek Btatues.
Nevertheless the intellectual phenomena from which they are
evolved is exactly the same : the only difference is, that the
genius of Shakespeare and Moliere possessed a comprehensive
power very superior to that of the Greek sculptors ; and was
therefore able to embrace and make use of a much larger number
of elements, without in any way compromising the unity of the
result.
But there is the same process and the same labour in each,
and that for a reason which may be very easily understood.
Notwithstanding the numerous and great differences between
works of genius, they all spring from one and the same source —
namely, from the kind of semi-conscious hallucination which has
been already named.
The difference between the points of view at which artists and
critics find themselves placed in relation to this matter, is very
considerable and of great importance. The duty of simplification,
which the critics press so strongly upon the attention of artists,
would appear to be in perfect accord with such mental labours as
378 iESTHETICS.
those of which the masterpieces of Greek sculpture are the result :
it is, however, only an appearance, or, if it be preferred, a trans-
formation of spontaneity into reasoning. Criticism, which is a
science founded upon analysis and calculation, necessarily falsifies
all artistic premises by the permanent and forcible substitution of
its own language for that of art.
The fact is — the artist simplifies his work because he is almost
invariably carried away by a unique idea or impression that takes
possession of his mind, and directs all his faculties to one result.
He epitomises form ; not in consequence of calculation and reason-
ing, but because his characteristic faculty, that which constitutes his
creative power, is his ability to throw himself, body and soul, into
every idea that passes through his brain, to put his whole force
into each individual effort. From the moment an idea seizes
him, he exists for it alone. Everything that does not relate to
it, he casts out from his brain, and consequently from his work, as
far as possible — allowing nothing to remain except what is
necessary to strengthen, explain, and confirm it by the co-opera-
tion of every part in the production of a unique impression.
Let us suppose that a sculptor wishes to symbolize strength,
personified in Greek mythology by Hercules ; or agility, of which
Mercury was the incarnation. Would he begin by taking account
of all the muscles used in prehension or in locomotion ; and then,
taking a compass, give them an unusual development, and make
this still more marked by the suppression or attenuation of the
others 1 Evidently not. The minute nature of such calculation
and the patient labour required, fit only for a Chinaman, would
be in absolute contradiction to the life and warmth and inspira-
tion that give birth to works of art.
It is true, however, that the critic is within his true province
when, in analysing a finished work of art, he remarks that such
and such muscles are somewhat energetically drawn, while others
are either omitted or barely indicated. He is right, should he
choose, to note and measure such differences : nor could any one
censure him should he fortify his final judgment by simplifying
CONCLUSION. 379
the whole work through a process either of exaggeration or attenu-
ation. But it is not the less certain, that any artist who should
take such a formula for a programme, and should believe that, in
it, was to be found the ideal of all art and the complement of
cesthetic imagination, would be labouring under a singular delusion.
A mere knowledge of how and when to exaggerate, attenuate, or
simplify is by no means sufficient. It cannot be denied that
anything, in a work of art, that does not help to concentrate the
attention and the expressive power upon the essential point, does
mischief. On the other hand, when simplification goes so far
as to suppress life, the artist is but elaborating a corpse, and
wasting both his time and his trouble.
Look at Harpagon and Tartuffe. A superficial critic, guided
by the apparently clear principle of simplification by means of
attenuation or exaggeration, might discover in them a crowd of
characteristics which do not seem to have any direct relation to
the value of the idea that they personify. The attempt has
been made by a man who had an undeniable faculty of moral
observation and, also, a certain amount of sagacity, but who was
entirely without any sense of artistic vitality, — La Bruyere. For
the complex and many-sided Tartuffe of Moliere, he would have
substituted a Tartuffe all of one piece, a Tartuffe of bronze,
constructed purposely by himself with all the help that he could
obtain from the most downright and rigid logic. The Onuphre
which such methods gave him, was not even a skeleton, but
simply a syllogism, an abstraction. This maker of maxims, who
set himself up to correct Moliere, did not comprehend that,
between his mere shadows and the personages of the poet, there
is a capital difference ; this difference being shown by the fact,
that Tartuffe and Harpagon are men as well as being, the one a
hypocrite and the other a miser. They were born alive from the
imagination of the artist, while Onuphre was nothing but the pro-
duction of logic. In them Moliere personified the ideas of a miser
and an impostor ; and he represented them as acting in the way in
which such men would act. He had observed the proceedings of such
380 ESTHETICS.
people in the ever-changing world of realities ; not in the fictitious
and petrified world of the intelligibles, the world of metaphysical
entities, inhabited by the " types " of the platonic school.
Is it not strange that these profound philosophers, who have so
often pretended to give absolute receipts for the production of
works of art, should never have been led to ask how it came about
that artists — who seldom either know or care anything about meta-
physics — are so well able to reproduce the types of ideal life, while
they themselves, who are so near to the gods, are unable to create
the most insignificant work of art 1 How can we believe that,
being so well instructed in everything necessary for the execution
of masterpieces, they are content to use their knowledge only to
judge the work of others 1 This fact alone, as it seems to us, ought
to be sufficient to convince them that before any theories and sets
of rules can be of any use, something must be added to them :
an artist must be endowed with certain natural aptitudes, and
must be gifted with an eye and an imagination essentially
different from those required by the critic and philosopher.
Were this truth once thoroughly understood, there would be an
end to the perpetually recurring confusion between the processes
of criticism and those of creation. Critics would cease to require
artists to place themselves at their point of view ; they would no
longer insist upon mixing up absolutely distinct duties, or upon
substituting reason for imagination, and cold methodical calcula-
tion for artistic hallucination. There would be an end to their
aim to confine art to a bundle of recipes and expedients ; ' of
which the least mischief is the encouragement given to hundreds
of poor fellows, born for nothing better than to weigh groceries,
to think all that is required to make them artists is to learn
1 See the Encyclopedias under the word "Art." All the definitions given
may be thus summarized : a way of doing certain things in a particular way ;
although study of methods is not enough, art is only an affair of memory and
reason. Emotion and hallucination, which are the really essential conditions, are
absolutely suppressed. The definitions given apply well enough to the art of
making boots, but not to the fine arts.
CONCLUSION. 3S1
by heart a few handbooks. The remarks that we have made
on music, may be applied to all the other arts as well. Each
of them may be looked upon as the peculiar language of a
more or less extensive category of ideas and sentiments, to
which it alone is able to give complete and adequate expression.
Attempt to translate them by any other kinds of symbols, and you
will soon discover that you have undertaken an impossible task.
This is why critics and writers upon /Esthetics generally, so often
find themselves impelled to transform the conceptions of the artist,
and to drag them by force on to ground with which they are familiar.
The explanations of artistic genius which they give, are simply the
modes of critical thought peculiar to their own intellects. For
the spontaneity of imagination and sentiment which constitutes
the true artist, which has no active cause beyond the physical
and intellectual constitution that may happen to be his — they
substitute theories which are of no manner of use except to
furnish their authors with convenient frameworks for the classifica-
tion and appreciation of works of art, by bringing them within the
range of their own comprehensions.
This error prevails everywhere in official art-teaching in France.
It is a veritable bed of Procrustes. Thanks to it, men, who are
full of devotion to art and of respect for intellectual independence,
find themselves logically compelled to crush without mercy every
sign of originality, and to overwhelm young intellects under the
weight of theories for which they were never adapted. Young
men are driven, like a herd of cattle, towards one single opening,
through which they must all pass, however great may be their
desire to turn to one side or the other. Another very grave
objection to the system is, that it does not even leave time for
young people to find out what their aptitudes may be. They find
themselves committed to a mechanical routine before they have
had any opportunity of self examination, before they have even
thought of such a thing ; and they work on with docility with-
out doubting that they are on the right road. No attempt is
made to teach them the only thing which can be taught with
382 AESTHETICS.
advantage, namely, technical skill ; but they are at once fixed, as in
a vice, in an unquestioning belief in five or six maxims of transcen-
dental criticism, from which they never afterwards escape, and
which, therefore, decide all their future destinies. To make as-
surance doubly sure, their faith is strengthened by continual com-
petitions, in which it is made clear that rebellious spirits who refuse
to keep step, can never achieve success. Magister dixit : from these
words there is no escape — unless indeed all hope be given up of
honours either from the school when young, or from the same
official juries at the salon, when of mature age.
In a pamphlet from the pen of M. Duranty, I find quoted a
saying of the painter Constable, the real inventor of the modern
landscape ; one that cannot be too much impressed upon the
imaginations of youthful artists :
" I know that the execution of my paintings is singular, but I
love that rule of Sterne's: 'Never mind the dogmas of the schools :
go straight to the heart, if you have it in you.'
" People may say what they like of my art : I say that it is my
own.
" There are two roads which lead to fame : the first is the art
of imitation ; the second is the art that comes from within —
original art. The advantages of the art of imitation are these :
it repeats the woi'ks of those masters which the public eye has
long been taught to admire, and soon attains favourable notice.
While that art which condescends to copy no one, which has an
intense desire to paint its own impressions in the presence of
nature, takes some time to become generally appreciated, for the
simple reason that most of those who look at works of art, are
unable to form a correct judgment of anything out of the beaten
track.
" Thus it is that the ignorance of the public fosters idleness in
artists, and drives them to imitation. It more than tolerates
pasticcios after the great masters ; it is afraid of everything which
seems to be a new or risky interpretation of nature — truly a
closed book to it.
CONCLUSION. 383
" ' Nothing is more sad,' says Bacon, ' than to hear cunning
people called wise : ' now mannerists are cunning painters, and
mannered works are, unhappily, very often confused with those
that are sincere
" "When I sit down, chalk or pencil in hand, before a scene of
nature, my first care is to endeavour to forget that I have ever
seen a picture."
This is the idea which we have endeavoured to uphold and
develop in this work — sincerity in art, by the spontaneous mani-
festation of the personality of the artist. This alone is able to
restore art, by the renewal of that spirit of originality which only is
able to guard it from the over-zealous admirers of Greek sculpture
and the works of the Italian Renaissance.
Nothing less than a revolution will do it. Suppose the Institute
were to give back to artists their liberty — would that be enough ?
No ; because the change would still have to be made in their
modes of thought, in their intellectual proclivities — for these deter-
mine their selection of subjects. This point has been put very
clearly by M. Thore, a critic of an unusually enlightened and
independent spirit. In a pamphlet under the title Nouvelles
Tendances de VArt, published in 1857, he traced the rapid pro-
gress of art movements from the time of Phidias to our own days ;
and proved that, at all epochs, art. has been, with but few
exceptions, dependent upon symbolism — at first Pagan, and, after-
wards, Christian. When, now and then, religious subjects did hap-
pen to be put on one side, it busied itself with kings, princes and
heroes. It ignored man. The Dutch school of the sixteenth
century alone, took any heed of his existence ; and only in the
following century, a small number of French painters did as
much — a matter the more surprising because Rabelais, Cervantes,
Shakespeare and Moliere had already created men who were neither
gods nor princes. It was but natural that poetry should have
preceded the other arts in making the change ; yet Thore expresses
very reasonable astonishment at the great lapse of time before
its creations exercised any visible influence upon the aims of
384 AESTHETICS.
the plastic arts, even in the countries where the example was
given.
To what must we refer the delay 1 The answer is, to a fanatical
regard for the past, and to academic despotism.
"Superficial intellects," says M. Thore, " which never penetrate
beyond the external aspect of things, and short-sighted ones,
which are unable to see into the future, look back upon the
perfect realisation of artistic conceptions in the past, and fix
the types both of art and beauty, some by the practice of the
Greeks, some by that of the artists of the Italian Renaissance,
some, even, by the productions of the middle ages — never suspect-
ing that analogous, or even superior perfection may be achieved,
in time to come, by pushing on to the consummation of different
ideas."
He goes on to say that " art is unceasingly and indefinably
mutable and perfeetible, like all the manifestations either of man
or of any other of the world's inhabitants. Why did not Michael
Angelo and Raphael despair when face to face with the works of
Phidias and Apelles 1 And how is it that poetry has been written
which is as fine as any thing produced by the ' inimitable '
Greeks 1
" By avoiding imitation.
" Michael Angelo and Raphael were governed by conceptions
totally distinct from those of the classic artists ; and these they
expressed by the aid of faculties which are evidently not the
exclusive privilege of a peculiar race or of a certain system of
civilization, but rather which constitute the indestructible and
distinguishing genius of humanity.
" And why should not ages to come produce artists the equals
of Raphael and Michael Angelo 1 There is nothing to hinder it,
seeing that the Italians have equalled the Greeks, and provided
that, by avoidance of imitation of the Renaissance, the way be
open to the acceptance of new ideas and the birth of a new
civilization.
" Without this nothing could be done.
CONCLUSION. 385
" The idea only is able to work true revolutions. Change of
form is a mere piece of caprice, to which any man can contribute
either with his pen or pencil. But to change the essential idea ;
this is not to be done at will. It does not depend upon one
man, nor upon several. Radically to transform an art, is as diffi-
cult as to change the internal constitution of society.
" A transmutation of art can only take place effectively in
harmony with a similar revolution in the general intelligence.
Has that revolution taken place, or will it take place 1 "
Such was the question put by Thore, twenty years ago. He
never attempted to answer it himself : can we do so now 1
Yes ; everything indicates the existence of such a movement
as that which he hinted. In fiction the change has already been
all but completed ; in the drama it soon will be. In the plastic
arts, its necessity is ever becoming more and more acknowledged.
For many years past, the desire for movement in sculpture has
been gradually superseding the old exclusive pre-occupation with
line ; the sentiment of life is gradually encroaching upon abstract
beauty of form. The sculptor is no longer content to reproduce
attitudes ; he strives to become dramatic and expressive. One
artist, possessed of a boldness almost reaching audacity, Carpeaux,
has not hesitated to devote all his powers to such an attempt, in
spite of the clamour excited by his innovations. All the worship-
pers of abstract beauty joined in denouncing him as a corrupter of
public taste ; without, however, daring to foretell the influence
that he was destined to exercise over contemporary art. We now
see that his boldness supplied a want very generally felt, because
the public hove ranged themselves upon his side. A certain
number of artists seem already to have set out, with more or less
timidity it is true, upon the road in which he has foregone. We
ourselves feel convinced that this movement will grow steadily in
importance; and that, fifty years hence, Carpeaux will be looked
upon as the creator of a new art — the art of movement and
of life.
