A theory of fine art

Preface

The author of the following pages, during nearly the whole period of his connection with the board of instruction in the University of Vermont, was accustomed to deliver lectures to the students on the subject of Fine Art. These lectures were associated with the philosophical studies of the senior year, after the plan pursued in some of the European Universities. Not only was he drawn to the subject by natural taste and inclination, which led him during his visits to Europe to study with much enthusiasm, and with careful attention, the great works of Art contained in the principal galleries of Germany, France, and Italy ; but he considered, that, in any comprehensive survey of the powers and energies of the human mind, this important phase of its activity was by no means to be passed over in silence. He may have been impressed, at the same time, with the great importance attached to the subject, in its theoretic aspect, in the Uniiv PREFACE.

versities of Germany, where it has been for many years regarded as forming a legitimate part of a philosophical course of instruction. The lectures were generally regarded by the students as forming a very attractive feature of the senior year.

The results of the author's studies and thought on this subject, studies which he continued through his life, are contained in the following pages. It will be seen that the method of treatment is historic in its spirit, and proceeds upon the fact that, in connection with the successive periods of time, there arises also a development in the department of creative power, corresponding with the interests and activities proper to each epoch. The spirit of the work is seen to be historic also, in the presentation and discussion of the views of many writers who have made the subject of Art the theme of special study, and who are entitled to respect, either on account of their experimental acquaintance with Art, or because of the wide range of their genius and knowledge.

In preparing the work for the press, the object has been to offer it to the public in the exact form in which it was left. This has been effected, with the exception of some slight and necessary altera-

PREFACE. V

tions. The principal work done has been in the verifying of citations and references. The references at the bottom of the page are nearly all by another hand.

It is hoped, that, at a time when the subject of Art seems to be awakening new interest everywhere, the present volume may prove a not unacceptable contribution to a view of it which, in this country, at least, has as yet received but little attention.

Chapter I

Province of Art. — Active and Passive Elements in Art. — Possibility of a True Theory of Art, and its Value as a Means of Intellectual Discipline. — Method of Treatment to be pursued in this Work. — Definition of Taste I

Chapter II. The Beautiful

Various Theories of the Beautiful. — The Characteristic. — The Promise of Function. — Expression. — Multeity in Unity. — Truth in these Theories. — The Author's Theory of the Beautiful. . . . 25

Chapter III. The Judgment Of Taste

Taste a Form of Judgment. — The Object of Taste distinguished from the Agreeable. — From the Morally Good. — The Judgments of Taste of Universal Validity. — Independent of any Conception of Relation to an End. .... 47

Chapter IV. The Standard Of Taste

The Standard of Judgment within the Mind itself. — Judgments of Taste distinguished from Moral Judgments ; from Sensuous Affections. — Impossibility of an Outward Rule. — Models : their Proper Use. — Identity of the Principle of ^Esthetic Judgment in all Men. ........ 63 viii

Chapter V. Culture Of The Imagination

Diversity in Taste, Natural and Artificial.— Conventional Standards of Taste. — Cultivation of Taste begins with Cultivation of the Mind generally. — Importance of a Right View of the Imagination. — Freedom of this Faculty. — Its Right Exercise. — Study of Models. — Correct Taste not to be transmitted. — The Standard of Art Ideal 77

Chapter VI

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. — INTERESTS AWAKENED IN CON- NECTION WITH THE BEAUTIFUL.

Idea of Man as the Subject of Art. — Normal and Rational Idea. — Impossible to attain its Expression by the Imitation of Models.

Interests awakened in connection with the Beautiful. — Interest of Pleasure ; of Knowledge ; of Vanity or Benevolence; of the Amateur. — Intellectual or Moral Interest, exemplified in the Enjoyment of the Beautiful in Nature. .... 93

Chapter VII. Relation Of Art To Nature

Art not mere Imitation. — Illustration. — The Dutch School. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. — Freedom Essential to Art ; but a Freedom that implies Labor. — Art must not be mistaken for Nature, but resemble Nature. — Artistic distinguished from Mechanical Skill. — The Artist thrown back on his own Resources. . . 107

Chapter VIII. Ideality Of Art

Ideality of Art compared with the Truth of Nature. — Use of the word Idea. — The Idea first manifests itself as a Feeling. ^Esthetic Ideas, distinguished from the Ideas of Reason, and from

CONTENTS.

IX

Conceptions of the Understanding. — Their Relation to Images of Sense ; To the Logical Understanding. — Spontaneity of the Imagination in the Production of its Ideal Creations.

