Art Principles Part 18

NOTE 1. PAGE 2

It is usual and proper to distinguish three kinds of beauty in painting, namely, of colour, of form, and of expression. But form must be defined by tones, and colour without form is meaningless: hence in the general consideration of the painter's art, it is convenient to place form and colour together as representing the sensorial element of beauty.

Nevertheless colour and form are not on the same plane in regard to sense perception. Harmony of colour is distinguished involuntarily by nerve sensations, but in the case of harmony of form there must be a certain consideration before its aesthetic determination. The recognition of this harmony commonly appears to be instantaneous, but still it is delayed, the delay varying with the complexity of the signs, that is to say, with the quality of the beauty.

NOTE 2. PAGE 2

Benedetto Croce, the inventor of the latest serious aesthetic system, talks of the "science of art," but he says[a]:

Science--true science, is a science of the spirit--Philosophy.

Natural sciences spoken of apart from philosophy, are complexes of knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed.

It is perhaps needless to say that Croce's aesthetic system, like all the others, collapses on a breath of inquiry. On the purely philosophical side of it, further criticism is unnecessary, and its practical outcome from the point of view of art is not far removed from the amazing conclusions of Hegel. From the latter philosopher we learn that an idol in the form of a stone pillar, or an animal set up by the primitive races, is higher art than a drama by Shakespeare, or a portrait by t.i.tian, because it represents the Idea (Hegel's unintelligible abstraction--see Note 5), while Croce tells us that "the art of savages is not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, provided it be correlated to the impressions of the savages." Clearly if this be so, we are not surprised to learn from Croce that Aristotle "failed to discern the true nature of the aesthetic." Nevertheless, whatever be the outcome of Croce's arguments, his system is at least more plausible than that of either Hegel or Schopenhauer, for while these two invent highly improbable abstractions upon which to base their systems, Croce only gives new functions to an old and reasonable abstraction.

[a] _aesthetic_, Douglas Ainslie Translation, 1909.

NOTE 3. PAGE 3

The writer does not mean to suggest that these systems are set up for the purpose of being knocked down: he desires only to indicate surprise that in new works dealing with the perception of beauty, it is considered necessary to restate the old aesthetic theories and to point out their drawbacks, albeit the fatal objections to them are so numerous that there is always fresh ground available for destructive criticism.

The best of the recent works on the subject that have come under the notice of the writer, is E. F. Carritt's review of the present position in respect of aesthetic systems. Though profound, he is so comprehensive that he leaves little or nothing of importance for succeeding critics to say till the next system is put forward. Yet here is his conclusion[a]:

If any point can be thought to have emerged from the foregoing considerations, it is this: that in the history of aesthetics we may discover a growing pressure of emphasis upon the doctrine that all beauty is the expression of what may be generally called emotion, and that all such expression is beautiful.

This is all that an acute investigator can draw from the sum of the aesthetic systems advanced. Now what does this mean? Let us turn to the last page of Carritt's book and find the object of the search after a satisfactory aesthetic system. It is, he says, "the desire to understand goodness and beauty and their relations with each other or with knowledge, as well as to practise or enjoy them." If we accept beauty as the expression of emotion, how far have we progressed towards the indicated goal? Not a step, for we have only agreed upon a new way of stating an obvious condition which applies to the animal world as well as to human beings. Beyond this there is nothing--not a glimpse of suns.h.i.+ne from all the aesthetic systems laid down since the time of Baumgarten.

More than twenty years ago Leo Tolstoy pointed out the unintelligible character of these systems, but no further light has been thrown upon them. Nevertheless Tolstoy's own interpretation of the significance of beauty cannot possibly meet with general approval. He disputes that art is directly a.s.sociated with beauty or pleasure, and finds in fact that what we call the beautiful representation of nature is not necessarily art, but that[b]

Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings, and also experience them.

This definition may mean almost anything, and particularly it may imply pure imitation which Tolstoy condemns as outside of art. But it certainly does not include many forms of what we call art, the author specially condemning for instance, _Romeo and Juliet_, and declaring that while _Faust_ is beautiful, "it cannot produce a really artistic impression." The definition then seems to represent little more than a quibble over terms. Tolstoy says that the beautiful representation of nature is not art, but something else is. Very well then, all we have to do is to find a new term for this representation of nature, and the position remains as before except that the meaning of the term "art" has been changed.