We must, however, take care not to lay too much stress iipon
c c
386 AESTHETICS. [part II.
this novelty : it is entirely relative. The art of Carpeaux is new
merely by the severe contrast which it presents to the traditional
theories upon which official aesthetics are based. In reality, it
would not be difficult to find similar examples of bold originality
in the Italy of the Renaissance, and even in Greece itself. We
have already observed, and we repeat the observation, that Greek
art is very far from being confined to the narrow limits which
academic teaching would impose upon it. There existed at
Athens, a religious sculpture, which, simply because its function
was the representation of the gods, had no aim but to produce
that air of more or less immobile dignity, without which the
Greeks could form no conception of divinity ; whilst the decora-
tive and monumental sculpture, by its subordination to architec-
ture, was also condemned to a state of more or less complete
immobility.
In both these branches of art, beauty of attitude, line, and form,
was the one thing desired. Life and movement were forbidden by
the conditions of their production. And to these, and to nothing-
else, does the Institute look for its models, eliminating everything
that does uot seem to refer to the pre-determined ideal.
Now, by the side of this magnificent, though somewhat narrow
form of art, there existed in Greece another — living, expressive,
animated and human — the manifestations of which did not, nor
possibly could possess, either in their own days or in modern times,
equal opportunities to make themselves known. All the world
was acquainted with the great i-eligious and monumental statues,
because these came before the public with all the prestige of
i-eligious pomp or of the magnificent buildings of which they
formed a part. By the preservation of the buildings in or on
which they were placed, a sufficient number of such works have
been handed down to their modern admirers. While the products
of that branch of sculpture which, for want of a better term, I may
call secular, as they did not respond to any national sentiment,
were not only less famous with their contemporaries, but were
more difficult to recover in later times, because their distribution
CONCLUSION. 387
in private abodes left no trace of their location. Again, as this
latter art has only become recently known, it is less familiar, and,
therefore, less admired. When modern explorations first brought
it to light, the official doctrines upon aesthetics were firmly estab-
lished, and no room was left for the new-comer, either in the
systems or the admiration of the Academies. But this does not
prevent it from being worthy of great commendation on account
of the very remarkable qualities of truth, life, and movement
which it possesses.
I do not in the least wish to prove that Carpeaux drew any part
of his inspiration from the Greeks. He probably has never troubled
himself to seek for an art pedigree. If he has broken with the
dominant traditions of his own day, it is because his individual
temperament impelled him to seek for a more life-like art than
that which he had been told to admire. But still it may be useful
to reassure the timid by reminding them that expressive sculpture
is not without its exemplars in the past, and that precedents are not
all on the side of the Academy.
That which has been said of sculpture may be said of painting.
The classic theory, debarred from going back to the time of the
Greeks wdiose paintings have perished, has taken the Italian
Renaissance for its foundation, and more particularly the religious
paintings which that produced. It is, of coinse, true that among
these works, a vast number of chefs (Fceuvre are to be found, and
that the period of their birth must always possess an undeniable
glory. But in this case, as in that of the classic works of Greece,
we find ourselves in the presence of peculiar circumstances. This
art, put before painters as the one ideal, has a purely supernatural
domain. Its aim is objective, and that aim divine. It lives in a
w T orld very different from ours; in the reproduction of religious
scenes, illustrations of the Bible and the Gospels. We confess
that we could not offer better models to artists resolved to follow
this exact branch; but, as to the others, as to those who are
touched by the spirit of our own century, and wish to represent its
life — what advantage can they obtain by confining themselves to
c c 2
38S ./ESTHETICS. [pakt II.
a study so little in accord with their aims 1 Is it not an undeniable
truth that, if they must imitate some one ; if they must attach
themselves to some school of the past : the Dutch are the masters
to be studied, because their art is more than any other the art of
life and movement 1
These questions, so long neglected, are beginning to take the
important place that is their legitimate possession. They are
discussed in the ateliers. Independent intellects are gradually free-
ing themselves from the embarrassments of the great mythological,
religious or historical systems of conventional art, and are turning
to the subjects afforded by our modern life, by those internal and
external facts which are obvious to all who have eyes to see. Look
at our annual exhibitions. Everything that has the good fortune
to be rewarded by the official juries, is sure to perish and disappear.
The pictures that obtain the approval of true amateurs are always
presentments of familiar scenes ; of the labours, pleasures, customs
and daily spectacles of modern life ; portraits, landscapes — every-
thing, in fact, that academic prejudice despises. All is prepared
for an artistic Renaissance, in which man, with all his duties, his
occupations, his joys and his sorrows, will take the place that
belongs to him; in which he will be studied for his own sake, in
his condition as man and not as mere decorative material : in
which the human figure will no longer be treated as a mere collec-
tion of varied lines and surfaces, eminently adapted to give enjoy-
ment to the eye, but as an harmonious group of significant features,
all helping to forcibly express a particular physical and moral
character. We shall, then, have an art worthy of the name which
Thorc has prepared for it : L'aut pour l'homme.
It is not possible that the transformation, already complete
in the art of poetry, should not extend itself to the art of painting.
We are profoundly convinced that so soon as the latter finally
casts off the baleful protection that is deceiving, corrupting and
smothering it — it will flow with the current of contemporary
thought, and will obtain, like poetry, the life and inspiration
that it now lacks.
CONCLUSION. 389
Truth amd personality : these are the alpha and omega of art
formulas ; truth as to facts, and the personality of the artist. But,
if we look more closely, we shall see that these two terms are in
reality but one. Truth as to fact, so far as art is concerned, is above
all the truth of our own sensations, of our own sentiments. It
is truth as we see it, as it appears modified by our own tempera-
ments, preferences, and physical organs. It is, in fact, our per-
sonality itself. Reality, as given by the photographer, reality
taken from a point of view without connection with us or our im-
pressions, is the very negation of art. When this kind of truth
predominates in a work of art, we cry, " There is realism for you ! "
Now, realism partakes of the nature of art, only because the most
downright of realists must, whether he will or not, put something
of his own individuality into his work. When, on the other hand,
the dominant cpiality is what we call human or personal truth,
then we at once exclaim, " Here is an artist ! "
And the latter is the right meaning of the word. Art consists
essentially in the predominance of subjectivity over objectivity ;
it is the chief distinction between it and science. The man
intended for science, is he whose imagination has no modifying
influence over the results of his direct observation. The artist, on
the other hand, is one whose imagination, impressionability — in a
word, whose personality, is so lively and excitable, that it sponta-
neously transforms everything, dyeing them in its own colours,
and unconsciously exaggerating them in accordance with its own
preferences.
We think ourselves justified, then, in calling art the direct and
spontaneous manifestation of human personality. But we must
not omit also to remember the fact that such personality — in-
dividual and particular as it is from some points of view — is
nevertheless exposed to many successive and temporary modifica-
tions caused by the various kinds of civilisation through which it
has had to pass. We may say, in general terms, that- the object
sought has always been truth; but, as artistic truth is necessarily
objective, it has varied indefinitely in the course of centm'ies —
a90 ^estiiettcs. [part a.
for these have brought about successive transformations in human
personality. All art, worthy of the name, is human and per-
sonal in a certain measure ; though this does not prevent the
forms of art practised in Egypt, Babylon, China, India, Greece,
Rome, and Italy, from being very different the one from the
other, as a consequence of the varieties of race, climate, poli-
tical and social circumstances, distinguishing the inhabitants of
the respective countries. For similar reasons, analogous differ-
ences are to be found in a nation, and reproduce all the modifica-
tions which its ideas, sentiments and aspirations undergo — that
is to say, changes in its artistic personality.
France, which, for the last fifty years, has been intoxicated
with the fermentation of romanticism and its fantastic dreams \
which has tried to raise its imagination to the level of Shakespeare
and Turner ; which, in a word, has been attempting to create an
artistic personality apart from facts, by raising itself into a region
of poetic phantoms : is now attempting to form a kind of scientific
personality, by careful examination of the impressions which
spring from direct and careful observation of fact, by elaborate
research into detail, and attention to individual temperament. It
is still the individuality of the artist that produces art ; the
difference is, that this personality, formerly occupied in the
search after the gigantic, the superhuman, and the impossible,
now contents itself with love of truth and life, such as they
appear to the attentive observer.
Can this be called a debasement of art 1 We might as well say
that Science debased herself when she substituted why for because,
experiment for ontology, demonstration for hypothesis ; when she
added the study of the earth to that of the heavens, and the use
of the microscope to that of the telescope.
APPENDIX.
THE ^ESTHETICS OF PLATO.
It was the first intention to begin this work with a history of /Esthetics,
and in this it was proposed to set forth and discuss the principal theories
that have been put forward — those of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schelling,
Hegel, Lamennais, Jouffroy, Cousin, Pictet, Euskin, Levcque and Taine.
But the whole volume would not have sufficed for their proper considera-
tion, so the idea was given up.
We were all the more readily reconciled to its abandonment, as per-
haps, with the exception of the first, no one of these theories has
exercised any appreciable influence upon artistic production.
The system of Plato is the only one that need be carefully considered ;
and this because it is the origin, or, at least, the explanation, of most of
the prejudices constituting academic or classic doctrines.
Every year, especially while the salon is open, numerous art criti-
cisms appear, in which those who believe in orthodox teaching, resus-
citate the name of Plato, in order to attribute to him definitions and
theories that they would hardly find in any of his works. However,
this awkward fact does not trouble them. A kind of tacit convent i on
exists upon the point, against which no one protests, because no trouble
is taken to verify its existence. Most people look upon Plato as the
final authority upon any question of the beautiful in art, although that
philosopher never wrote upon the subject of /Esthetics.
It is true that he often more or less directly touched upon questions
connected with art, and that it is possible to build up, from his works,
a sufficiently intelligible system, and one that will show no very ob-
vious discords between its separate parts. But he has never given any
consecutive exposition of his ideas; and it is just because they do not
exist in any concrete form, that men have been enabled to attribute to
him so many high-sounding phrases of which he never heard, and
which are so inconsistent one with another. One volume might be
S92 -ESTHETICS.
searched to verify a quotation— but ten volumes ! that is a more serious
matter. And so it came about that men accepted, and, worse still,
repeated as authentic, formulas which at last passed into circulation
with the force almost of axioms.
When we hear anyone quote from Plato the words : " Beauty is the
splendour of truth," do we ever suspect that the philosopher never said
anything of the kind / Do we realise that the sentiment in question
cannot be brought into complete accord with Greek philosophy even
by the most far-fetched analysis 1 We might, with some difficulty,
establish a connection between such a phrase and the doctrine of Aris-
totle, which made imitation the aim and principle of art ; but not with
that of Plato, which was entirely founded upon the ideal theory.
It is true that this theory of the ideal has not received such maltreat-
ment as the definition of beauty ; and this is all the more surprising in
that Plato has repeatedly and very clearly explained his thoughts upon
the latter subject.
Every one makes use of the expression, the ideal, without any attempt
accurately to define it, as though it sufficiently explained itself. Some
direct or indirect allusion places it under the patronage of the " divine *'
Plato, and this is all. No word is more often found in the writings of
official and academic critics. We may even say that it contains and
summarizes the whole academic programme. Under the authority of
the " Platonic Ideal " they have successively anathematized all the
efforts that have been made to rescue art from routine. It would
seem, then, that such a phrase should have, for them at least, some
clear and accurate signification.
It is not so, however. The contrary is the case. When by the aid of
context and analysis, we have managed to arrive at the sense they attach
to the word, we are astonished to discover that its meaning is either quite
undetermined, or that it is incompatible with the doctrines on which
they rely for the confusion of reformers. Some, professing to follow
Plato, confound idealism with generalization ; others, thinking them-
selves to lie as faithful disciples as the former, identify it with (Jod him-
self: and this is done in the face of tin- numerous pages which Plato
has written with no other object than to explain that his conception of
the ideal had nothing in common either with generalization or with
anything divine. The multitude naturally follows in the footsteps of
the academicians, and of the shining lights of the university, and holds
forth upon the ideal with an energy worthy of a better cause.
From all this we have a current of (pinion that exercises a most
disastrous influence over art criticism and over art itself, A little
APPENDIX. 393
time may, therefore, be profitably employed in the study of the Platonic
theory; and it shall be our endeavour to explain it as clearly and as
concisely as the subject will permit.
If we wish to comprehend the doctrines which were imposed upon
Greece by the philosophic reaction inaugurated by Socrates and formu-
lated by Plato, we must first of all do our best to realise the general
point of view from which they looked on things, and to imbue our-
selves with the principles that governed their reasonings. This pre-
caution is all the more necessary because it is only rarely that these
principles are clearly enunciated by the philosophers themselves. They
may be described as latent axioms, the existence of which, whilst govern-
ing their arguments, is not always directly recognised — for occasionally
they lead to self-contradiction.
The_first _of these p jinciples is the most essential. It is, that the
human intelligence is in itself inert. It requires to be put in motion
by some external force, and its movement is confined to the passive
reproduction, in a more or less weakened condition, of the object pre-
sented to it. It is, primarily, a kind of mirror meant to give indif-
ferently accurate reflections of the forms of terrestrial appearances, or
of the more easily-grasped characteristics of impalpable or metaphysical
realities.
The passivity and inertia of the human intellect are the foundation
of the theories that are now the chief objects of official admiration. It
is on the same foundation that Socrates and Plato have constructed their
system of metaphysics.
From the very first they were confronted with one very grave diffi-
culty— the desire for the best, the wish for perfection which has now
been acknowledged as the law of history ; which was its regulating
power long before such acknowledgment was possible. To what
present realities do these ideas of happiness, of beauty, of absolute
truth, correspond I If we admit that they exist in some other world,
how can we explain their repetition in the mirror, man, in this— a world
in which they have no place 1
These questions may seem embarrassing ; but, in truth, nothing can
embarrass the metaphysician who is fairly endowed with imaginative
power, and who is able to take refuge in the infinite domain of hypo-
thesis. Three hypotheses enabled Plato to outflank all these difficulties.