The Ideal. — Unity and Manifoldness reconciled in the Production of Ideal Beauty. — Ideal Beauty compared with the Beauty of Nature. — The Ideal of Humanity the Central Point for Art. — Objects of Art below and above Man. — The Ideal Representation of External Nature. — Of Objects belonging to the Spiritual World.

The Characteristic contrasted with the Ideal. — Use of the Characteristic in Art. ' 12:

Chapter IX. The Sublime

The Emotion of Sublimity. — How does it differ from the Sentiment of the Beautiful. — Theory of Burke. — Of Ruskin. — Sublime Objects awaken the Consciousness of the Higher Powers of the Mind.

Allston's' Theory of the Sublime. — Of " Imputed Attributes." — — Attitude of the Mind in contemplating Sublime Objects. — Moral Sublimity. — Sublimity in its Relation to Art. . . 149

Chapter X. Division Of The Arts

Brief Review. — Principle of Division to be sought for in the Relation between the Ideal and its Possible Modes of Expression. — Division proposed by Kant. — Criticism of this Method. — Division into Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic Art, illustrated in the Historic Development of the Arts. .... 163

Chapter XI. Architecture

Position of Architecture among the Fine Arts. — Its Power of realizing Ideal Beauty. — Two-fold Object — Use and Beauty. — Rela-

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tion of the Form to the Material in Architecture — Origin of this Art. — Architecture of the Egyptians. — Of the Greeks. — Orders of Grecian Architecture. — Lombard and Gothic. . 179

Chapter XII. Sculpture

Relation of Sculpture to Architecture. — Limitation to the Human Figure. — Composition in Sculpture. — Equipoise of Form and Material. — Adapted to the Representation of the Superhuman. — Distinctive Excellence of Sculpture as an Art. — Its Ideality. — Development of the Art in Greece. — Sculpture in Modern Times 197

Chapter XIII. Painting

Relation of Painting to Sculpture. — The Material employed ; Color ; Perspective ; Lights and Shades ; the Line. — Effects to be produced by Colors, through Harmony of Combination, and Local Tints. — Color as a means of Expression. — Peculiar Advantages of Painting as an Art. — Wide Range of Subjects. — Development of this Art. 215

Chapter XIV. Music

Music belongs to a New Circle of Arts — Music the Basis of Oratory and Poetry. — How distinguished from these. — The Material in Music. — How moulded. — Quantity or Rhythm. — Quality, i. e. Melody and Harmony. — Peculiar Power of Music. — Associated with Poetry. — Musical Style. — Composition and Execution. . . . « . ... . . 23 1

Fragment on Oratory ... 245

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XI

Chapter XV. Poetry. — Conclusion

Prominence of Poetry among the Arts. — The Nature of its Material. — Language of Poetry, Passionate, Picturesque, Rhythmical.

— Range of Subjects for the Poetic Art. — Its Power of gradually unfolding a Subject. — Relation of Poetry to the other Arts, and to the Ultimate Purpose of Art. — Divisions of Poetry.

Prospects of Art in the Present Age. — Causes of its Decline. — Enjoyment and Appreciation of Art not confined to the Age that produces it. — Advantages of the Present Period for the Critical Study of Fine Art 2 17

Appendix To Chapter III

THE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE IN THEIR RELATION TO ART.

Original Significance of the Dimensions of Space. — Measure and Proportion give the Law to all Art. — Importance of this Truth.

— History of the Subject. — The Pythagoreans. — Aristotle. — Galileo. — Arbitrary naming of the Dimensions in Inorganic Bodies. — View of Coleridge. — Significance of the Names explained by Reference to Organic Forms. — Dynamic Theory of Author of " The Physiology of Life." — Hypothesis of Schelling.

The Primary Dimensions of Space first clearly expressed in the Human Body; — Relation of the Dimensions to each other. — Breadth the Lowest and most Matter-like Dimension. — Height the Principle of Form ; Breadth, of Symmetry and Locomotion ; Depth, of Sensibility and Expression. — Discussion of the Theory contained in "The Physiology of Life." — The Constitutive Principle is the Soul. — The Soul in Art, as distinguished from, Formal Proportion, on the one hand, and Ornamentation on the other. — This Element demanded in Art. — Relation of Soul to Body. — Proportion of Form the only Foundation on which Soul can appear. — Admissions of Ruskin. — Significance of Forms rooted in the Original Difference in the Dimensions of Space. — Application of these Principles to Music, Oratory, and Poetry. 267

I. A Theory Of Art

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A THEORY OF ART.

