constitutes _genius_ are Imagination and Understanding. In the
employment of the Imagination for cognition it submits to the
constraint of the Understanding and is subject to the limitation of
being conformable to the concept of the latter. On the other hand, in
an aesthetical point of view it is free to furnish unsought, over and
above that agreement with a concept, abundance of undeveloped material
for the Understanding; to which the Understanding paid no regard in its
concept, but which it applies, though not objectively for cognition,
yet subjectively to quicken the cognitive powers and therefore also
indirectly to cognitions. Thus genius properly consists in the happy
relation [between these faculties], which no science can teach and no
industry can learn, by which Ideas are found for a given concept; and
on the other hand, we thus find for these Ideas the _expression_, by
means of which the subjective state of mind brought about by them,
as an accompaniment of the concept, can be communicated to others.
The latter talent is properly speaking what is called spirit; for
to express the ineffable element in the state of mind implied by a
certain representation and to make it universally communicable--whether
the expression be in speech or painting or statuary--this requires
a faculty of seizing the quickly passing play of Imagination and of
unifying it in a concept (which is even on that account original
and discloses a new rule that could not have been inferred from any
preceding principles or examples), that can be communicated without any
constraint [of rules].[86]
* * * * *
If after this analysis we look back to the explanation given above
of what is called _genius_, we find: _first_, that it is a talent for
Art, not for Science, in which clearly known rules must go beforehand
and determine the procedure. _Secondly_, as an artistic talent it
presupposes a definite concept of the product, as the purpose, and
therefore Understanding; but it also presupposes a representation
(although an indeterminate one) of the material, _i.e._ of the
intuition, for the presentment of this concept; and, therefore, a
relation between the Imagination and the Understanding. _Thirdly_, it
shows itself not so much in the accomplishment of the proposed purpose
in a presentment of a definite _concept_, as in the enunciation or
expression of _aesthetical Ideas_, which contain abundant material for
that very design; and consequently it represents the Imagination as
free from all guidance of rules and yet as purposive in reference to
the presentment of the given concept. Finally, in the _fourth_ place,
the unsought undesigned subjective purposiveness in the free accordance
of the Imagination with the legality of the Understanding presupposes
such a proportion and disposition of these faculties as no following of
rules, whether of science or of mechanical imitation, can bring about,
but which only the nature of the subject can produce.
In accordance with these suppositions genius is the exemplary
originality of the natural gifts of a subject in the _free_ employment
of his cognitive faculties. In this way the product of a genius (as
regards what is to be ascribed to genius and not to possible learning
or schooling) is an example, not to be imitated (for then that which
in it is genius and constitutes the spirit of the work would be lost),
but to be followed, by another genius; whom it awakens to a feeling of
his own originality and whom it stirs so to exercise his art in freedom
from the constraint of rules, that thereby a new rule is gained for
art, and thus his talent shows itself to be exemplary. But because a
genius is a favourite of nature and must be regarded by us as a rare
phenomenon, his example produces for other good heads a school, _i.e._
a methodical system of teaching according to rules, so far as these can
be derived from the peculiarities of the products of his spirit. For
such persons beautiful art is so far imitation, to which nature through
the medium of a genius supplied the rule.
But this imitation becomes a mere _aping_, if the scholar _copies_
everything down to the deformities, which the genius must have let
pass only because he could not well remove them without weakening his
Idea. This mental characteristic is meritorious only in the case of
a genius. A certain _audacity_ in expression--and in general many a
departure from common rules--becomes him well, but it is in no way
worthy of imitation; it always remains a fault in itself which we
must seek to remove, though the genius is as it were privileged to
commit it, because the inimitable rush of his spirit would suffer
from over-anxious carefulness. _Mannerism_ is another kind of aping,
viz. of mere _peculiarity_ (originality) in general; by which a man
separates himself as far as possible from imitators, without however
possessing the talent to be at the same time _exemplary_.--There
are indeed in general two ways (_modi_) in which such a man may put
together his notions of expressing himself; the one is called a
_manner_ (_modus aestheticus_), the other a _method_ (_modus logicus_).