First hypo thesis.— Above the actual world in which we live, another
1 world exists which is peopled by the ideal essences of things. Indi-
vidual objects, subject to the limits of time and space as we know them,
kire there replaced by their ideal or perfect types, such as they iirst
394 ESTHETICS.
emerged from the divine brain. Each of these types has been utilized in
succession as the model for the infinite multitude of objects of the same
category. There is the ideal bed, the " lit en soi," absolutely perfect,
after which individual beds are constructed by mortal joiners ! There
also is the ideal tree, whose perfection nature imitates with more or less
success in the trees that we see growing around us ! There, too, are
absolute types of happiness, truth, beauty, which man strives after in
his terrestrial life with a greater or less modicum of success.
Second hypothesis. — How is man to penetrate into this world of
intelligibles, which is impenetrable to the physical eye I This question
is answered by a second hypothesis, no less ingenious than the first.
By the side of and in addition to the senses which enable us to see
and feel material objects, we have a special faculty, that we call reason^
which acts as an intermediary between our tangible world and the
other. Eeason is the most godlike of the faculties. It is a kind of
open window through which human sight is enabled to penetrate into
the sphere of pure ideas. But not the less on that account is it a purely
passive quality. It, too, is a mirror, superior, indeed, to the other by
the nature of the images which it reflects, but able to do no more than
reflect. Man, try as he will, can only repeat a lesson which he has
learned. All the ideas that he has the power to express have their
type and model in the world of intelligibles. He is nothing but a
plagiarist. The greatest geniuses, in philosophy, in arts or in letters,
are those to whom the divine essences of things have been most com-
pletely laid open, and who have most accurately reproduced such re-
velations.
Third hypothesis. — There is but one thing now to be accounted for —
and that is, the strange attraction which all that belongs to the ideal
world exercises over man. This is a formidable difficulty, because it is
obvious that if the human intellect be purely passive, it must also be
quite indifferent to the nature of objects and the ideas which they
reflect. But every thing combines to prove that such indifference does
not exist ; that man is naturally drawn to whatever is great, generous,
or beautiful.
A third hypothesis is formed, then, to explain this moral phenomenon :
Man is a fallen god, who retains liis recollections of Heaven I
Before his descent into this vale of tears and misery — man, as Plato
tells us, contemplated the essences of things and lived among the Gods.
Before being subjected to the yoke of his senses and the dark prison of
his body, he was a pure spirit ; nothing interposed between the absolute
APPENDIX. 395
types and himself; his intelligence was not prevented from entire com-
prehension of pnre truth and supreme beauty. His happiness was
complete.
When he fell from heaven upon this earth, he brought with him
some vague souvenir of his primitive dignity, sufficient to keep alive
in his heart an inextinguishable regret for what he had lost, an incessant
desire to enjoy once more the happiness that had then been his. So,
too, the sight of the imperfect and gross objects that he perceived on
all sides, recalled, from the depths of his memory, the more or less con-
fused and obliterated images of the perfect types which he formerly
beheld around him ; and excited in him an ever more and more active
desire to build up truthful reproductions from these scanty and incom-
plete materials. This is the theory of recollection founded upon that
Indian doctrine of Metempsychosis, which is to be found, in various
forms, at the root of most religions.
We have now arrived at Plato's system of ./Esthetics.
Matter has existed from all eternity. The Deity charged himself
with its organization. Such is the principle of creation according to
Plato.
The world, in its ensemble, is as fair as any thing can be in which
matter holds so important a place. But it neither is, nor can be
perfect. Perfection implies a number of attributes that entirely
exclude any sentiment of duality. Two perfect beings cannot exist at
one and the same time, unless they be quite separate from each other.
Perfection denies all limit. The Supreme Being has, then, only com-
municated to the world a weakened shadow of his own perfection. So
it comes about that order, harmony and proportion take the place of
divine unity. In accordance with its distance from the Supreme Being,
that unity becomes sub-divided, even to infinity ; and at last harmony
and proportion give place to disorder and confusion.
Things created are subject to the triple law of time, space and move-
ment, by which they are subdued, limited and carried along. They are.
unable to resist change and destruction; and, as they are limited, cor-
ruptible and changeable, they can not be called beautiful in the full
acceptation of the word — they present, nothing capable of satisfying our
love of beauty.
They do, however, sometimes preserve traces of their origin, which
awaken in us far off and slumbering memories of our sojourn in the
world of pure essences, and once more excite in our souls the love of
eternal and divine, beauty that we once, possessed.
Art is the offspring of this love. In order to preserve from change and
396 AESTHETICS.
corruption the objects whose perishable beauty arouses our dormant
love for the unchanging beauty which it was our privilege to behold in
a previous existence — we teach ourselves to imitate them, to reproduce
them under such conditions that our pleasure may enjoy a very pro-
longed, if not perpetual, life.
Artists are tliey who have been able to preserve the most vivid recol-
lection of, and the warmest love for, eternal beauty ; who, therefore, are.
'quickest to perceive its traces in the visible objects around them ; who
are most bountifully endowed with t hat idea_of p ure beauty which
illumines for them the perishable scenes of this world of realities.
But, for the same reason, we can easily understand that the imitative
desire which expends itself upon such realities, does not bind itself down
to an exact or servile copy. The object to be imitated is lighted up and
warmed by a ray from the divine beauty whose recollection dwells so
strongly in the bosom of the artist. He has, then, two models ; or, to be
more accurate, the perishable model that he has before his eyes, gradually
fades away to give place to the more or less hazy and undefined, but
always life-like image of the ideal essence.
This image, far away as it is from typical perfection, is what Plato calls
the ideal.
This conception forms the ultimate basis of the whole Platonic theory
of ^Esthetics. We must dwell upon it with some little care ; because,
.simple and clear as it appears in the works of the Greek philosopher, it
has become curiously vague and undefined in the writings of those
modern authors who look upon themselves as his heirs and the exposi-
tors of his theories. The reason for the change is not far to seek. From
the moment when the hypotheses of reminiscence and of a previous state
of existence were put on one side, the very foundation of the doctrine of
the ideal was withdrawn, and the whole superstructure left floating
in space.
Plato begins by explaining that the ideal, as conceived by him, must
not be confounded in any way with the general idea of beauty.
The latter idea is purely abstract and arbitrary, resulting from a
conscious operation of our intelligence. Having before US the whole
array of objects that constitute creation, we arrange them into such cate-
gories as common characteristics may seem to suggest Thus we obtain
ideas, more or less general in proportion as they include a larger or
smaller number of analogies. The more diverse the objects comprised
under one idea, the fewer will be the common features possessed by
these objects. This fact is easily understood, when we remember that
a generic idea necessarily excludes all differences; and, on the other
APPENDIX. 397
Land, that the number of differences must increase in proportion to
that of the objects brought into comparison.
A general idea, so far from bringing objects together, proceeds rather
by elimination, and acquires the most complete appearance of generali-
sation when nothing remains between it and its objects but one common
point.
Consequently, the general ideal of beauty is only to be formed by
eliminating from each beautiful object such features as constitute its own
peculiar beauty, and by retaining only the qualities that are common to
all other things to which the same epithet is applicable.
The general result of this is, that the general ideal of beauty, by its
own logical constitution, cannot contain so much beauty as the par-
ticular objects placed by it in one category ; and, also, that it cannot be
regarded as representing a Sumnium to be attained.
It is difficult enough to understand how a purely abstract idea, one
necessarily and logically excluding all material reality, can become a rule
and model for artistic imitation. Art only exists on condition that it
realises its conceptions. But a general idea can only lie realised by
ceasing to become general, and putting on individuality. Between the
two conceptions there is nothing but absolute and irreconcilable con-
tradiction.
Ide al beauty is, then, a very different thing from a general ideal of
beau ty! It is not to be found in the individual ; because the latter,
subject to the triple, bondage of time, space and movement, can never
reach perfection. Absolute beauty is to be found nowdiere except in the
one perfect Being, God ; and, consequently, does not exist even in His
direct and immediate creations, which are the prototypes of visible
things.
Absolute beauty must never lie confounded with the ideal.
Things absolute, by their very infinity, avoid the grasp of human
intelligence, and can never be realised in a visible object. The direct
imitation of absolute beauty is an utter absurdity. The ideal is nothing
but the shadow of the impressions received by the intellect of 111:111
from the types of perfect beauty that he was formerly privileged to
behold; it can never be complete. However strong the recollection
may be — it can never be anything but an obscure ami incomplete image
pf ideas, that themselves were but an imperfect reproduction of divine
beauty.
It does, however, preserve certain traces of its origin. The ideal, con-
sidered in itself, is a unique thing ; because it is the essence of each
class of beings, elevated by reason till it is as perfect as possible here
398 .ESTHETICS.
Tbelow. It is immutable, not to be affected by time or change, because it is
the constant and universal type of each whole class of objects or beings.
It is immaterial, as being tlie very essence of things. It occupies the
middle place between God, who is absolute perfection, and the mate-
rial and perishable realities of which it is the type.
Another characteristic of the ideal, is that its inability to receive any
kind of substance compels it to keep its place in the sphere of pure
ideas. Substance can only be looked upon as either finite or infinite. If
the ideal were to be clothed in infinite substance, it would become con-
founded with the Deity, and lose its individual existence. On the other
hand, a finite substance would bring it down into the real world ; would
subject it to the law of time, space and movement : that is, would cause it
to lose the characteristics constituting its superiority over mere sublunary
matters, a result equivalent to its total suppression.
But as the very nature of the ideal is opposed to any possibility of
material realisation, it follows that it can no more be directly represented
by art than the absolute itself. The ideal, as understood by the artist,
is only a more or less attenuated image of the type ; and it is this
secondary image that serves as his model in the accomplishment of his
works : and this is as much as to say that the most perfect work of art is
nothing but a more or less imperfect copy of an imperfect reflection Oj
the ideal type itself. Again, the ideal types of things, which, in the
aggregate, form the ideal world, are equal in number and bear the same
relations to each other as the general ideals. Each category of real
beings and objects is represented, in the language of man, by a word, and
in his intellect, by a unique conception, such as table, lion, or tree ;
and, in the world of ideas, by an equally unique type . We have here,
then, a triple series, ori""parallel lines and governed by the same laws.
The artisFnas to study all these laws as they are in nature and to
transfer them to his works; whilst they must not, in so doing, lose
any of that ideal character, of that tine proportion and harmonious unity
that constitute the beauty of the universe.
So it comes to this — art, springing from the dim reminiscence of
typical beauty, and re-awakened by the spectacle of actual and real
beauty, sets before it, as its aim, the most complete realisation possible of
ideal beaut)' ; a realisation that can only come about through efforts
of the reason to reconstitute and re-unite the vague and confused glim-
merings left, in the memory of the artist by the splendid sights that
formed part of his former life.
Reason alone, however, would not suffice to produce such a result.
The proper lield of reason is not, art, but science ; that is pure science,
APPENDIX. 399
the science of God. The beauty that is to he sought in God, is not the
beauty with which art has to do ; for that would be absolute beauty, a
very different thing from ideal beauty.
But if reason outsteps the true aim of art in the attempt to raise itself
u] > to God, it is not to be denied that, in the course of such ascension, it
traverses the ideal world, which is placed, so to speak, half way between
heaven and earth. It is the means of revealing the ideal to us; but,
from the point of view of art, its labour would be vain, were it not that
"iir senses put us in communication with exterior objects, by the sight
of which Ave are directed towards celestial tilings, ami have our recollec-
tions of our former state of existence stirred up. The Platonic system
can do nothing without this latter hypothesis.
We see, then, that reason plays a very important part in art. Were it
not for the idea of perfection, instilled into us by reason, we should
have neither canons of judgment nor any desire to jud^e. One thing
would seem to us as good as another. Thanks to the idea of j^erfection,
a complete classification has been established. Reason is the force
impelling us to the search after that perfection which is neither in our-
selves nor in the objects that surround us ; but which allows us to
arrange all things in their order in accordance with the proximity to
the supreme model.
But perfection only exists in God ; and it is because God exists, that the
idea of perfection is to be found among the conceptions of human reason.
Consequently, although God can never be the ultimate aim of art — because
absolute and perfect beauty is far beyond the reach of the human intel-
lect — it is not the less true that — as the existence of divine beauty alone
renders possible for us the conception of that intejmfidiary form of
beauty which is called the id eal — without the idea of God no art would
be possible. In a word, it is only the conception of the infinite perfect ii m
of God that renders us capable of perceiving the finite perfection i>\'
worldly things.
This conception of the ideal excludes imagination from art, or, at
least, puts a strong curb upon its freedom. Imagination, which, like
the senses from which the elements of its creation are derived, is
essentially a capricious and ill-regulated faculty, could only result, if left
to itself, in an inferior and contemptible kind of art. Its proper func-
tion is the combination of the forms that have been preserved by the
memory. The materials that it makes use of are borrowed from visible
reality, and consequently all their characteristics are well known
and jealously guarded. They are, therefore, unworthy of art, as they
are complete strangers to the ideal.
400 AESTHETICS.
Besides, we must not forget that, although the ideal does not appear
with equal clearness to every intellect, and that, in consequence, its
manifestations may he clothed in ever varying shapes, in itself it is
always the same, and art should chiefly aim to reproduce it with all
the fidelity that the human intellect is capahle of.
We may say, then, that there is but one art, in the true sense of the
word — namely, that which offers the most complete representation pos-
sible of the unique type to which every object may be referred. As
each object obtains its true artistic realisation, that realisation is elevated
into the condition of a canon, which cannot be changed or interfered
with except at the risk of punishment.
This principle was very early applied by the priests, in the countries
subject to sacerdotal influences. The Greeks, less easily satisfied
because their conception of the ideal was somewhat above the
average, left much more liberty to their artists ; but not the less for
that was the idea of a limit, beyond which no man should go, contained
in the Platonic theory. It was a fatal day when tradition obtained the
mastery over art, and arrested its progress at the very point where the
limit of realisable perfection seemed to lie attained.
How was such perfection to be realised I The answer is, by love.