CHAPTER L

Introduction

There are three ways in which ideas preeminently manifest themselves as living powers in the practical life of mankind, namely : in Art, in Ethics, and in Religion. To the province of Art belong, generally, those productions of the imagination which are capable of calling forth the sentiment or emotion of the beautiful ; to that of Ethics, the striving of the individual will after worth and dignity of character, of communities of men after the right organization of society, and of a state after its true constitution ; and to that of Religion, the striving after the restoration of that fellowship with God and harmony with nature which alone can place man in the position he was originally destined to occupy. In all these ways, ideas, either aesthetical, moral, or spiritual, become to some extent, though most often, it must be confessed, very feebly and imperfectly realized. The first of these ways for the- realization of ideas, and also the lowest, since it can never rise higher than to the completeness of being on the side of its form, is the subject I propose to treat of in the following pages. The general subject, therefore, is Art ; not, however, in the restricted and limited sense in which this word is very commonly understood. The Art which I wish to consider embraces whatever works — whether they be the works of Nature, or of man ; and whether of the common man, or of the man of genius — excite the imagination to that peculiar kind of activity which is the necessary condition of our perception of the beautiful. For in a certain sense, each individual for himself, in the very perception of beauty, may be said to create it. Our imagination, in exact proportion to our sense of a beautiful work, copies that of the original producer. Each man plays the part of an artist for himself. He does over again what is already done to his hands, and reproduces the embodied idea. He forms for himself those " intellectual images," as by Bishop Butler they are not inaptly called,1 which cause the pleasurable emotions he very naturally, though not altogether correctly, supposes to arise from the merely passive susceptibility of his nature ; for in this whole order of perceptions —

" We receive but what we give, And in our life alone, does nature live." 52

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It is first when we are made clearly aware of the function and agency of the imagination, as vitally concerned in the excitement of that emotion which the beautiful in Nature and Art produces upon us, that the possibility of a true theory of Art begins to dawn upon the mind. For if in Ethics the will may be free, at the same time that it is subject to law, and can be truly free only so far as it freely conforms to its true law, — the great point in that science, — so too the imagination may be free in its subjection to law, and can have, indeed, the true freedom which Art requires, only so far as it freely or spontaneously enters into the law which should govern its operations in each specific case of production. And as the felt sentiment of approbation or of disapprobation is the form in which the judgment as to whether the will is acting in obedience to its true law or not, expresses itself to our immediate experience, in the moral sphere ; so the felt sentiment of complacency or disgust, of delight or aversion, is the immediate judgment which we are constrained to pass upon the conduct of the imagination. In both cases, this instantaneous judgment in the form of an approving or condemnatory feeling is the d posteriori empirical element, which should never be disregarded or thought lightly of, whether in morals or in art, while the will and the imagination, acting independently of our whims and caprices, and in free conformity with that reason which is their true law and basis, are the a priori element and principle, never to be lost sight of in a philosophical system of Morals or of Art.

To drop the subject of Morals, which I have introduced here only for the sake of the analogy, and to revert wholly to that of Art ; if the question were put, which one of the two elements just mentioned — which may be distinguished as the active and the passive elements in Art — is the most important, we cannot doubt that that is the most important one upon which the other is wholly dependent ; and as the passive feeling stands in the relation of dependence on the intellectual activity, the latter is more important, and more carefully to be considered, watched over and cultivated than the former, which necessarily follows its lead. If this feeling, divorced from the imagination, is that which is really meant by the modern word Taste, a term which seems to have been first introduced by the French, and was certainly unknown to the ancients, — if this merely passive, aesthetical faculty of judgment, so liable to be warped in a hundred ways, and to become altogether conventional, should be made the supreme arbiter over the imagination, it is difficult to see how genuine Art could long survive such a change in the true order of things, — what could save it from losing all its vitality, and degenerating into absolute tameness or something worse.

I may here bring in a few words on this point

INTRODUCTION. J

from the poet Wordsworth, naturally a most indignant observer of the false school of criticism which grew out of this instalment of taste over creative power, and from which he suffered so much and so unworthily. " Taste, " says he, meaning the taste I have just described, "like Imagination, is a word which has been forced to extend its services far beyond the point to which philosophy would have confined them. It is a metaphor, taken from a. passive sense of the human body, and transferred to things which are in their essence not passive — to intellectual acts and operations. The word Imagination had been overstrained, from impulses honorable to mankind, to meet the demands of the faculty which is perhaps the noblest of our nature. In the instance of Taste, the process has been reversed ; and from the prevalence of dispositions at once injurious and discreditable, being no other than that selfishness which is the child of apathy, which, as nations decline in productive and creative power, makes them value themselves upon a presumed refinement of judging. Poverty of language is the primary cause of the use which we make of the word Imagination, but the word Taste has been stretched to the sense which it bears in modern Europe by habits of self-conceit, inducing that inversion in the order of things whereby a passive faculty is made paramount among the faculties conversant with the fine arts. Proportion and con-