They differ in this, that the former has no other standard than the
_feeling_ of unity in the presentment, but the latter follows definite
_principles_; hence the former alone avails for beautiful art. But an
artistic product is said to show _mannerism_ only when the exposition
of the artist’s Idea is _founded_ on its very singularity, and is not
made appropriate to the Idea itself. The ostentatious (_précieux_),
contorted, and affected [manner, adopted] to differentiate oneself from
ordinary persons (though devoid of spirit) is like the behaviour of a
man of whom we say, that he hears himself talk, or who stands and moves
about as if he were on a stage in order to be stared at; this always
betrays a bungler.
§ 50. _Of the combination of Taste with Genius in the products of
beautiful Art_
To ask whether it is more important for the things of beautiful art
that Genius or Taste should be displayed, is the same as to ask whether
in it more depends on Imagination or on Judgement. Now, since in
respect of the first an art is rather said to be _full of spirit_, but
only deserves to be called a _beautiful_ art on account of the second;
this latter is at least, as its indispensable condition (_conditio sine
qua non_), the most important thing to which one has to look in the
judging of art as beautiful art. Abundance and originality of Ideas
are less necessary to beauty than the accordance of the Imagination in
its freedom with the conformity to law of the Understanding. For all
the abundance of the former produces in lawless freedom nothing but
nonsense; on the other hand, the Judgement is the faculty by which it
is adjusted to the Understanding.
Taste, like the Judgement in general, is the discipline (or training)
of Genius; it clips its wings closely, and makes it cultured and
polished; but, at the same time, it gives guidance as to where and
how far it may extend itself, if it is to remain purposive. And while
it brings clearness and order into the multitude of the thoughts, it
makes the Ideas susceptible of being permanently and, at the same time,
universally assented to, and capable of being followed by others, and
of an ever-progressive culture. If, then, in the conflict of these two
properties in a product something must be sacrificed, it should be
rather on the side of genius; and the Judgement, which in the things of
beautiful art gives its decision from its own proper principles, will
rather sacrifice the freedom and wealth of the Imagination than permit
anything prejudicial to the Understanding.
For beautiful art, therefore, _Imagination_, _Understanding_, _Spirit_,
and _Taste_ are requisite.[87]
§ 51. _Of the division of the beautiful arts_
We may describe beauty in general (whether natural or artificial) as
the _expression_ of aesthetical Ideas; only that in beautiful Art this
Idea must be occasioned by a concept of the Object; whilst in beautiful
Nature the mere reflection upon a given intuition, without any concept
of what the object is to be, is sufficient for the awakening and
communicating of the Idea of which that Object is regarded as the
_expression_.
If, then, we wish to make a division of the beautiful arts, we
cannot choose a more convenient principle, at least tentatively,
than the analogy of art with the mode of expression of which men
avail themselves in speech, in order to communicate to one another
as perfectly as possible not merely their concepts but also their
sensations.[88]--This is done by _word_, _deportment_, and _tone_
(articulation, gesticulation, and modulation). It is only by the
combination of these three kinds of expression that communication
between the speaker [and his hearers] can be complete. For thus
thought, intuition, and sensation are transmitted to others
simultaneously and conjointly.
There are, therefore, only three kinds of beautiful arts; the arts of
_speech_, the _formative_ arts, and the art of the _play of sensations_
(as external sensible impressions). We may also arrange a division by
dichotomy; thus beautiful art may be divided into the art of expression
of thoughts and of intuitions; and these further subdivided in
accordance with their form or their matter (sensation). But this would
appear to be too abstract, and not so accordant with ordinary concepts.
(1) The arts of SPEECH are _rhetoric_ and _poetry_. _Rhetoric_ is the
art of carrying on a serious business of the Understanding as if it
were a free play of the Imagination; _poetry_, the art of conducting a
free play of the Imagination as if it were a serious business of the
Understanding.