The true artist is not only the man whose intelligence is sufficiently
elevated to seek for the ideal world and to make itself familiar with
ideal beauty as made manifest by the Deity in the primitive types of
things, but he also feels a love for these types sufficiently powerful to
render his conception prolific. It is creatiy e^gepins whiuli makes the
true artist. The object of art, like that of love, is not beauty alone,
it is generation and production in beauty. Hence both one and the
other are driven each to perpetuate itself and to acquire immortality— that
is to say, to escape from that law of space, time, and movement which
is more obnoxious to artists than to other men, because all their faculties
lead them towards that ideal sphere, of which the chief characteristic
is freedom from the. conditions of this changing and perishable world.
Plato's theories, although they are more than two thousand years old,
still exercise a considerable influence over modern intellect. They are,
in [different degrees, the inspiration of all official teaching; the very
language of ait has received a vivid impression from them. There-
fore it is all the more important that we should point out their errors
and omissions.
The first thing that strikes us, is the fact that the whole of Plato's
system is founded upon an hypothesis, namely reminiswice*. The
philosopher finding it difficult to explain whence comes the force
APPENDIX. 401
that impels man to seek for the best of everything, took refuge in
the supposition that man had become acquainted with the splendours of
the ideal creation in some previous state of existence. After such a
conclusion there was nothing to stand in the way of Ms explanation,
that the sight of worldly objects awakened in his memory the more
or less faded traces of former pleasures — just as a word will often bring
to mind some forgotten dream.
The innate nature of our conception of duty, being thus explained,
every thing else came easily and naturally from this hypothesis. Let
us examine the truth of it.
The hypothesis of reminiscence brings another in its train — namely,
the existence of an ideal and invisible world, inhabited by primitive
types, the essences of things, and those pure ideas born from divine
thought which may l>e called secondary divinities themselves, among
which men lived Ijefore they were precipitated into the gross realities
of our inferior state of existence.
"We must confess that a system that starts with two propositions
such as these, has great need of further demonstration. But demon-
stration is only conspicuous by its absence. From a scientific stand-
point, we should be justified in considering it to be without
foundation from this fact alone : were it not that the unreflecting
adhesion of pretended philosophers — men who prefer imagination to
truth, and judge scientific theories by their own prejudices and fancies —
has given it an authority to which it has no internal claim. But to
return to our inquiry.
We have said that, if the Platonic theory of aesthetics begins with
a series of purely imaginary hypothese s, it finds its consummation in a
no less arbitrary supposition. The object of ait, says Plato, is the
expression of ideal beauty. But any conception of this ideal beauty
would be impossible, as also would be the elimination of the partly
obliterated traces of the ideal types of things, were not the absolute and
infinite beauty of the perfect being an ever present standard of com-
pa rison for the human intell ect — enabling it to appreciate exactly the
quality and quantity of beauty subsisting in things finite.
All this amounts to an assertion that the human intelligence is, in
itself, incapable of conceiving and creating an ideal of beauty ; and that
it must have a visible model upon which to formulate its conceptions.
Such a belief was not that of Plato alone, but of all the ancients ; and,
consequently, it forms a part of all the philosophic doctrines more
or less immediately founded upon classic theories. We cannot
say too often that official metaphysics is the development of the
D D
402 .ESTHETICS.
same belief. According to it, the intellect of man is nothing but a
mirror whose function it is to reflect the images of things as well
as it can. 1 Because all the ideas contained in our brains may be
referred to some external fact, physical or metaphysical ; and because we
can neither see with our eyes nor touch with our hands the models for
our conceptions : therefore these models only exist in the ideal world !
By a simple deduction, we can prove from the fact that we possess
an ideal of perfect beauty, that such an ideal must have actual existence.
If we do not see it in this world, it is because its place is in another.
Now, perfect beauty is only to be found in the one perfect being, who
can be no other than God. Thus, then, the idea of God becomes the
formative principle of art and remains its supreme law.
But as, from another point of view, the Platonic system inevitably
canies with it the exclusio n of matter, we are compelled to ask how
it is possible that purely ideal beauty, without lines, contours or any
material reabty, can have any connection with the plastic arts. For it
must be clearly understood that such a god as Plato's, cannot be
imagined with any form or shape whatever. He is the infinite ; im-
measurable ; no limit is possible to him.
But with logicians so cunning and powerful, words can easily be
made to serve to identify things. Beauty is the object of the arts ; and
beauty is a state of perfection worthy of the one perfect being. God
then has, or rather is, beauty itself — although it would be absurd to
attribute anything to him in the nature of form.
We may say almost the same thing of the ideal types of things
that, according to Plato, are the direct models of artistic creations.
As they are simple essences, without matter, they too must be destitute
of forin. They are pure ideas ; and how are we to imagine pure ideas
in the possession of bodily shapes '] Plato allowed himself to be carried
away by mere verbal appearances. It is certain that, in our brains
the idea of a bed can never be confounded with that of a table; and,
also, that the respective ideas are perfectly distinct from the realities to
which they refer. But how is it that we do not confound them 1 Simply
because they preserve in our memories the shapes and lines which
1 It is curious enough that modern realism, claiming to be a protest against the
spirit of official metaphysics prevailing in the esthetic teaching of the Academy,
itself reflects the essential principle of the system against which it is so bitter —
namely, the absolute unproductiveness of the human intellect. I speak, of course,
of complete and consistent realism, like that of Courbet, when it is in the humour
for reasoning and logic ; and not of the naturalism that admits the partici-
pation of human activity in the formation of the ideas that both spring from and
are expressed by the sight of external things.
APPENDIX. 403
7
t
distinguished them in their actual tangible existence. Now, these
shapes and lines are only possible through the purely physical nature
of such objects as are distinguished one from another by their tangibility
colour, and such like. The shapes and lines are, then, the results of
f experimental observation, of sensation — of such material conditions, in
fact, as can never be reconciled with platonic ideas. These ideas represent
nothing from a scientific point of view, but a conception having the
.v double disability of being at once hypothetical and self-contradictory.
In considering this point we must not allow ourselves to be mystified
by the somewhat vague and indefinite meaning that ignorance has
succeeded in attaching to the word ideal. In the system of Plato this
expression always bears the very precise signification which we have
endeavoured to restore to it ; and the conception which it symbolises i3
one of the principal points in the totality of his art theories. The
very existence of these depends upon that of the ideal world, by him
suspended half way between God and man. Take away that world and
its ideal population, and the whole structure falls to the ground.
Plato, not content with affirming its existence (to which he clung
simply because it was necessary to his system ; for he would have denied
it with equal facility and assurance if he could have discovered any
other equally convenient hypothesis) frequently returns to the peculiar
characteristics that he assumes it to possess. It is unique, he says ; it
is eternal, it is immaterial, it is immovable. But at the same time he
declares, being forced to do so by the evidence, that this unique ideal
presents itself in various forms to different intellects.
But then, we may say to him — By what right do you assert that your
conception of the ideal is the correct one 1 How can you possibly give
an accurate account of all the qualities of this invisible thing, which,
according to your own confession, bears shapes so various ? How can
it be at once so vague and so precise, so obscurS and uncertain to the
rest of the world, and so clear to you alone ? Have you received the
power and peculiar privilege to enter the abstract world of celestial
metaphysics, from which everyone else is excluded ]
I truly believe that Plato would have replied without hesitation, yes ;
because he has more than once expressed his belief in the original
diversity of intellects. In fact, he believes in predestination, in the pro-
vidential selection of intellects ; and upon such belief, he has founded
political and social opinions of extreme gravity. But it must be said,
that if he have no better argument than this to support his notion of an
ideal world and its functions, absolutely contrary theories might be
founded upon the same reasoning. All the seers, prophets and oracles
D D 2
404 ESTHETICS.
of metaphysical discussion may say as much ; and yet we are not obliged
to receive their affirmations as conclusive proofs. In reality, the doc-
trine of the ideal in the Platonic system, is nothing but a particular
appropriation of the anthropomorphic conceptions that have always
held so commanding a position in the creations of popula r__helief.
Man has the double faculty of conceiving the abstract ideas of things,
and, at the same time, of elevating those ideas to a degree of perfection
that he does not find in the things themselves. Plato, believing that
these ideas could only be the intellectual images of real things, was
forced to conclude that the real types existed in some other world, where
they would be free from the imperfections of matter and time. The
determination of the characteristics of the ideal, logically resulted from
the notion that gave it birth ; from the reasoning that attributed to
ideal conceptions a real existence under a special set of conditions. But
no kind of proof is afforded us of the existence of the hypothetical world
in which they are placed. It is true that, when once the hypothesis is
admitted, logic compels us to attribute to it certain characteristics rather
than others. It is obvious that if ideal types existed under the limita-
tions of time, space, and change imposed upon real objects, there would
have been no necessity to create a new world for their especial benefit ;
because the aim and sole utility of such a creation was to withdraw them
from the tyranny of actual conditions.
But this convenient hypothesis of the ideal, which was of so great
service to Plato, did him also an ill turn or two. It is sometimes said
that he was a theologian rather than a philosopher. His whole teaching-
is nothing but a hymn sung in honour of the perfection of_ djyine
work s.
If there is evil in the world, it is only because a perfect and omni-
potent God has been driven, by inexorable logic, to the creation of
beings inferior to himself. It would be impossible for several infinite
beings to exist at once. God exists, and, therefore, he can only produce
finite, and consequently imperfect creatures.
But this same divine perfection imposes upon the Creator the obliga-
tion to give all the perfection possible to the things created, so far as
may be compatible with himself. So, as God has placed order, harmony,
and proportion in the world, reflections of that unify which alone is
compatible with divine perfection, the world is as perfect as it can be;
and it would be an insult to the Supreme Being to suppose, for an
instant, that the universe could be better than it is.
Plato never fails to dwell upon these considerations whenever he has
the opportunity. But, by a consecpuence which escaped his notice, his
APPEXD1X. 405
theory of the ideal brings us to a logical conclusion entirely opposed to
his own. It makes the creations of m a n superior to those of Go d !
According to the philosopher himself, the general, a purely human
conception, contains more of ideal truth than the individual ; that is, than
.each of the separate objects created by the divine volition. But art
again is superior to the general idea, and contains more truth than
' nature herself.
Art, it is true, is inferior to the pure ideal, because it remains subject
to the conditions of matter ; but in spite of this limitation, it produces
works superior to those of nature— that is, superior to those created by
the Deity under precisely similar conditions. It makes better use of
its opportunities than the Supreme Being, because it manages to put
more beauty in its material creations than He succeeds in embodying in
works of the same order.
This is a very grave conclusion, and it is impossible to get away from
it. We may be justly astonished that it has not struck those metaphy-
sicians who are the chief supporters of the artistic theory of Plato — a
—-support founded, as we may well believe, upon its co nform ity_with
the fundamental characteristics of their own metaphysical creeds, rather
.' [_ than upon any truth in its application to art.
Finally — for we must not prolong this discussion by entering into too
much detail — we must affirm that the Platonic doctrine results, in art as
in all else, in the negation of movement, of expression, of passion and of
life. Plato, in what he says about the fixed and unchanging canons
that were fatally destined, by their very nature, to invade the whole realm
of art and fix it in a state of petrifaction, confesses so much himself.
Another doctrine of the same kind is to be found continually implied
in the numerous passages in which he does not shrink from declaring
his belief that the most beautiful of all figures are those of geometry.
Even if he did not confess these things, they would follow necessarily
from his theory of the ideal. W hat is the special character of the ideal ]
Exemption from all laws of time, space or movement. Immutability
"and immobility constitute the larger part of its perfection. The art
that takes the manifestation of the ideal for its aim, should do its
utmost to eliminate from its representations whatever it does not find
in its model.
The ./Esthetics of Plato were in complete accord with the moral
theories of antiquity, which had, for their principal aim, thjjjmjmression
of all passion ; that is, of the emotions that are the expression am
■""natural manifestation of vitality. The consummation of this doctrine
is found : in art, in the serene immobility of the gods of Phidias; in
s
-
406 ESTHETICS.
morals, in the ataraxy of the Stoics ; in religion, in the asceticism of an
Indian Fakir.
We may now leave the subject. An artistic theory that rests en-
tirely upon unproved hypotheses, and that logically resi;lts in the
negation of all expression, life, and progress ; that separates man from
his work, and reduces him to the condition of a mere copyist ; that, at
the same time and by a strange contradiction, would elevate the pro-
ductions of a being thus degraded over those of God himself — is refuted
by its mere recital, and so spares us the examination of the details of
less important objections.
INDEX.
Abousambul, the temple at, 217.
'•Absolute form," a mistake, 253; its
style compared with that of move-
ment, ib.
Academy (the), its opposition to art, x. ;
our aim to denounce its tyranny,
xi. ; sincerity but danger of its
action, xvii. ; difficulty of reform of
public bodies, xx. ; Planche and
Viollet-le-Duc, their protests against
academic classicism, xx. ; Monta-
lembert on its traditions, xxi. ;
its method is imitation, xxii. ;
academic tyranny (footnote), 23 ;
its extraordinary cliquism, 61 ; M.
David's reforms, ib. ; academic no-
tion of beauty, 96 ; academic pre-
ference for Raphael founded on
his faults, as also with Greek
art, 136 ct seq. ; errors of its
teaching, 141, 381 et -eq. ; Lecoq
de Boisbaudran on the Academy
and its errors, 142 ct seq., Viollet-
le-Duc on the same, 144 et seq.,
212 et seq. ; the cause of its per-
sistence in error, 145 et seq. ; the
evil not confined to it, 146 ; the
reforms necessary in its teaching
"to elicit individual power," ib.;
demands efl'acement of personality,
147; ignores personality in its pro-
cesses, 148 et seq.; misuse of the
term type, 193 ; narrow despotism
of its models, 200 ; would fetter
the artist, 200 ; M. Duranty's ex-
cellent letter on the subject, 201 ;
the plague-spot of its theories, ib. ;
errors in method in painting, 283.
Action : "life in action " the perfection
of art, 43.