[a] _The Theory of Beauty_, 1914.

[b] _What is Art?_ Aylmer Maude Translation.

NOTE 4. PAGE 8

The evolutionary principle has been applied to art by Herbert Spencer and J. A. Symonds, but not in the sense in which it is used in connection with the development of living organisms. Spencer traces a progression from the simple to the complex in the application of the arts, but not in the arts themselves[a]; and Symonds endeavours to prove that each separate marked period of art shows a progression which is common to all; that is, from immature variations to a high type, then downwards through a lower form represented by romanticism or elegance, to realism, and from this to hybrid forms.[b] Spencer's argument is suggestive, but his conclusions have been mostly upset by archaeological discoveries made since his great book was published. The ill.u.s.trations given by Symonds are highly illuminating, but they are very far from postulating a general law of evolution operating in the production of art.

[a] _First Principles_.

[b] Essay on _Evolutionary Principles_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 24 (See page 260) The Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo (_Vatican_)]

NOTE 5. PAGE 8

It seems necessary to mention Hegel's art periods, though one can only do so with a feeling of regret that a man who achieved a high reputation as a philosopher should have entered the province of art only to misconstrue its purpose with fantastic propositions which have no historical or other apparent foundation. He divides art history into Symbolic, Cla.s.sic, and Romantic periods respectively. To accomplish this he invents or discovers a new abstraction which he calls the Idea, this representing man's conception, not of G.o.d, but of His perfection--His supreme qualities, so that in one sense the Idea may be called the Absolute, in another the Spirit, and in another, Truth. These terms are in fact interchangeable, and each may be a manifestation of another, or of G.o.d. This Idea, he says, being perfect beauty, is the basic concept of art. In archaic times man was unable to give expression to this concept, so he represented it by symbols: hence the earliest art was Symbolic art. In the time of the Greeks man had so advanced that he was able to give higher expression to the Idea, and he embodied it in a perfect human form. This is the Cla.s.sic period, which Hegel indicates continued till Christianity spread abroad, when Cla.s.sic form, though perfect as art, was found insufficient for the now desired still higher expression of the Idea. This expression could not be put into stone, so other arts than sculpture were used for it, namely, poetry, painting, and music, which are placed together as Romantic art. This is as nearly as possible a statement of the periods of Hegel in short compa.s.s. It is impossible to interpret logically his arguments, nor is it necessary, for his conclusions when tested in the light of experience, develop into inexplicable paradoxes and contradictions which border on the ridiculous. Needless to say, the acceptance of this division means the annihilation of our ideas of the meaning of art, and the condemnation to the limbo of forgetfulness of nearly all the artists whose memory is honoured.

The general interpretation of the terms "Cla.s.sic Art" and "Romantic Art"

widely differs from that of Hegel, and varies with the arts. In the literary arts the distinction is obvious, but the terms are used to define both periods and cla.s.ses; in architecture the Gothic period is usually called the Romantic epoch; and in painting the terms have reference to manner, the more formal manner being called Cla.s.sic, and the soft manner, Romantic; though it is commonly understood that Romantic art is especially concerned with subjects a.s.sociated with the gentler side of life. But there is no general agreement. Some writers a.s.sert that Giorgione was the first of the romanticists, others give the palm to Watteau, a third section to Delacroix, and a fourth to the Barbizon School. We must await a clear definition of "Romantic Art."

NOTE 6. PAGE 8

It may be reasonably argued that the want of development of the plastic arts in England during the literary revival, was largely due to artificial restrictions. Fine paintings were ordered out of the churches by Elizabeth, and many were destroyed; while, following the lead of the court, there was little or no encouragement offered by the public to artists except perhaps in portraiture. Flaxman truly said of the destruction of works of art in this period, that the check to the national art in England occurred at a time which offered the most essential and extraordinary a.s.sistance to its progress.

