Aesthetic Irradiation And Purification
THE storage and transfer of aesthetic emotion explain yet another
fact, with which indeed I began this little book: namely that the
word Beautiful has been extended from whatever is satisfactory in
our contemplation of shapes, to a great number of cases where there
can be no question of shapes at all, as in speaking of a "beautiful
character" and a "fine moral attitude"; or else, as in the case of a
"beautiful bit of m
"splendid surgical operation" where the shapes involved are not at
all such as to afford contemplative satisfaction. In such cases the
word Beautiful has been brought over with the emotion of
satisfied contemplation. And could we examine microscopically the
minds of those who are thus applying it, we might perhaps detect,
round the fully-focussed thought of that admirable but nowise
shapely thing or person or proceeding, the shadowy traces of
half-forgotten shapes, visible or audible, forming a halo of real aesthetic
experience, and evoked by that word Beautiful whose application
they partially justify. Nor is this all. Recent psychology teaches that,
odd as it at first appears, our more or less definite images, auditive
as well as visual, and whether actually perceived or merely
remembered, are in reality the intermittent part of the mind's
contents, coming and going and weaving themselves on to a
constant woof of our own activities and feelings. It is precisely such
activities and feelings which are mainly in question when we apply
the words Beautiful and Ugly. Thus everything which has come
in connexion with occasions for satisfactory shape-contemplation,
will meet with somewhat of the same reception as that shape-contemplation
originally elicited. And even the merest items of information which
the painter conveys concerning the visible universe; the merest
detail of human character conveyed by the poet; nay even the
mere nervous intoxication furnished by the musician, will all be
irradiated by the emotion due to the shapes they have been conveyed
in, and will therefore be felt as beautiful.
Moreover, as the "beautiful character" and "splendid operation" have
taught us, rare and desirable qualities are apt to be contemplated in a
"platonic" way. And even objects of bodily desire, so long as that
desire is not acute and pressing, may give rise to merely
contemplative longings. All this, added to what has previously been
said, sufficiently explains the many and heterogeneous items which
are irradiated by the word Beautiful and the emotion originally
arising from the satisfied contemplation of mere shapes.
And that this contemplation of beautiful shapes should be at once so
life-corroborating and so strangely impersonal, and that its special
emotion should be so susceptible of radiation and transfer, is
sufficient explanation of the elevating and purifying influence which,
ever since Plato, philosophers have usually ascribed to the Beautiful.
Other moralists however have not failed to point out that art has,
occasionally and even frequently, effects of the very opposite kind.
The ever-recurrent discussion of this seeming contradiction is,
however, made an end of, once we recognise that art has many aims
besides its distinguishing one of increasing our contemplation of the
beautiful. Indeed some of art's many non-aesthetic aims may
themselves be foreign to elevation and purification, or even, as for
instance the lewd or brutal subjects of some painting and poetry, and
the nervous intoxication of certain music, exert a debasing or
enervating influence. But, as the whole of this book has tried to
establish, the contemplation of beautiful shapes involves perceptive
processes in themselves mentally invigorating and refining, and a
play of empathic feelings which realise the greatest desiderata of
spiritual life, viz. intensity, purposefulness and harmony; and such
perceptive and empathic activities cannot fail to raise the present
level of existence and to leave behind them a higher standard for
future experience. This exclusively elevating effect of beautiful
shape as such, is of course proportioned to the attention it receives
and the exclusion of other, and possibly baser, interests connected
with the work of art. On the other hand the purifying effects of
beautiful shapes depend upon the attention oscillating to and fro
between them and those other interests, e.g. subject in the
representative arts, fitness in the applied ones, and
expression in music; all of which non-aesthetic interests benefit
(enhanced if noble, redeemed if base) by irradiation of the nobler
feelings wherewith they are thus associated. For we must not forget
that where opposed groups of feeling are elicited, whichever
happens to be more active and complex will neutralise its opponent.
Thus, while an even higher intensity and complexity of aesthetic
feelings is obtained when the "subject" of a picture, the use of a
building or a chattel, or the expression of a piece of music, is in
itself noble; and a Degas ballet girl can never have the dignity of a
Phidian goddess, nor a gambling casino that of a cathedral, nor
the music to Wilde's Salome that of Brahms' German Requiem,
yet whatever of beauty there may be in the shapes will divert the
attention from the meanness or vileness of the non-aesthetic
suggestion. We do not remember the mercenary and libertine
allegory embodied in Correggio's Danae, or else we reinterpret
that sorry piece of mythology in terms of cosmic occurrences, of the
Earth's wealth increased by the fecundating sky. Similarly it is a
common observation that while unmusical Bayreuth-goers often
attribute demoralising effects to some of Wagner's music, the
genuinely musical listeners are unaware, and usually incredulous, of
any such evil possibilities.