Admiration of art results from the
genius not the execution of a work
(examples from Moliere, Balzac,
Michael Angelo), 102 et seq.
iEschylus compared with Euripides,
123 et seq. ; with Sophocles, 363.
iEsthetics : evil effects of metaphysical
treatment, v., insufficiency of the
term, 95 et seq. ; is " The Science
of Beauty," 109 ; vast influence of
the doctrine of Plato, 391 et seq.
iEsthetic pleasure (see also Pleasure)
demands unity in a work of art,
37; results from the number and
intensity of impressions, 45 ; is the
simultaneous gratification of feel-
ing and intellect, 48 et seq. ; the true
elements of aesthetic sensation, 52 ;
is essentially admirative, 54 ; sym-
pathetic admiration of the artist
is an essential, 65 ; causes of aes-
thetic emotion, 70 et seq. ; delicacy
of a;sthetic perception instanced by
effect of ruins, 168, 185; visual
reality preferable to actual,
256.
Alexandrine, the, 306.
Alphabet, its growth from signs, 24.
Amelioration of condition the universal
demand, 5.
Analysis and generalisation special to
man and the cause of his pro-
gress, 8.
Animals : certain animals have sense
of beauty, 6.
"Arabesque" in painting, 260.
408
INDEX.
Arabian architecture : its features,
173 ; its necessities, ib. ; the origin
of the Pointed style, 175.
Arch (the), theory of construction of
the Pointed arch, 175 ; its facilities
for height and lightness, ib. ; its
intelligent use, 180 et seq.
Architecture : derived from writing,
28 ; effect in it of the straight line
and the curve 42 ; its origin, 87,
164 ; a purely physical want, 87,
187; its growth, 87; has wider
scope than sculpture, 94 ; Ch.
Blanc on symbolism in architec-
ture, 157, Lamennais on the same,
158, these theories confuted by
Viollet-le-Duc, 159 ; symbolism
not its origin, ib. ; its ornamental
character an imitation of primitive
necessities, 159, Viollet-le-Duc
on this point, ib. ; rock-cut edi-
fices of India, ib. ; size of temples
a mark of honour, 161, a con-
venience, ib., other causes, 161
et seq. ; origin of the Pointed style,
163 ; became an art, 165; is aes-
thetic according to genius of race,
ib. ; recent discovery of decorated
buildings in Indo-China, ib. ; origin
of architectural members, 166; the
Greek orders, the result of aesthetic
sentiment, 166; mathematical pre-
cision an error in Greek styles,
( footnote), 167; different purposes
of Greek and Christian temples,
(footnote), 167; aesthetic effect of
ruins, 168, 185; the curve present in
the seemingly flat surfaces of Greek
edifices, 168 et seq., Mr. Penrose's
measurement of the Parthenon,
ib. ; instinct of architect necessary
to aesthetic effect, ib. ; Roman
inferior to Gi - eek, 170 ; keyed
arch, its value, ib., due to the
Romans, ib., its advantages, 171 ;
compared to literature, ib. ;
Byzantine combines lightness and
boldness, ib. ; the dome, its origin
and difficulties, 172, the problem
solved, ib. ; Arabian architecture :
its features, 173, its necessities,
ib. ; Romanesque architecture : its
features, ib., its necessities, 173
et seq. ; Pointed or Gothic archi-
tecture, 174 et seq., special to
France, 174, derived from the
Arabian, 175; the pointed arch:
theory of its construction, ib., its
facilities for height and lightness,
ib. ; the vaidt : fault of the Roman,
ib. , advantage of the Ogival, ib. ;
the flying buttress, 176, its weak-
ness, 177 ; first use of painted
windows, 176 ; principles of Gothic
and Greek styles compared, 177;
thrust, its difficulties in the
Pointed style, 177 et seq.; Ch.
Blanc on Gothic style, 178, the
fallacy shown, 179, weakness of
Gothic style, ib., its excessive
decoration not a beauty, ib. ;
Viollet-le-Duc on Greek, Roman,
and Gothic styles, 180etseq.; intelli-
gent use made of pointed arch, ib. ;
services of architects of the 12th
century, 182 et seq. ; distinctions
between architecture of the middle
ages and of .antiquity, 183 ; inco-
herency of the style of the Re-
naissance, ib. ; is the least personal
of the arts, 184 ; its assumed and
its real motives, ib. ; its power of ex-
pression, 186 ; intimate connexion
with sculpture, 207, modern di-
vorce from sculpture, 216, and
from painting, 287.
Architrave (the), its origin, 166.
Aristotle, his doctrine of ideas, its
error (footnote), 22 ; error in as-
cribing pleasure to imitation, 98.
Art : constituents of, v. ; artistic per-
sonality a necessity of true art, vi. ;
abstract art a chimera, viii. ; effect
of national temperament on it, ib. ;
gradual alliance with science, ix. ;
its human direction in modern
days, x. ; opposition of the Aca-
demy and tradition, ib. ; epochs
of liberty are epochs of art, xi. ;
its universality, xii. et seq. ; its
origin, xiii., 33, 88 ; its ele-
ments, reality and personality,
xiii.; ceases to be national when
it ceases to be sincere, xiv. ; imita-
INDEX.
409
tion, its decadence, ib. ; ' ' art
gymnastics," xv. ; errors of modern
art education, xvi. ; has three me-
thods : the academic, the realistic,
the personal or true, xxii. et seq. ;
an ideal in the Cave period, 2, 19,
80 ; a spontaneous manifestation
of intellectual activity, 4, 80 ; imi-
tation only a medium, not its cause
nor aim, 27, 99, 105 ; is ever im-
proving, 32 ; " life in action," its
perfection, 43 ; ancient and modern
art contrasted, 44 ; each art has
its distinctive processes and influ-
ence, 48 ; to please the public must
be sincere and life-like, 83 ; general
definition of, 89, Thore's defini-
tion (footnote), 89 ; no absolute
division in the arts, 94 ; beauty in
art and beauty in nature, 99, 114;
admiration of it caused by display
of genius, not of the work ; exam-
ples from Moliere, Balzac and
Michael Angelo, 102 et seq.; not
accounted for by beauty, 110 ; de-
corative and expressive art distin-
guished, 110 et seq.; modern art
traces moral life through form,
126 ; modern art requires higher
qualities (for expression) than an-
cient (or decorative) art, 127 ;
modern art is doubly expressive,
ib. ; conception an important ele-
ment in judging a work of art,
128 ; morality and elevation of
sentiment in a work of art are
worthy of consideration, 128 et
seq. ; not to be learned by rule,
148 ; difficult to ascertain chrono-
logical order of the arts, 152 et seq. ;
originally formed two groups, 154,
nature of these groups, ib. : classi-
fication of the arts, 156 ; artistic
expression, not imitation, what is
admired in a work, 155 et seq.:
disastrous effects of expected end
of the world in year a.d. 1000 —
162, footnote ib. ; fallacy of " high
art," 187, Viollet-le-Duc thereon,
188 ; aim of art, 194 ; necessary
conditions of artistic success, 195 ;
progress in art not a regular se-
quence, 199 ; "why artists are
artists," 275 ; state commissions in
art, 204, 212 et seq., 298 ; " pro-
tected " art in France, 299 ; pre-
dominance of certain organs in
artists, 328 ; illustration of supe-
riority of domain of poetry over
other arts, 350 et seq., 371 et seq. ;
Thore on art progress, 383 et seq. ;
evidence of a movement in .ad-
vance ; its beginning in fiction,
385, Carpeaux, " the creator of a
new art," 385 el seq.; religious
subjects susceptible of special treat-
ment, 387 ; dawn of a new Re-
naissance in plastic arts, 388 ;
personality constitutes the work of
art, 389 ; destructive influence of
tradition on art, 400.
Artist (the), is seldom before his time,
vii. ; has exceptionally quick per-
ception, 59, 324; different pro-
cesses of critic and artist, 71, 195,
375 et seq. ; requires imagination,
105 et seq. ; his character guides
his selection of subject, 106 ; his
worth impressed on his work, 107;
the beauty of a work is his, 108 ;
" why artists are artists," 275.
Ataraxy and Apathy, 196.
Attitude is not gesture, 252 ; is ar-
rested movement, ib. ; no multiplex
attitude, ib. ; the painter adds
something of gesture to attitude,
253.
Authors: their style readily distin-
guished, 130.
Autopsy: its necessity. Societe d'Au-
topsie Mutuelle, 60.
Balzao, as a genius, 102 ; his writings
(footnote), 342.
Battements, disagreeable effect of, 36,
317.
Baudry (Paul), failure of his pictures
in the Opera House (footnote),
255.
Beauquier on musical sound ; fallacy of
his theory, 319 et seq.
Beauty: certain animals have sense of,
6 ; line of beauty, 39 et seq. ;
410
1XDEX.
what is beauty? 96; academic
theory of it, ib. ; metaphysical
definition of it and its fallacy,
96 & 97; may include the ugly,
97, 107; beauty in painting, 97,
in poetry, 98, in literature, ib. ;
beauty in nature and beauty in
art, 99, 113, 114; beauty in art a
purely human creation, 108; fal-
lacy of imitation of ' ' beauty of
nature" shown by examples, ib.;
the beauty in a work is the artist's,
ib. ; aesthetics may be termed
"the science of beauty," 109 ;
does not account for art, 110 ;
physical beauty in Greek sculp-
ture not destroyed by expression,
113; beauty does not account for
Greek poetry, ib. ; does not limit
music, ib. ; facial beauty lies in
moral expression, 119, bodily
beauty in appropriateness of or-
gans to their office, ib. ; beautiful
work not necessarily expressive,
120 ; Winckelmann on beauty
(footnote) 120, et seq. ; corporeal
beauty, the ideal of the critics,
122; "Pure beauty," 121, 195,
consists in immobility, 122, its
fallacy, 122 et seq. ; is distinct
from expression, 125; art beauty
not dependent on beauty of model,
ib. ; expression is not hostile to
beauty, 127 ; high estimation of
corporeal beauty by the Greeks,
(footnote) 202.
Bert (M.), his experiments in com-
plementary colours (footnote),
234.
Birds : discovery in their retinas of
various coloured fibres, 232.
Black and white, its scope, 248.
Blanc (Ch.) on style and "absolute
style," 132 et seq., his error ex-
plained, 134 et seq., 140 et seq.;
on symbolism in architecture, 157,
on the Gothic arch, 178, his
fallacies, 179.
Buffon on genius, 71.
Burger on personality, 108, change of
opinion (footnote), 134; on exe-
cution in painting (footnote), 251.
Burty (Ph.) on effect of light or relief
in painting (footnote), 257.
Byzantine architecture combines light-
ness and boldness, 171.
Carpeaux, his bold originality; "the
creator of a new art," 385 et seq.
Cave period: ideal art in the, 2, 80;
ornamentation of flint instru-
ments, 3, 80 ; poetry and art in
the, 19; influence of imagination
in the, 30 ; its knowledge of music
and instruments, 80.
Character of this work is reactionary,
264.
Chiaroscuro: 223 et seq.; Fromentin
upon it, 224; its scope, 248; its
wide meaning and exaggeration,
248 et seq. ; its use by Rembrandt,
249, curious illusion in " The
Night Watch," 249 ; compared
to harmony, 309.
Chevreul (M.) on the laws of comple-
mentary colours, 232.
Children: instinct in, 10; especially
affected by rhythm, 18; passions
slight, 26 ; their egoism, ib.
Chinese symbolic language, 16 ; delicate
knowledge of "vibration" in
colour, 281.
Chords, classification of, by M. Helm-
holtz, 318.
Chronological order of arts not easily
ascertained, 152 et seq.
Claude : his landscapes are decorative
art, 115.
Climate : its effect on monumental sculp-
ture, 217.
Colour, 223 et seq. ; can indicate noise
or tranquillity, 11 ; moderates
pleasure, 89 ; with perspective
constitutes painting, 221; light
and colour, absorption, 222 ; what
constitutes "value," 227 ; effect
of material on it, 226, effect of
neighbourhood, 228 ; colour har-
mony, ib. ; prismatic and compo-
site colours, ib. ; theory of comple-
mentary colours confirms conclusion
as to cause of sensation of sight,
58 ; M. Helmholtz's table, 229 et
seq. ; complementary and non-com-
INDEX.
411
plementary colours, a painter's
difficulty, 230 et seq., use of table
to him, ib. et seq., Delacroix's dis-
covery in complementary colours,
231, Chevreul on their laws, 232,
their origin the eye, ib. ; variety in
colour of fibres in retinas of birds,
ib.; delusion produced by illness,
233 et seq.; colour haloes, 232
et seq., experiments of M. Bert
(footnote), 234; reciprocal influ-
ence of colours complementary and
non -complementary, 236 ; example
of Delacroix's knowledge of "opti-
cal mixture," 237; does not exist in
itself, 238 ; Delacroix thereon, ib. ;
"keeping" or harmony of colour,
239, example from Rubens, ib.,
not to be denned, 241; require-
ments of a colourist, ib. ; harmony
a proof of the true colourist, 242 ;
expressive power of colour, 244 ;
it has significance, 246 ; does not
necessarily sacrifice drawing, ib. ;
its modelling better than that of
drawing, ib. ; distinction between
colour and light, 248; falsity of
the claim for superiority of draw-
ing shown (footnote), 250.
Column (the), its origin, 166.
Comedy. See Drama.
Conception an important element in
judging a work of art, 128.
Concord, a fundamental condition of
pleasure, 36.
Constable, his theory quoted by M.
Duranty, 382.
Contour has no real existence, 258 et
seq.
Corporeal beauty, lies in appropriate-
ness of organs to their office, 119 ;
the ideal of the critic, 122 ; high
value set on it in ancient Greece,
(footnote) 202.
Courbet as an artist, xxiv. , 358.
Cousin on sculpture, 206, fallacy of
his dogma, ib.
Creative power the chief characteristic
of genius, 70.
Criticism: criticism is too prevalent,
47; Diderot as a critic, 47, 327;
its great divergence and opposition,
55, 60; requirements of true criti-
cism, 65, 69 ; the critic is not
born, 66; different processes of critic
and artist, 71, 195 ; corporeal
beauty its ideal, 122; of music,
324 etseq.; contempt of fiction an
error, 349 ; comparison of critical
and artistic genius, 375 et seq. ;
errors of its procedure, 380 et
seq. ; Constable's theory, 382.
Cry and gesture the two means of ex-
pression, 20 ; cries and names of
animals, the similarity of, 10.