The _orator_, then, promises a serious business, and in order to
entertain his audience conducts it as if it were a mere _play_ with
Ideas. The _poet_ merely promises an entertaining play with Ideas,
and yet it has the same effect upon the Understanding as if he had
only intended to carry on its business. The combination and harmony of
both cognitive faculties, Sensibility and Understanding, which cannot
dispense with one another, but which yet cannot well be united without
constraint and mutual prejudice, must appear to be undesigned and so
to be brought about by themselves: otherwise it is not _beautiful_
art. Hence, all that is studied and anxious must be avoided in it, for
beautiful art must be free art in a double sense. It is not a work like
that of a tradesman, the magnitude of which can be judged, exacted, or
paid for, according to a definite standard; and again, though the mind
is occupied, still it feels itself contented and stimulated, without
looking to any other purpose (independently of reward.)
The orator therefore gives something which he does not promise, viz.
an entertaining play of the Imagination; but he also fails to supply
what he did promise, which is indeed his announced business, viz. the
purposive occupation of the Understanding. On the other hand, the poet
promises little and announces a mere play with Ideas; but he supplies
something which is worth occupying ourselves with, because he provides
in this play food for the Understanding, and by the aid of Imagination
gives life to his concepts. [Thus the orator on the whole gives less,
the poet more, than he promises.][89]
(2) The FORMATIVE arts, or those by which expression is found for Ideas
in _sensible intuition_ (not by representations of mere Imagination
that are aroused by words), are either arts of _sensible truth_ or
of _sensible illusion_. The former is called _Plastic_, the latter
_Painting_. Both express Ideas by figures in space; the former makes
figures cognisable by two senses, sight and touch (although not by
the latter as far as beauty is concerned); the latter only by one,
the first of these. The aesthetical Idea (the archetype or original
image) is fundamental for both in the Imagination, but the figure which
expresses this (the ectype or copy) is either given in its bodily
extension (as the object itself exists), or as it paints itself on the
eye (according to its appearance when projected on a flat surface). In
the first case[90] the condition given to reflection may be either the
reference to an actual purpose or only the semblance of it.
To _Plastic_, the first kind of beautiful formative Art, belong
_Sculpture_ and _Architecture_. The _first_ presents corporeally
concepts of things, _as they might have existed in nature_ (though
as beautiful art it has regard to aesthetical purposiveness). The
_second_ is the art of presenting concepts of things that are possible
_only through Art_, and whose form has for its determining ground not
nature but an arbitrary purpose, with the view of presenting them with
aesthetical purposiveness. In the latter the chief point is a certain
_use_ of the artistic object, by which condition the aesthetical Ideas
are limited. In the former the main design is the mere _expression_ of
aesthetical Ideas. Thus statues of men, gods, animals, etc., are of
the first kind; but temples, splendid buildings for public assemblies,
even dwelling-houses, triumphal arches, columns, mausoleums, and the
like, erected in honourable remembrance, belong to Architecture. Indeed
all house furniture (upholsterer’s work and such like things which are
for use) may be reckoned under this art; because the suitability of a
product for a certain use is the essential thing in an _architectural
work_. On the other hand, a mere _piece of sculpture_, which is simply
made for show and which is to please in itself, is as a corporeal
presentation a mere imitation of nature, though with a reference to
aesthetical Ideas; in it _sensible truth_ is not to be carried so far
that the product ceases to look like art and looks like a product of
the elective will.