NOTE 7. PAGE 16

During the last half century or so, various writers of repute, including Ruskin and Dean Farrar, have professed to find in the poorer works of the Italian painters of the fourteenth century, and even in paintings of Margaritone and others of the previous century, evidence of strong religious emotion on the part of the artists. It is claimed that their purpose in giving simple solemn faces to their Madonnas and Saints, was "to tell the sacred story in all its beauty and simplicity"; that they possessed a "powerful sincerity of emotion"; that they "delivered the burning messages of prophecy with the stammering lips of infancy," and so on. It is proper to say that there is nothing to support this view of the early painters. We find no trace of any suggestions of the kind till the last of these artists had been dead for about four hundred years, while their lives, so far as we have any record, lend no warranty to the statements. The painters of the fourteenth century took their art seriously, but purely as a craft, and it was not uncommon with them to combine two or three other crafts with that of painting. They designed mostly sacred subjects for the simple reason that the art patrons of the day seldom ordered anything else. In their private lives they a.s.sociated together, were generally agreeable companions, and not averse to an occasional escapade. Moreover the time in which they lived was notable for what we should call loose habits, and indeed from the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth, religious observances and practices were of a more hollow and formal character than they have ever been since.

The position occupied by these painters in the progression of art from the crude Byzantine period upwards, corresponds with that of the Roman painters of the third and fourth centuries in the progression downwards to the Byzantine epoch, and there is no more reason for supposing that the Italians were actuated by special emotions in their work, than that the Romans were so moved. In both cases the character of the work, as Reynolds put it in referring to the Italians, was the result of want of knowledge. The countenances usually presented by both Roman and Italian artists have a half sad, half resigned expression, because this was the only kind of expression that could be given by an immature painter whose ideal was restricted by the necessity of eliminating elements which might indicate happiness. Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi, Duccio, and a few more, were exceptions in that their art was infinitely superior to the average of the century, but all from Giotto downwards, laboured as craftsmen only. No doubt they often worked with enthusiasm, and in this way their emotions may have been brought into play, but there is no possible means of identifying in a picture the emotions which an artist may have experienced while he was painting it.

As to the sad expression referred to in these Italian works, it may be observed that Edgar A. Poe held that the tone of the highest manifestation of beauty is one of sadness. "Beauty of whatever kind," he says, "in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."[a] But Poe is clearly mistaken here. It is not the beauty of the work that affects the emotions to tears, when they are so affected, but the subject of the design exhibiting the beauty. A picture or poem representing a sad subject may be very beautiful, but the sadness itself would not a.s.sist the beauty, though it might increase the emotional effect. The higher forms of beauty rarely draw our tears, but elicit our admiration without direct thought of anything but the beauty.

Who would weep when in front of the greatest marvels of Greek sculpture?

[a] _The Philosophy of Composition._

NOTE 8. PAGE 21

It is commonly, but wrongfully, supposed that Rembrandt used his broadest manner in painting commissioned portraits. The number of his portraits known to exist is about 450, of which fifty-five are representations of himself, and fifty-four of members of his household, or relatives. There are, further, more than seventy studies of old men and women, and thirty of younger men. The balance are commissioned portraits or groups. This last section includes none at all of his palette knife pictures, and not more than two or three which are executed with his heaviest brushes. Generally his work broadened in his later period, but up to the end of his life his more important works were often painted in a comparatively fine manner, though the handling was less careful and close.[a] The broadest style of the artist is rarely exhibited except in his studies and family portraits. Further it is extremely unlikely that a palette-knife picture would have been accepted in Holland during Rembrandt's time as a serious work in portraiture.

[a] See among works dating after 1660, The Syndics of the Drapers, Portrait of a Young Man, Wachtmeister Collection; Lady with a Dog, Colmar Museum; and Portrait of a Young Man, late Beit Collection.

NOTE 9. PAGE 22

Darwin pointed out the permanent character of the changes in the nerves, though he submitted another demonstration[a]:

That some physical change is produced in the nerve cells or nerves which are habitually used can hardly be doubted, for otherwise it is impossible to understand how the tendency to certain acquired movements is inherited.