Curve (the), expresses something finite,
39 et seq. ; contrasted with straight
line, ib. ; its effect on architecture,
42, is present in the apparently
flat surfaces of Greek buildings,
168, 280.
Danck (the), derived from speech, 28;
its growth, 83 ; expression in Greek
dances, 114; analysis of, 300 ; de-
mands rhythm, ib. ; decline of
modern dancing, 301 ; its serious
nature in past times, ib. ; panto-
mime, 302; tableaux vivants, their
ill influence, 302.
David (M.), his academic reforms, 61;
contrasted with Rembrandt, 125 ;
contrast of harmony in his
works, 239, portrait of Madame
Recainier, 240 ; contrasted with
Rubens and Delacroix, 253 et seq. ;
his errors, ib. ; remarks on (foot-
notes), 254, 255.
Deaf (the), unable to createlanguage,13.
Decay of nations, its causes probably at
an end (footnote), 8.
Decoration : decorative and expressive
art distinguished, 110 et seq., 116
et seq. ; value of decorative art,
111; ancient excellence of decora-
tive art, ib., reason fortius (foot-
note), ib.; Greek art essentially
decorative, 312; Claude's land-
scapes are decorative, 115; ex.nnpli s
of decorative and expressive art in
eloquence and drama, 116 ; value
of decorative art in times pa t,
does not suffice now, 126; ensemble
the condition of its perfection,
412
INDEX.
169; importance in monumental
painting, 294 et seq. ; Viollet-le-
Duc on itsprinciples, 295 et seq.
Delacroix: discovery in complementary
colours, 231; his intimate know-
ledge of juxtaposition of colour, or
"optical mixture," 237; on colour,
23S; his excellence as a colourist,
247, " Christ on the Gross," ib.;
Theophile Sylvestre thereon, ib. ;
contrasted with David, 253 et seq.;
example of his execution, 264 et
seq. ; his knowledge of harmony
or "vibration," 281; example of
proper application of execution,
282; his sketches for "Medea,"
376.
Design. See Drawing.
Diderot, as a critic, 47, 327.
Differential and additional note (foot-
note), 315.
Dilettanti and "art gymnastics," xv. ;
oppose innovation, 62.
Discord : its effects in music, 92 ; its
value (footnote), 317.
Dome (the), its origin and difficulties,
the problem solved, 172.
Drama: morality and the drama, 49 ; its
character ever changing, 83 ; in-
stances of decorative and expressive
art in it, 116 ; the public demand
in it compensation (or justice),
341 ; its progress, 356 et seq. ;
unyielding character of action
in early drama, 361 et seq.,
gradual effacement by the person-
ages, ib. ; the dramas of Sophocles,
363, Sophocles and iEschylus
compared, ib. ; Euripides' innova-
tions, 364, 306 ; Racine's plays,
364 et seq.; wider range of plots
in modern days, 367 ; compara-
tive freedom of comedy, ib. ; human
interest a necessity, 368 et seq. ;
repelling effect of absolute realism
336, 369 ; contradictions in the
drama of past times, 369.
Drawing (or Design), defect in techni-
cal education in, 144 ; in relation
to painting (footnote), 221 ; not
necessarily sacrificed by colour,
246 ; its modelling inferior to that
of colour, ib. ; its real importance,
250 ; false claim to superiority of
form over colour (footnote), ib.,
absurd argument from animal
nature, ib., its theories upset by
discovery of retentive action of
retina, 256, et seq. ; errors of its
defenders, 257.
Dubois (Paul), exquisite example of
' ' movement ' ' in sculpture, 206.
Duranty (M. ), excellent letter on
academic despotism, 201 ; his re-
ference to Constable, 3S2.
Ear (the), its subtlety, 34, 227 ; analo-
gous action of sound and light, 35,
315 et seq., 223, (footnote) 92 ;
disagreeable effect of battements,
36, 317 ; noise and sound dis-
tinguished, 36 ; silence absolutely
painful (footnote), 36; indispens-
able to human development, 52; de-
pository of successive acquisitions,
ib. ; cause of sensation of hearing
defined, 58, 312 ; relation to
music, 312 ; value of discord
(footnote), 317.
Eastern fashions do not change, 63.
Eccentricity when exaggerated produces
ill result, 106.
Edda (the), compared with the Iliad,
339.
Education, modern errors of, xvi. ; its
effect on taste (footnote), 69 ;
danger of substitution of execu-
tion for spontaneity, 141 et seq. ;
danger of imitation, 142 ; defect
in technical education in design,
144 ; its aim should be to elicit
individual power, 146, 149, sug-
gestions, 149 et seq. ; its modern
requirements, 283, ignorance of
its professors, ib.
Egyptian buildings as examples of
monumental sculpture, 208, their
excellences, ib., superior to the
Greek in unity, 209.
Eloquence. See Oratory.
Emotion : causes of aesthetic emotion,
70 et seq.
End of the world foretold in A.D. 1000,
INDEX.
413
disastrous effect on art of pro-
phecy, 162.
Ensemble, the condition of decorative
perfection, 169.
Epoch : epochs of liberty are epochs of
art, xi. ; a new epoch in cathe-
drals after the year a.d. 1000, 162.
Euripides compared with JEschylus,
123 etseq., defended, 124 etseq. ;
innovations in the drama, 364,
366.
Execution, its substitution for spon-
taneity destroys art in the schools,
141 et seq. ; Burger on execution
in painting (footnote), 251 ; when
true cannot exist without expres-
sion (footnote), 252 ; examples of
handcraft in painting : Delacroix,
Th. Rousseau, Rubens, 264 et seq. ;
its usefulness to the artist and the
public, 274 ; an exposition of the
man himself, 275 ; handling
sympathises with temperament,
276 ; its superiority in Flemish
school, 277, 283 ; Fromentin on
handling (footnote), 277; excel-
lence of Franz Hals, 278 ; is
necessary to render the indi-
vidual nature of things, 279 ; its
diverse uses, 280 ; must accosd
with nature of the work, 282 ;
example from Delacroix, ib. ;
viewed from two points, person-
ality of artist and subject, ib. ;
good method may be taught, 283 ;
requirements of modern teaching,
ib., ignorance of professors and
academic errors, ib.
Experience, not "the unseen ideal,"
the sculptor's guide, 115.
Expression : significance of facial ex-
pression, 41 ; in Greek art, 44 ; its
pourtrayal considered as decadence ;
an error so to do, 85 ; expressive and
decorative art distinguished, 1 10 et
seq., I16etseq. ; expression in Greek
sculpture, 112 and 197 (footnote),
197 ; not destructive of physical
beauty, 113 ; expression in Greek
dances, 114 ; moral expression in
Rubens' works, 116 ; instances of
expressive and decorative art in
eloquence and drama, 116 ; moral
expression constitutes facial
beauty, 119 ; its absence in Greek
art, 120 ; beautiful work not neces-
sarily expressive, ib. ; its meaning,
121 ; is distinct from beauty, 125,
not hostile to beauty, 127 ; artistic
expression, not imitation, is what
is admired in art, 155 et seq. ; its
use in architecture, 186 ; good
result of, introduced into sculpture,
207 ; expressive power of colour,
244 ; true execution in painting
cannot exist without it (footnote),
252 ; expressive power of music,
321, 324.
Eye (the), analogous action of light
and sound, 35, (footnote) 92, 223 ;
indispensable to human develop-
ment, 52 ; depositary of successive
acquisitions, ib. ; cause of the
sensation of sight approximately
defined, 58, confirmed by theory
of complementary colours, ib. ; its
delicacy, 227 ; retina easily fati-
gued, 236 ; causes complementary
colours, 232 ; various coloured
fibres in retina of birds, ib. ; effect
in illness on colour, 233 et seq. ;
colour haloes, 232 et seq. ; dis-
covery of retentive power of retina,
256 et seq. ; differently affected by
printing types (footnote), 281.
Facial expression : its significance, 41 ;
facial beauty lies in moral expres-
sion, 119.
Facility is not style, 131.
Fashion : its changeability, 55 ; its
arbitrary transformations, 62 ;
proceeds by oscillation not revolu-
tion, 63 ; does not change in the
East, ib. ; its folly amongst Western
females, ib. ; harmful when it en-
slaves taste, 68.
Fiction : its character ever changing,
83 ; modern critical contempt of
it, an error, 349 ; its growing in-
fluence, ib. ; public demand for
compensation or justice, 341 ; vice
more easily delineated than vir-
tue; examples from Balzac (foot-
414
INDEX.
note), 342 ; poetry in fiction, 349 ;
progress of the novel, 357 et seq. ;
the new school, ib. ; realism and
simplicity of the modern novel,
359 ; M. Zola's novels, 360 ; M.
Robt. Halt's novels (footnote),
361 ; the new dawn of art already
shown in it, 385.
Flemish school : its excellence in exe-
cution, 277, 283.
Flying buttress (the), 176 ; its advan-
tage, ib., its weakness, 177.
Form affects pleasure, 89.
French language : its poetic difficulties,
344.
Fromentin : on style in painting and
its detection (footnote), 131 et
seq., 138 et seq. ; on chiaroscuro,
224 ; on Rubens and his paintings,
244 etseq. ; on Rubens' handcraft,
269 and (footnote) 277.
Fugue : M. Laugel on the, 93.
Fundamental note and harmonics of
sight, 94.
Generalization : is, with analysis,
special to man, 8 ; in Greek art
does not satisfy modern wants, 45 ;
the system of both Greek art and
philosophy, 137.
Genius : cannot discard reason, 47 ;
creative power, its chief character-
istic, 70 ; imperious necessity for
its external manifestation, 70,
(footnote) 71 ; requires patience,
71 ; Newton and Buffon on genius,
ib. ; is sometimes a monomania,
72 ; geniuses often reckoned fools,
ib. ; is eccentric, ib. ; escapes the
baser passions, 73 ; exhibits the
personality of the artist, ib. ; ex-
hibited by originality of treatment,
ib. ; M. Taine's erroneous concep-
tion of it, 73 et seq.; distinguished
from taste by dominant impression
74 ; cannot be judged by rule, 75 ;
genius and inspiration, ib. ; is a
superiority only, 76 ; talent and
genius compared, ib. ; does not
dispense with labour, 78 ; Planche
on genius and labour, ib. ; widened
by education ; the result "style,"
132 ; current formulas disastrous
to it, 148 ; its probable obscurity
when in advance of the age, 333 ;
critical and artistic genius com-
pared, 375 et seq.', Shakespeare
and Moliere, 377.
Germany, not Italy, the birthplace of
harmony (Gluck, Mozart, Beet-
hoven, Wagner), 309.
Gesture and cry the two means of ex-
pression, 20 ; is not attitude, 252.
Goncourt (Jules de) on Raphael, 135
Gothic. See Pointed Architecture.
Goujon (Jean), G. Planche on his Cary-
atides, 292.
Grace : is absence of effort, 118 ; causes
pleasure through sympathy, ib.
Greek Art : examples of realism and
expression, 44 ; its generalization
does not satisfy modern wants, 45 ;
in a measure impersonal, 45 ; its
enjoyment of advantages of aesthe-
tic cultivation, 66 et seq., 192 ;
essentially decorative, 112 ; Greek
sculpture monumental and expres-
sive, 112, 197 & footnote 197 ;
expression in it does not destroy
physical beauty, 113 ; its poetry
not explained by beauty, is essen-
tially the poetry of humanity, 113;
expression in Greek dances, 114 ;
its advantages in nude models,
(footnote) 114 ; absence of expres-
sion in, 120 ; academic preference
for, founded on its faults, 136 et
seq. ; their artists and philosophers
alike given to generalization, 137;
its artists swamped by immobility,
137; its architectural orders the
result of aesthetic sentiment, 166 ;
mathematical precision of its archi-
tecture an error, 167 — 8 and (foot-
note) 167 ; different purposes of
Greek and Christian temples, (foot-
note) ib. ; its architecture superior
to the Roman, 170; origin of its
sculpture, 191 ; immobility (ata-
raxy) of its statues, 198; Visconti
on Greek sculpture, ib • realism
in its sculpture, 199 ; terra cotta
work, ib. ; was unfettered, 202 ;
high estimate of corporeal beauty
INDEX.
415
(footnote) ib. ; the nude its domain,
203; in monumental sculpture
lacks the unity of the Egyptian,
209 ; the Greeks not fatalists,
(footnote) 362 ; had two forms of
art : the " religious " and the
"living, "386.
Grief, its causes and exterior signs, 88.
Guizot (M. ) on immobility, (footnote)
255.
Hals (Franz), his excellent handcraft,
278.
Halt (Robert), his novels, (footnote) 361.
Handcraft (handling). See Execution.
Handling (handcraft). See Execution.
Handwork superior in effect to machine
work, 280.
Handwriting, extent of its use to test
character, 276.
Harmonics of the fundamental note of
sight, 94.
Harmony (.see also Music) : character-
istic of the greatest painters, 86 ;
equally necessary to all arts, 93 ;
excellence in monumental sculpture
of Egypt and Middle ages, 209,
modern want of it, 216 ; harmony
in colour, 228, "keeping," 239
et seq., not to be defined, 241;
agreement in use of harmony by
men of genius, 242 ; a proof of
true colourist, ib. ; "vibration" of
colour understood by Chinese, 281,
Delacroix's knowledge of it, ib., in
Indian and Persian textures, 295.
Helmholtz (M.), his demonstration of
sound, 56 et seq., 315, the Reson-
nateur, 57; table of complementary
colours, 229 et seq. ; classification
of chords, 318.
Hettner (H. ), on Winckelmann, (foot-
note) 120 et seq.
"High Art": its fallacy, 187; Viol-
let-le-Duc on it, 188.
Hugo (Victor), his unique position as a
poet, 371.
Ideal type : " the unseen ideal " is not
the sculptor's guide, 115 ; academic
misuse of the term, 193 ; differs
with races, 194; the metaphysical
type a mere hypothesis; its pre-
tence, ib.
Iliad (the), compared with the Edda,
339.
Imagination : directed man's earliest
efforts, 30 ; necessary to an artist,
105 et seq. ; in poetry demands
mystery, 334 ; its gradual pro-
gress from primitive times, 352.