_Painting_, as the second kind of formative art, which presents a
_sensible illusion_ artificially combined with Ideas, I would divide
into the art of the beautiful _depicting of nature_ and that of the
beautiful _arrangement of its products_. The first is _painting
proper_, the second is the art of _landscape gardening_. The first
gives only the illusory appearance of corporeal extension; the second
gives this in accordance with truth, but only the appearance of
utility and availableness for other purposes than the mere play of
the Imagination in the contemplation of its forms.[91] This latter is
nothing else than the ornamentation of the soil with a variety of
those things (grasses, flowers, shrubs, trees, even ponds, hillocks,
and dells) which nature presents to an observer, only arranged
differently and in conformity with certain Ideas. But, again, the
beautiful arrangement of corporeal things is only apparent to the
eye, like painting; the sense of touch cannot supply any intuitive
presentation of such a form. Under painting in the wide sense I would
reckon the decoration of rooms by the aid of tapestry, bric-a-brac, and
all beautiful furniture which is merely available to be _looked_ at;
and the same may be said of the art of tasteful dressing (with rings,
snuff-boxes, etc.). For a bed of various flowers, a room filled with
various ornaments (including under this head even ladies’ finery), make
at a fête a kind of picture; which, like pictures properly so-called
(that are not intended to _teach_ either history or natural science),
has in view merely the entertainment of the Imagination in free play
with Ideas, and the occupation of the aesthetical Judgement without
any definite purpose. The detailed work in all this decoration may be
quite distinct in the different cases and may require very different
artists; but the judgement of taste upon whatever is beautiful in
these various arts is always determined in the same way: viz. it only
judges the forms (without any reference to a purpose) as they present
themselves to the eye either singly or in combination, according to the
effect they produce upon the Imagination.--But that formative art may
be compared (by analogy) with deportment in speech is justified by the
fact that the spirit of the artist supplies by these figures a bodily
expression to his thought and its mode, and makes the thing itself as
it were speak in mimic language. This is a very common play of our
fancy, which attributes to lifeless things a spirit suitable to their
form by which they speak to us.
(3) The art of the BEAUTIFUL PLAY OF SENSATIONS (externally
stimulated), which admits at the same time of universal communication,
can be concerned with nothing else than the proportion of the
different degrees of the disposition (tension) of the sense, to which
the sensation belongs, _i.e._ with its tone. In this far-reaching
signification of the word it may be divided into the artistic play of
the sensations of hearing and sight, _i.e._ into _Music_ and the _Art
of colour_.--It is noteworthy that these two senses, besides their
susceptibility for impressions so far as these are needed to gain
concepts of external objects, are also capable of a peculiar sensation
bound up therewith, of which we cannot strictly decide whether it is
based on sense or reflection. This susceptibility may sometimes be
wanting, although in other respects the sense, as regards its use for
the cognition of Objects, is not at all deficient but is peculiarly
fine. That is, we cannot say with certainty whether colours or tones
(sounds) are merely pleasant sensations or whether they form in
themselves a beautiful play of sensations, and as such bring with them
in aesthetical judgement a satisfaction in their form. If we think
of the velocity of the vibrations of light, or in the second case
of the air, which probably far surpasses all our faculty of judging
immediately in perception the time interval between them, we must
believe that it is only the _effect_ of these vibrations upon the
elastic parts of our body that is felt, but that the _time interval_
between them is not remarked or brought into judgement; and thus that
only pleasantness and not beauty of composition is bound up with
colours and tones. But on the other hand, _first_, we think of the
mathematical [element] which enables us to pronounce on the proportion
between these oscillations in music and thus to judge of them; and by
analogy with which we easily may judge of the distinctions between
colours. _Secondly_, we recall instances (although they are rare) of
men who with the best sight in the world cannot distinguish colours,
and with the sharpest hearing cannot distinguish tones; whilst for
those who can do this the perception of an altered quality (not merely
of the degree of sensation) in the different intensities in the scale
of colours and tones is definite; and further, the very number of these
is fixed by _intelligible_ differences. Thus we may be compelled to see
that both kinds of sensations are to be regarded not as mere sensible
impressions, but as the effects of a judgement passed upon the form
in the play of divers sensations. The difference in our definition,
according as we adopt the one or the other opinion in judging of the
grounds of Music, would be just this: either, as we have done, we
must explain it as the beautiful play of sensations (of hearing), or
else as a play of _pleasant_ sensations. According to the former mode
of explanation music is represented altogether as a _beautiful_ art;
according to the latter, as a _pleasant_ art (at least in part).