A THEORY OF ART.

gruity, the requisite knowledge being supposed, are subjects upon which Taste may be trusted ; it is competent to this office, — for in its intercourse with these the mind is passive, and is affected painfully or pleasurably as by an instinct. But the profound and the exquisite in feeling ; the lofty and universal in thought and imagination ; or, in ordinary language, the pathetic and the sublime, — are neither of them, accurately speaking, objects of a faculty which could ever without a sinking in the spirit of Nations, have been designated by the metaphor — Taste. And why ? Because without the exertion of a cooperating power in the mind of the reader there can be no adequate sympathy with either of these emotions ; without this auxiliary impulse, elevated or profound passion cannot exist." 1

1 Essay supplementary to the Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Ruskin, who is generally a good negative authority, whatever we may think of his positive opinions on Art, makes the following remarks on this subject. " Wherever the word ' taste ' is used with regard to matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of belongs to some inferior class of objects, or that the person speaking has a false conception of its nature. For, consider the exact sense in which a work of art is said to be * in good or bad taste.' It does not mean that it is true or false ; that it is beautiful or ugly ; but that it does or does not comply either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain modes of life ; or the habits of mind produced by a particular sort of education. It does not mean merely fashionable, that is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper classes ; but it means, agreeing with the habitual sense which the most refined education, common to those upper classes at the period, gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far as that education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate,

INTRODUCTION.

I find a strain of remark altogether similar to this in a spirited essay of Goethe on the same subject.1

and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet instead of gaudy color, and with graceful instead of coarse form ; and by long acquaintance with the best things, to discern quickly what is fine from what is common ; — so far acquired taste is an honorable faculty, and it is true praise of anything to say it is ' in good taste.' But so far as this education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please, and what is brightest can hardly entertain ; — so far as it fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own (as people build marble porticoes, and inlay marble floors, not so much because they like the colors of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber) ; — so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a well said thing better than a true thing, and a well-trained manner better than a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a good-natured one, and in all other ways and things setting custom and semblance above everlasting truth ; — so far, finally, as it induces a sense of inherent distinction between class and class, and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank ; so that the affection, pleasure, or grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred man, — just so far, in all these several ways, the feeling induced by what is called ' a liberal education ' is utterly averse to the understanding of noble art ; and the name which is given to the feeling, — Taste, Gout, Gusto, — in all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that art gives only a kind of pleasure analogous to that derived from eating by the oalate." — Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. v. § 6. 1 Einleitung in die Propylaen ?

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But I should not feel myself moved, even by these great authorities, to dismiss altogether the word Taste from the vocabulary of Art, simply because the faculty which it stands for has, not by its own fault, been made to usurp a place to which it is not entitled. I should prefer rather to restore it to its union with the Imagination, refusing to consider its decisions as infallible, except where it plainly acts in concert with, and in subserviency to that rightfully magisterial faculty. But I shall have something further to remark on the subject of taste, and of the aesthetical faculty generally, in another part of these lectures.

We are perhaps least sensible how much the activity of our own imagination is concerned in producing our perception of the beautiful, when we feel it in the presence of the beautiful objects of Nature. And yet undoubtedly the sense of beauty is first awakened, in the experience of nearly every one, from the contemplation of natural objects in a fit and predisposing temper of mind. In general, it is the grand spectacle of Nature spread out before the eyes of all, which, in its ever varying aspects, supplies the chief sources of their aesthetical enjoyment to the mass of mankind. And indeed, the principles of beauty in Nature are so essentially the same with those lying at the ground of all beauty in Art, that to sin against one is inevitably to fail in the other. Still, it is evident, that in a

IN TROD UCTION.

philosophical theory of the beautiful in general, it is the productions of human Art in particular, and taken in distinction from those of Nature, which must constitute the special object of inquiry ; and for this good reason, that in Nature beauty is never the essential thing — is not that which Nature specially aims at and works after. It is rather an accident ; or it is a quality coexisting with so many other qualities which address themselves more directly to our interests, as to be either altogether shut out of view, or else so confounded with them as not to be clearly distinguishable. But it must be quite evident to every person who reflects, that in making out the scientific theory of a matter, the object of inquiry should be separated and detached, to the utmost degree possible, from all other matter not belonging to its own proper essence. The object, then, in our present inquiry, is to make out what it is, in essence and principle, that constitutes the beautiful wherever it appears, and wherever it produces those effects by which we recognize it : and as to realize such effects, alone, and separate from all disturbing accidents, is the express end of Art, and an end which Art constantly realizes, — so far as it is what it professes to be, and is not a mere pretension,— it is manifest that a true Theory, while it ought by no means to neglect or overlook the Beautiful in Nature, must, after all, be mainly directed to the consideration of those productions of the hu-

A THEORY OF ART.

man mind where Beauty — a quality which only the human mind finds in Nature — being the sole object aimed at, would be likely to find its purest realization.