Imitation : the decadence of art, xiv. ;
its wrong use in modern education,
xvi. ; is the academic method, xxii.
et seq. ; imitation of sounds sup-
posed origin of language, 10, but
has only influenced language, 12;
only a medium of art, 27, 99,
105, taken for artist's personality,
52, wrongly credited by Aristotle
and others as the source of plea-
sure, 98 : its accuracy when of
value (in a portrait), 100 ; erro-
neous theory of 107, et seq. ; its
danger to students, 142 ; is not
what is admired in a work of art,
155 et seq.
Instinct : in children, 10 ; is necessary
to the architect of aesthetic archi-
tecture, 168 et seq.
Imitative construction of phrases in
ancient language, 15.
Immobility : in Greek art, 120, 196,
swamped the artist, 137 ; M.
Guizot upon it, 255 ; in drawing,
its theory destroyed by discovery
of the retentive power of the
retina, 256 et seq.
Impersonality of Greek art, 45.
Indian (and Persian) knowledge of
"vibration" of colour, 295.
Individuality of composers, 326, a
necessity of poetry, applicable to
all ages and peoples, 337 ; includes
realistic truth, 389 ; is what makes
a work of art, ib.
Ingres : his work La Source, 41 ; con-
trasted with Rubens and Delacroix,
253; his errors, ib., remarks on,
(footnotes) 254 & 255.
Innovation : opposed by dilettanti, 62;
its ultimate triumph when reason-
able, ib.
Inspiration aud genius, 75.
416
INDEX.
Intensity, a fundamental condition of
. pleasure, 36.
Joy : its causes and exterior signs, 88.
"Keeping," or harmony of colour in a
painting, 239, example from
Rubens, ib. ; is not ineffective with
the public, 240.
Keyed arch : its value, 170 and 171 ;
due to the Romans, ib.
Knowledge : inherited by man, not by
animals, 6 ; increased by trans-
mission through succeeding gene-
rations, ib.
Lamennais : on origin of painting from
architecture, 152, probable fallacy
of his theory, 153 ; on symbolism
in architecture, 158 et seq.
Language : man's greatest privilege, 9;
origin attributed to imitation of
sounds, 10, but is only influenced
thereby, 12 ; its organ discovered
in the brain, ib. ; the deaf cannot
create it, 13 ; construction of
phrases in ancient language is
imitative, 15 ; Chinese symbolic
language, 16 ; rhythm at one time
a part of it, 18 ; cry and gesture
the two means of expression, 20 ;
the universal womb of art, 28 ;
union of words and music, 325 et
seq.
Laugel (M.) on the fugue, 93.
Lecoq de Boisbaudran : on the Academy
and its errors, 1 42 et seq.
Letronne (M. L.) on Th. Rousseau's
handcraft in painting, 2C6.
Liberty : epochs of liberty are epochs
of art, xi.
Life (and movement) : "Life in ac-
tion" the perfection of art, 43,
"Life in repose," the charm of
ancient sculpture, 43 ; not so ap-
plicable to sculpture as to painting
or poetry, 204, 251 ; possibility of
its extension in sculpture, exqui-
site example by Paul Dubois, 205
and (footnote) 206 ; life in
Raphael's works (footnote), 2. r >."> ;
greatness of [it in Rubens,] ib. ;
comparison of style in movement
and in "absolute form," 253 et
seq. ; photography useless for it,
256 ; phenomena of gesture and
movement, 258 ; importance of
its laws to artists, ib. • absence of
life in Raphael's Madonnas (foot-
note), 293 ; Plato's doctrine a
negation of life, 405.
Light : its cause (footnote), 91 ; its
importance in monumental sculp-
ture, 217 ; light and colour ; ab-
sorption, 222, distinction between
the two, 248.
Line of beauty (the), 39 et seq.
Literature (see also Fiction and The
Drama) : beauty in literature, 98 ;
compared to architecture, 171.
Machine work inferior in effect to
hand work, 280.
Man : inherits knowledge by trans-
mission, 6 ; analysis and generali-
zation faculties special to him, 8 ;
language his greatest privilege. 9 ;
a born mimic, 20 ; by develop-
ment extends his sympathy, 26.
Matter and spirit, their connection is
unexplained, 11.
Mediocrity is ever vulgar, 73.
Meissonier a follower of Rembrandt,
243.
Melody, its duty, 93. See also
Music.
Mental pictures, difficulty of reproduc-
tion of, 332.
Metaphor, value of, 335.
Metaphysics : evil of its application to
aesthetics, v. ; metaphysical notion
of beauty, its error, 96 and 97 ;
its disabilities, 263.
Method. See Execution.
Michael Angelo an example of genius,
103 ; his imaginative power, ib.
Middle Ages : its excellence of unity
in monumental sculpture, 210 et
seq. ; its treatment of monumental
painting, 285 ; Viollet-le-Duc's
tribute to its artists (footnote),
289.
Miniature painting has exceptional
rules, 263.
IXDEX.
•417
Modelling. See Relief.
Models of the nude : advantages pos-
sessed l>y the Greeks (footnote),
114 ct seq. ; their beauty does
not create art beauty, 125.
Modern society, greater freedom of
individuals in, 337 ct seq.
Moliere, an example of genius, 102,
377 ; his characters, 379.
Mongolian races, the music of, 303 ct
seq.
Monotony, its effect in music, 92.
Montalembert on academic tradition,
xxi.
Monumental Painting, 284 ; Viollet-
le-Duc thereon, ib. ; difference
from easel painting, ib. ; its re-
quirements, 285 ; its treatment
in the Middle Ages, ib. ; difficul-
ties of "point of view," ib. ;
errors of the system, 2S6 ; its
two branches will not combine, ib. ;
its relation to architecture must
be preserved, ib. , ct seq., modern
divorce of the two, 287, sacrifices
demanded of the painter, ib. ;
must please, not deceive, the eye,
288 ; its two uses, representation
of subject and ornamental work,
ib., scarcity of examples of the
former, ib. ; Viollet-le-Duc on its
successive styles, 2S9 ct seq. ; his
praise of artists of the Middle
Ages (footnote), ib. ; is pre-emi-
nently decorative, 293 ; importance
of coloured decoration, 294 ct seq.
.Monumental Sculpture : monumental
character of Greek sculpture, 112;
intimate connection with architec-
ture, 207 ; Egyptian monuments
an example, ib., their excel-
lences, 208, Greeks and Romans
did not attain Egyptian unity,
209 ; unity as applied in the
Middle Ages, ib., its excellences,
210 et seq., conditions of this
branch of art, with examples, 211 ;
modern want of unity, and persis-
tent divorce of sculpture and archi-
tecture, 212 ct seq. ; proper treat-
ment of monumental statues, 216 ;
temple at Abousambul, 217 ; in-
fluence of climate in Greece and in
France, ib. ; use of relief by the
Greeks, ib. ; importance of light,
ib. ; good treatment of 12th and
13th centuries, 219 ; Viollet-le-
Duc on relief, ib. ; elements ne-
cessary to success, 220.
Morality : its effect in a subject, 49 ;
in the drama, ib. ; worthy of con-
sideration in art, 128 ; modern
view of it, in advance of that held
by ancients, 354, effect of this in
poetry, ib.
"Movement." See Life.
Music : at one time was simply rhythm,
18 ; derived from speech, 28 ;
subtlety of the ear, 34 ; unex-
plored future of, 35 ; effect of
sound and sight in it, 43 ; musical
squabbles, 62, Wagner hissed, ib. ;
was known in Cave period, 80 ;
its growth, 84 ; its influence, 91 ;
the architecture of sound, ib. ;
effects of discords and monotony,
92 ; variety a requisite for its
enjoyment, ib. ; M. Laugel on the
fugue, 93 ; the duty of melody,
ib. ; not limited by beauty, 113 ;
with the Mongolian races, 303 ct
acq., compared with that of white
races, 304, modifications by the
Greeks, 304 ct seq. ; the Alexan-
drine, 306 ; the power of melody,
ib. ; diagram of Plato, 307 ; de-
cline in Italy in the Middle Ages,
ib., its later progress and triumph
of melody, 308 ; its leal function,
ib., et seq.; value of harmony
therein, 309 ; harmony and chiar
08CV.ro compared, ib. ; harmony
due to Germany (Qluck, Mozart,
Beethoven), ib. ; gradual advance
of harmony (Wagner), 310 ; rela-
tion of sensory nerves to it, 312 ;
spontaneity of the composer, 311 ;
differential and additional note
(footnote), 315 ; value of dis d
(footnote), 317 ; Helmholtz's clas-
sification of chords, 318; Beauquier
on musical sound, fallacy of his
tl rv, 319 i ' seq. ; expression in
music, 321, 324 ; "musical gym-
i: i:
418
INDEX.
nasties," 320; contrast of effect in
major and minor key, 321 ; is the
language of the passions, 322 ;
errors of scientists, ib. ; musical
criticism, 324 ct seq. ; union of
words and music, 325 ct seq. ;
analogy of procedure in music and
painting, 325 ; individuality of
the composer, 326 ; harmony a mo-
dern discovery, ib. ; the symphony,
ib. ; special domain of music, 327;
its power and restrictions, 372.
Mystery, a necessary element of poetic
imagination, 334.
Names and cries of animals, the simi-
larity of, 10.
Nations, the decay of, has probably
ceased (footnote), 8.
Nature : beauty in nature and beauty
in art, 99, 114 ; fallacy of "beauty
of nature " shown by examples,
108.
Negation of life the foundation of
Plato's doctrine, 405.
Newton on genius, 71.
Night Watch, The (Rembrandt's), cu-
rious illusion in, 249.
Noise can be expressed by colour, 11 ;
noise and sound distinguished, 36.
Note (the), is not a unique sound, 57 ;
differential and additional note
(footnote), 315.
Nude (the), conditions of modern life
swathe it, 202 ; essentially the
domain of the ancients, 203
Ogival. See Pointed.
Open - air and studio - painting con-
trasted, 243.
Opposition : its effect in a work of art,
38.
"Optical mixture : " example of Dela-
croix's knowledge of, 237.
Oratory : instances of expressive and of
decorative art in, 116 ; is not de-
void of poetry, 347 ; orator and
poet contrasted, 348.
Organ : discovery of that of language
in the brain, 12; physiological
predominance of certain organs,
32!, especially in artists, 328.
Originality, the real excellence of tho
artists of 16th century, 62 ; is
the expression of genius, 73,
Ornament. See Decoration.
Ornamental Architecture, an imitation
of primitive necessities, 159 ;
Viollet-le-Duc upon it, 160.
Painted windows, first use of, 176.
Tainting (see aha Colour, Execution,
and Monumental Painting),
derived from writing, 28 ; its
origin cannot be traced, 85 ;
scarcely less ancient than sculp-
ture, ib. ; founded on convention,
ib. ; its development in modern
days, 86 ; harmony, the charac-
teristic of great painters, ib. ; the
requirements of a painter, 93 ;
has more scope than sculpture or
architecture, 94 ; beauty in paint-
ing, 97 ; style most readily de-
tected in painting (footnote), 131 ct
seq. ; its origin ascribed by Lamen-
nais to architecture, 152, fallacy
of the theory, 153 ; essentially
different from sculpture, 221 ;
consists of perspective and colour,
ib. ; drawing in relation to it, ib. ;
relief or modelling (footnote), 222,
and 224 et seq. ; light and colour,
absorption, 222 ; colour, 223 ct
seq. ; chiaroscuro, 223 ct seq.,
248 et seq. ; advantage of use of
light enjoyed by painter over
sculptor, 226 ; studio and open-
air painting contrasted, 243 ; its
facilities to exjircss movement,
251 ; the artist adds something
of gesture to attitude, 252 ; study
from sculpture harmful, 255 ;
Ph . Durty on relief (footnote), 257 ;
importance of laws of movement,
258; contour does not exist, ib.,
et seq. ; Arabesque, 260 ; differ-
ence between easel and monu-
mental painting, 284 ; analogy of
procedure in music, 325 ; dawn
of a new Renaissance, 388.
Pantomime, 302.
Parthenon (the), Mr. Penrose's measure-
ment of, 168 ct seq. and 280.
INDEX.
419
Pediment (the), its origin, 166.
Penrose, Mr., his measurement of the
Parthenon, 1£S ct seq., 280.
Personality of the Artist, a necessity
of true art, vi. ; an element of it,
xiii., and the true method, xxiv. ;
its presence in a work of art con-
stitutes its value, 45 ; often mis-
taken for imitation, 52 ; its great
effect, 53 ; genius is shown by
its exhibition, 73 ; has gradually
asserted itself, SI ; displayed in
works of Iluysdael (footnote), 104 ;
an artist's worth impressed on his
work, 107 ; Burger on person-
ality, 108; style is the reflection of
it, 139 ; its effacement demanded
by the Academy. 147; ignored by
public instructors, 14S et seq.
Perspective, with colour, constitutes
painting, 221 ; its phenomena,
258 ; two kinds of, 260 ; example
in " The School of Athens," 261 ;
exception in miniature painting,
263 ; point of sight, 261, and
footnote.
Photography cannot replace art, be-
cause useless for movement [foot-
note), 256 ; effect of the stereo-
scope, 259.
Flanche : protest against academic
classicism, xx. ; on genius and
labour, 78 ; on academic demand
for offaceinent of personality, 147;
mi the Caryatides of Jean (ioujon,
292 ; on Raphael's Madonnas
(footnote), 293.
Plato : his error concerning the "un-
seen ideal," 115; his diagram,
307 ; vast influence of his teach-
ing, 391 ct seq. ; his doctrine
examined, ib., " Reminiscence,"
its foundation, 400 ct seq., is
negation of life, 405.
Pleasure (sec also ^Esthetic Tleasuk e ) :
the desire for it is the incentive of
art, 33 ; results from the stimula-
tion of certain organs, 34 ; is an
increase of vital activity, 35 ; in-
tensity, variety, and concord, its
fundamental conditions, 36, and
(footnote), 40 ; diversely derived
from smell, taste, and touch, 51 ;
affected by sympathy with others,
by colour and form, 89 ; wrongly
ascribed by Aristotle to imitation,
98, 114.