This question of the purifying power of the Beautiful has brought us
back to our starting-point. It illustrates the distinction between
contemplating an aspect and thinking about things, and this
distinction's corollary that shape as such is yon-side of real and
unreal, taking on the character of reality and unreality only
inasmuch as it is thought of in connexion with a thing. As regards
the possibility of being good or evil, it is evident from all the
foregoing that shape as shape, and without the suggestion of
things, can be evil only in the sense of being ugly, ugliness
diminishing its own drawbacks by being, ipso facto, difficult to
dwell upon, inasmuch as it goes against the grain of our perceptive
and empathic activities. The contemplation of beautiful shape is, on
the other hand, favoured by its pleasurableness, and such
contemplation of beautiful shape lifts our perceptive and empathic
activities, that is to say a large part of our intellectual and emotional
life, on to a level which can only be spiritually, organically, and in
so far, morally beneficial.
More
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Aesthetic Irradiation And Purification
THE storage and transfer of aesthetic emotion explain yet another fact, with which indeed I began this little book: namely that the word Beautiful has been extended from whatever is satisfactory in our contemplation of shapes, to a great number of c... Aesthetic Responsiveness
OUR examination has thus proceeded from aesthetic contemplation to the work of Art, which seeks to secure and satisfy it while furthering some of life's various other claims. We must now go back to aesthetic contemplation and find out how the behold... Aspects Versus Things
HAVING settled upon a particular point of view as the one he liked best, he remained there in contemplation of the aspect it afforded him. Had he descended another twenty minutes, or looked through powerful glasses, he would have seen the plain belo... Attention To Shapes
TO explain how art in general, and any art in particular, succeeds in reconciling these contradictory demands, I must remind the Reader of what I said (p. 93) about the satisfactory or unsatisfactory possibilities of shapes having begun to be notice... Conclusion Evolutional
SOME of my Readers, not satisfied by the answer implicit in the last chapter and indeed in the whole of this little book, may ask a final question concerning our subject. Not: What is the use of Art? since, as we have seen, Art has many and various ... Contemplative Satisfaction
WE have thus defined the word Beautiful as implying an attitude of contemplative satisfaction, marked by a feeling, sometimes amounting to an emotion, of admiration; and so far contrasted it with the practical attitude implied by the word good. But ... Elements Of Shape
LET us now examine some of these relations, not in the genealogical or hierarchic order assigned to them by experimental psychology, but in so far as they constitute the elements of shape, and more especially as they illustrate the general principle... Empathy
THE mountain rises. What do we mean when we employ this form of words? Some mountains, we are told, have originated in an upheaval. But even if this particular mountain did, we never saw it and geologists are still disputing about HOW and WHETHER. S... Facility And Difficulty Of Grasping
OF this we get further proof when we proceed to another and less elementary relationship implied in the perception of shape: the relation of Whole and Parts. In dealing with the ground upon which we perceive our red and black patches to be extend... From The Shape To The Thing
SUCH are the satisfactions and dissatisfactions, impersonal and unpractical, we can receive, or in reality, give ourselves, in the contemplation of shape. But life has little leisure for contemplation; it demands recognition, inference and readin... From The Thing To The Shape
THE necessities of analysis and exposition have led us from the Shape to the Thing, from aesthetic contemplation to discursive and practical thinking. But, as the foregoing chapter itself suggests, the real order of precedence, both for the individu... Information About Things
AMONG the facts which Painting is set to tell us about things, the most important, after cubic existence, is Locomotion. Indeed in the development of the race as well as in that of the individual, pictorial attention to locomotion seems to precede a... Perception Of Relations
WHY should this be the case? Briefly, because colours (and sounds) as such are forced upon us by external stimulation of our organs of sight and hearing, neither more nor less than various temperatures, textures, tastes and smells are forced upon us... Sensations
IN the contemplation of the Aspect before him, what gave that aesthetic man the most immediate and undoubted pleasure was its colour, or, more correctly speaking, its colours. Psycho-Physiologists have not yet told us why colours, taken singly and a... Subject And Object
BUT before proceeding to this additional factor in shape-perception, namely that of Empathic Interpretation, I require to forestall an objection which my Reader has doubtless been making throughout my last chapters; more particularly that in clearin... The Adjective Beautiful
THIS little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it is an introduction, makes no attempt to "form the taste" of the public and still less to direct the doings of the artist. It deals not with ought but with is, leaving to Critici... The Aims Of Art
WE have thus at last got to Art, which the Reader may have expected to be dealt with at the outset of a primer on the Beautiful. Why this could not be the case, will be more and more apparent in my remaining chapters. And, in order to make those c... The Character Of Shapes
IN my example of the Rising Mountain, I have been speaking as if Empathy invested the shapes we look at with only one mode of activity at a time. This, which I have assumed for the simplicity of exposition, is undoubtedly true in the case either of ... The Co-operation Of Things And Shapes
DURING the Middle Ages and up to recent times the chief task of painting has been, ostensibly, the telling and re-telling of the same Scripture stories; and, incidentally, the telling them with the addition of constantly new items of information abo... The Movement Of Lines
ANY tendency to Empathy is perpetually being checked by the need for practical thinking. We are made to think in the most summary fashion from one to another of those grouped possibilities, past, present and future, which we call a Thing; and in suc... The Storage And Transfer Of Emotion
IN dealing with familiarity as a multiplying factor of aesthetic appreciation, I have laid stress on its effect in facilitating the perception and the empathic interpretation of shapes. But repetition directly affects the emotion which may result fr...