Having taken this general view of the subject now before us, let us next proceed to examine why it should be studied, what constitutes its worth and importance as an intellectual discipline, what grounds there may be for presuming that it can be contemplated under a scientific form, and what method should be observed in the treatment of a science of this nature.

I take up the two first of these heads chiefly with a view to relieve the subject of certain difficulties and objections which are apt to present themselves to some minds. An objection felt, and often expressed, by men whose judgment is not to be despised, is, that the subject wants substantial interest and dignity ; that it is not connected with any really serious end of human life. Life, it is said, is earnest ; Art is but sport. It is at best but a relaxation, which is the very opposite of a discipline. Its natural tendency is to enervate and enfeeble, and such has been its actual influence on individuals and on nations. This is one objection.

It is said, again, that Art cannot be studied as a science, or in the manner of a science ; it cannot be reduced to any such form. The arts are all of them addressed to our sensuous nature, to the feel-

INTRODUCTION.

ings, to the imagination, rather than to thought It is not scientific thought, but the most wayward and capricious of all our powers which is called into exercise in contemplating the arts of taste. Moreover, it is the very essence of Art to be free. It will not be shackled by rules. It belongs wholly to the free world of fancy and imagination. Art soars beyond Nature, beyond real life, beyond the region of actual things, and revels in the inexhaustible kingdom of possibilities. How is it conceivable that scientific thought can fully compass and reduce to the order of a system the mode of working peculiar to a faculty of such boundless, unfettered activity ?

Another objection, akin to the foregoing, arises from the great difficulty, not to say the impossibility, which many find, of arriving at any common standard of taste in a case where it is so obvious that the judgment must be left free, or rather that each must judge according to his own emotions, which neither will nor can be controlled by any outward rule. And as the imagination itself can give to particular forms of the beautiful an endless diversity ; as it works among one people, and in one age, in a way quite different from what it does among another people, and in another age, — so it would seem that there must also be an equally endless diversity of tastes, and therefore no common rule of judgment in matters of this sort. Moreover such a rule, if conceivable in theory, would be undesirable in practice, since it would only lead to a lifeless uniformity, or a monotonous elegance, against which both Art and Nature equally protest.

To take up these objections in their order, it may be remarked, first, as to the claim of Art and its theory to be considered as an important branch of intellectual discipline, that, though artistic pursuits are often regarded as a mere pastime, an elegant amusement, one of the better modes of increasing the sum of human enjoyment ; while their worth is measured simply by the degree in which they contribute to the means of private luxury, or to the splendor of national character ; though art is thus commonly considered in the light of a means to something else, and its importance estimated merely by its utility, — yet, rightly considered, according to its true conception, it will present itself in quite another aspect, and challenge our respect and attention by its own independent and intrinsic dignity.

Art has its foundation in man's dissatisfaction with the finite, the imperfect. It is a striving after the absolutely perfect, grounded in the infinite longings of the human soul. In its highest and true meaning, it belongs to the same circle with the other high, practical interests and needs of a free, self-conscious being, and of the life of the spirit, — morals, the social state, religion. It is one mode, the first, perhaps, which would naturally occur to the

IN TROD UCTION.

human mind left to itself, of seeking to answer the need, which man, as a rational being, must ever feel, of bringing distinctly out to his own consciousness certain truths already involved in his spiritual nature. There has been a time in the history of our race when men strove to embody their ideas of the universe, and all their notions of religion, in works of art ; in which they strove to make distinct to themselves, in this particular way, — in outward determinate forms of sense, — the ideas of those matters of which they were dimly conscious in their own minds. Thus they endeavored to express in the finite the infinite, which, indeed, cannot adequately be so expressed. That time has long since passed away ; nor can Art now furnish the same satisfaction from the sense of having realized its object as it formerly could. But the essence of Art is still the same. Man is capable, now, it is true, of a better realization of what is spiritual, — of what belongs to the pure truth of ideas, — in other ways than by Art. But Art belongs still to the same great circle of human endeavors and activities. It belongs to the free domain of man's spirit. We still feel ennobled, exalted, — we are still impressed with a sense of the inherent worth and dignity of man's nature, — in contemplating a great work of art.