Poetry : preceded prose, 19 ; in the
Cave period, ib. ; gradual growth
of prose, 24 ; derived from
speech, 28 ; exceptionally ex-
presses sentiments and ideas, 37 ;
causes of its power not yet traced,
ib. ; spontaneous in early Vedic
hymns, 80 ; has survived all de-
cadence and academism, 82 ; its
domain almost illimitable, 90 ;
beauty in, 98 ; aspect of life to a
poet, 330 ; poetic emotion almost
universal, ib. ; the poet recpiires
special faculties, 331 ; poetry
purely human, 332 ; its real value,
333 ; anciently thought to be in-
spired, ib. ; mystery necessary to
poetic imagination, 334 ; value of
metaphor, 335 ; error of realism,
335 et seq. ; necessity of person-
ality ; applicable to all ages and
peoples, 337 ; necessity to have
human sympathy, 339 ; the Iliad
and the Eelda compared, ib. ; re-
sults from personal exaltation,
340 ; its licence, S43 ; necessity of
variety, ib., and of simplicity,
344 ; its difficulties with the
French language, ib. ; its chief
and one principle, : ; [5; not limited
to verse, 347 ct seq. ; when true
is devoid of egoism (footnote), 347 ;
its relation to oratory, '■'> 17 ; orator
and poet contrasted, 348 ; its re-
lation to the sciences, 348, 351,
353, 373, to fiction, 349 ; supe-
riority of its domain ever all
other arts illustrated, 350 et seq. ;
371 ct seq. ; effect on it of modern
standard of morality, 354 ; cha-
racter of the earliest poems, 354
ct seq. ; gradual acquirement of
human interest, 355 ; its revival
in France in recent days, 370,
this carried to excess, ib., Victor
Hugo an exception, ■"•71.
Point of sight, 261, and. footnote; ex-
420
INDEX.
ample in "Marriage of Cana,"
261.
Point of view : its difficulties in monu-
mental painting, 285.
Pointed (or Gothic) Architecture, 174
et seq. ; its origin, 163 ; special
to France, 174 ; derived from the
Arabian, 175 ; theory of construc-
tion of the pointed arch, ib. ;
principles of Gothic and Greek
architecture compared, 177 ; the
Hying buttress, ib. et seq. ; diffi-
culties of "thrust," ib. ; Ch.
Blanc on Gothic architecture, 178,
his fallacy shown, 179 ; weakness
of the style, ib. ; excessive deco-
ration not a beauty, ib. ; intelligent
use of the pointed arch, 180 et seq.
Polygnotus, his inventive power, 199.
Predominance of certain organs, 324,
especially in artists, 328.
Progress : its law spontaneous and in-
evitable (footnote), 7 ; in man due
to faculties of analysis and gene-
ralization, 8.
Prose : succeeded poetry, 19 ; its
gradual supremacy, 24 ; does not
exclude poetry, 346 et seq.
Public (the) : independence of its
taste and preferences, xix. ; de-
mands sincere and life-like art,
83 ; its preference for modern
subjects, 204 ; demands " compen-
sation " in fiction and drama, 341.
"Pure beauty," 121, 195, consists in
immobility, 122, fallacy of the
theory, 122 d seq.
Racine's plays, 364 et seq.
Raphael : de Goncourt on him, 135 ;
academic preference for him is
founded on his faults, 136 ;
"movement" in his paintings,
(footnote), 253 ; absence of vitality
in his Madonnas (footnote), 293.
Reactionary character of this work,
264.
Realism : reality an element of true
art, xiii. ; is a protest against aca-
demic method, xxii. et seq. ; ex-
amples in Greek art, N, 199 ; has
little aesthetic importance, 101 ;
ib. ; his ex-
visual reality preferable to actual
reality, 256 ; its error in poetry,
336 et see/. ; realism of the mo-
dern novel, 359 ; absolute realism
in drama would repel, 336, 369 ;
contradictions of modern realism
(footnote), 405.
Reason, cannot be discarded by genius,
Relief : use by the Greeks in monu-
mental sculpture, 217 ; relief or
modelling, 222, 224 et seq. ; by
colour preferable to that by draw-
ing, 246 ; Th. Burty on relief in
painting (footnote), 257 ; contour
does not exist, 258 et seq.
Religious subjects are susceptible of
special treatment, 387.
Rembrandt : contrasted with David,
125 ; an exception to other men
of genius, 242 ; his peculiar
method, 243 ; his use of chiar-
oscuro, 249 ; curious illusion in
" The Night Watch,'
cellence in finish, 267.
Reminiscence : the foundation of Plato's
system of aesthetics, 400 et seq.
Renaissance (the), incoherency of its
architecture, 183.
Repetition, its effect in a work of
art, 38.
Repose: "life in repose,' the charm
of the ancient sculptor, 43.
RSsonnateur (the) of M. Helmholtz, 57.
Revolutions in science, S.
Rhythm : its effects, especially on chil-
dren and savages. IS ; at one time
the only music, ib. ; once a part
of language, ib. ; necessary to the
dance, 300.
Bock-cut edifices of India, 159.
Rococo work, its disagreeable effect,
40.
Roman architecture inferior to Greek,
170 ; can claim the keyed arch, ib.
Romanesque architecture : its features,
173, its necessities, ib. ; the
tower a necessity to it, 174.
Rousseau (Th.) : examples of his handi-
craft (method) in painting, 266.
Rubens : moral expression of his pic-
tures, 116 ; example of " keep-
INDEX.
421
ing" in his works, 239 ; Erection
of the Cross, 244; Martyrdom of
St. LUven, 245 ; Fromentin on
Rubens, 245 ; greatness of the
movement in his paintings (foot-
note), 253 ; contrasted with Ingres
and David, 253 et seq. ; liis method ;
as described by Fromentin, 269 ct
seq. ; Fromentin on his special
handling {footnote), 277.
Ruins, aesthetic effect of, 168, 185
Ruysdael : marked exhibition of per-
sonality in his works {footnote),
104.
St. Simon : aesthetic value of his
memoirs, 101.
Savages, especially affected by rhythm,
18.
Science : is now properly directed, ix.;
its gradual alliance with art, ib. ;
the sciences in relation to poetry,
348, 351, 353, 373.
Sculpture {see also Monumental Sculp-
ture) : derived from writing, 28 ;
its growth, 84 ; has less scope
than architecture, and still less
than painting, 94 ; experience,
not the "unseen ideal," the sculp-
tor's guide, 115 ; Plato's error
therein, 115 ; expression exists in
Greek sculpture, 112, 197, and
{footnote), 197 ; not necessarily
derived from architecture, 189 ;
earliest examples, 189; its origin,
190 ; symbolism in sculpture,
190 ct seq. ; origin of Greek
sculpture, 191 ; atai-axy and
apathy, 196, immobility of Greek
statues, Hi. ; Yisconti on expression
in Greek sculpture, 198 ; realism
in Greek sculpture, 199 ; Greek
terra cotta work, ib. ; the Greeks
unfettered bytradition, 202 ; their
estimate of corporeal beauty {foot-
note), ib. ; the nude hidden in
modern life, ib. ; the nude essen-
tially the domain of the ancients,
203; should be developed in har-
mony with modern spirit, ib. ;
does not admit movement so well
as poetry or painting, 204, sus-
ceptible of extension in this respect,
ib., exquisite example of " move-
ment " by Paul Dubois, 206 ;
Cousin on sculpture, ib., fallacy
of his dogma, ib. ; possible excel-
lence by the introduction of moral
expression, 207 ; essential differ-
ence from painting, 221 : the sculp-
tor has not the painter's advan-
tage in use of light, 226 ; dawn of
a new Renaissance, 388.
Sight {see also The Eye): its sensations
analogous in their action to those
of sound, 35, {footnote) 92, 223 ;
its effect in spectacles, 43 ; cause
of its sensations approximately de-
fined, 58 ; has a fundamental note
and accompanying harmonies, 94.
Signs, growth of alphabet from, 24.
Silence, absolute, is painful {footnote),
„ 36 -
Simplicity of the modern novel, 359.
Size of temples : a mark of honour,
161; for convenience, ib. ; other
reasons, 161 et seq.
Sophocles : his dramas, 363 et seq. ;
compared with JEschylus, ib.
Sound (sec also The Ear): its sensa-
tions analogous in their action to
those of sight, 35, (footnote) 92,
223; distinguished from noise, 36;
its effect in music and spectacles,
•1 3 ; scientific demonstration of, 56
et seq., '315; sonorous molecules, 57;
a note is a unique sound, 57; vi-
bration of the human voice, 57.
Speech : preceded writing, 17; dupli-
cated by demand of intellect ami
sentiment, 27; the mother of
poetry, music, and dancing, 28 ;
variations of the voice, 312f( seq.,
Herbert Spencer thereon, ib.
Spencer (Herbert), on variations of the
voice, 312 et seq.
Spirit : its connexion with matter un-
explained, 11.
Spontaneity: its necessity in real art
cannot be replaced by execution,
141 et seq.
St;ite aid: state adoption disastrou! (<>
art (footnote), 1 19 ; "protected"
art in France, 299,
422
INDEX.
State Commissions : influenced by aca-
demic formulas, xviii. ; the process
of, 204 ; Viollet-lc-Duc upon them,
212 ct seq.; hopelessness of any
improvement, 29S ; "Protected
Art " in France, 299.
Stereoscope, its action, 259.
Straight line (the): emblem of eter-
nity, 39 ; contrasted "with the
curve, 39 ct seq.; its effect on ar-
chitecture, 42; is only apparent
not real in flat surfaces of Greek
edifices, 168, 280.
Studio-painting contrasted with "open-
air" painting, 243.
Style : readily distinguished in different
authors, 130; style and " the law
of separation," ib.; distinguishes
schools and races, ib. ; not the pos-
session of mediocrity, 131; facility
is not style, ib. ; most easily detected
in painting {footnote), ib. ct seq.,
Fronientin on style in painting, ib. ,
138 ct seq.; results from educated
genius, 132, improves in the pro-
cess, ib. ; Ch. Blanc on style and
"absolute style," ib. et seq., 140
ct seq., his error explained, 134
et seq. ; necessity to free it from
prejudice, 139 ; is the reflection of
the artist's personality, ib.
Subject : the subject of a work of minor
importance, 46.
Sylvestre (Theophile) on Delacroix,
247, 264.
Symbolic nature of primeval writing,
21.
Symbolism in architecture : Ch. Blanc
upon it, 157, also Lamennais, 158,
their error exposed by Viollet-lc-
Duc, 159; is not the origin of
architecture, 159 ; symbolism in
sculpture, '1 90 ct seq.; is easily ex-
hausted, 198.
Sympathy : leads taste, 50 ; creates
pleasure, 89 ; the cause of the
pleasurable efi'ect of grace, 118.
Tableaux Vlvants, evil of, 302.
Taine (M.), error of his conception of
genius, 73 ct seq.
Talent : compared with genius, 76 ; its
works not necessarily always in-
ferior, 77; is subject to reason,
76 ; current formulas disastrous to
it, 148.
Taste : led by sympathy, 50 ; has its
own special pleasure, 51; varia-
bility and diversity of, 56 ; diverse
methods of its exhibition, 64; de-
finition of, 65 ; its two elements,
66 ; Viollet-le-Duc on taste in ar-
chitecture, 67; an evil when en-
slaved by fashion, 68 ; subtlety of,
69 ; constitutes art criticism, ib. ;
effect of temperament and educa-
tion on it {footnote), 69 ; distin-
guished from genius, 74.
Technique (technical skill). See Exe-
cution.
Temperament: effect of national tem-
perament on art, viii. ; its effect
on taste {footnote), 69.
Temples : causes of their size, 161 ct
seq. ; different purposes of Greek
and Christian temples {footnote),
167.
Terra cotta, Greek art in, 199.
Theseus, the temple of, 199.
Thore : his definition of art (footnote),
89; on progress in art, 383 ct seq.',
on its probable future excellence,
384.
Thrust : its difficulties in Pointed ar-
chitecture, 177 ct seq.
Tower (the), a necessity of Romanesque
architecture, 174.
Tradition : its destructive effect on all
art, x., 400.
Tragedy. See Diuma.
Tranquillity: can be indicated by colour,
11.
Type. See Ideal Type.
Ugliness: its representation not fatal
to existence of art beauty, 97, 107.
Unity (see also Harmony) in a work of
art a necessity of esthetic pleasure,
37.
"Value" in colour, explanation of,
227.
INDEX.
423
Variety a fundamental condition of
pleasure, 36, 92.
Vault (the) : the Roman and Ogival
compared, 175.
Vedic hymns : spontaneous character of
poetry in, SO.
Vibration : of the human voice, 57; is
the cause of hearing and of sight,
58.
" Vibration" in colour. See Harmony.
Vice more easily delineated than virtue :
example from Balzac {footnote),
342.
Viollet-le-Duc : approval of his thesis,
xi. ; protest against academic classi-
cism, xx. ; on architectural taste,
67; on academic process and its
errors, 144 ; on fallacy of symbol-
ism in architecture, 159; on origin
of ornamental architecture, 160;
on Greek, Roman, and Gothic ar-
chitecture, 181; on the architects
of twelfth century, 182 et seq.; on
fallacy of "high art," 188; on
modern want of unity, 212 ; on
academic and official process in
public buildings, ib. et seq. ; on
relief, 219; on monumental paint-
ing, 284; on successive styles of
monumental painting, 289 ct seq. ;
tribute to artists of the Middle
Ages (footnote), 289; on principles
of coloured decoration, 295 et seq. ;
value of his writings, 298.
Visconti on Greek sculpture, 198.
Voice: vibration of the human voice,
57.
Wagner : hissed, 62 ; boldness of his
innovations, 310.
Winckelmann : on beauty (footnote),
120 et seq.; Hettner on Winckel-
mann, ib. ; Winckelmann as dic-
tator of taste, 200.
Words : their original meaning gra-
dually obscured, 25.
World : predicted end of in a.d. 1000,
disastrous effects on art, 162 and
footnote.
Writing: succeeded speech, 17; sym-
bolic nature of primeval, 21; du-
plicated by demand of intellect
and sentiment, 27; the mother of
sculpture, painting, and architec-
ture, 28.
Zola (M.), novels of, 360.
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