§ 52. _Of the combination of beautiful arts in one and the same product_
Rhetoric may be combined with a pictorial presentation of its subjects
and objects in a _theatrical piece_; poetry may be combined with music
in a _song_, and this again with pictorial (theatrical) presentation in
an _opera_; the play of sensations in music may be combined with the
play of figures in the _dance_, and so on. Even the presentation of
the sublime, so far as it belongs to beautiful art, may combine with
beauty in a _tragedy in verse_, in a _didactic poem_, in an _oratorio_;
and in these combinations beautiful art is yet more artistic. Whether
it is also more beautiful may in some of these cases be doubted (since
so many different kinds of satisfaction cross one another). Yet in
all beautiful art the essential thing is the form, which is purposive
as regards our observation and judgement, where the pleasure is at
the same time cultivation and disposes the spirit to Ideas, and
consequently makes it susceptible of still more of such pleasure and
entertainment. The essential element is not the matter of sensation
(charm or emotion), which has only to do with enjoyment; this leaves
behind nothing in the Idea, and it makes the spirit dull, the object
gradually distasteful, and the mind, on account of its consciousness of
a disposition that conflicts with purpose in the judgement of Reason,
discontented with itself and peevish.
If the beautiful arts are not brought into more or less close
combination with moral Ideas, which alone bring with them a
self-sufficing satisfaction, this latter fate must ultimately be
theirs. They then serve only as a distraction, of which we are the
more in need the more we avail ourselves of them to disperse the
discontent of the mind with itself; so that we thus render ourselves
ever more useless and ever more discontented. The beauties of nature
are generally of most benefit in this point of view, if we are early
accustomed to observe, appreciate, and admire them.
§ 53. _Comparison of the respective aesthetical worth of the beautiful
arts_
Of all the arts _poetry_ (which owes its origin almost entirely to
genius and will least be guided by precept or example) maintains
the first rank. It expands the mind by setting the Imagination at
liberty; and by offering within the limits of a given concept amid
the unbounded variety of possible forms accordant therewith, that
which unites the presentment of this concept with a wealth of thought,
to which no verbal expression is completely adequate; and so rising
aesthetically to Ideas. It strengthens the mind by making it feel its
faculty--free, spontaneous and independent of natural determination--of
considering and judging nature as a phenomenon in accordance with
aspects which it does not present in experience either for Sense or
Understanding, and therefore of using it on behalf of, and as a sort
of schema for, the supersensible. It plays with illusion, which it
produces at pleasure, but without deceiving by it; for it declares
its exercise to be mere play, which however can be purposively used
by the Understanding.--Rhetoric, in so far as this means the art of
persuasion, _i.e._ of deceiving by a beautiful show (_ars oratoria_),
and not mere elegance of speech (eloquence and style), is a Dialectic,
which borrows from poetry only so much as is needful to win minds
to the side of the orator before they have formed a judgement, and
to deprive them of their freedom; it cannot therefore be recommended
either for the law courts or for the pulpit. For if we are dealing
with civil law, with the rights of individual persons, or with lasting
instruction and determination of people’s minds to an accurate
knowledge and a conscientious observance of their duty, it is unworthy
of so important a business to allow a trace of any exuberance of wit
and imagination to appear, and still less any trace of the art of
talking people over and of captivating them for the advantage of any
chance person. For although this art may sometimes be directed to
legitimate and praiseworthy designs, it becomes objectionable, when in
this way maxims and dispositions are spoiled in a subjective point of
view, though the action may objectively be lawful. It is not enough to
do what is right; we should practise it solely on the ground that it
is right. Again, the mere concept of this species of matters of human
concern, when clear and combined with a lively presentation of it in
examples, without any offence against the rules of euphony of speech
or propriety of expression, has by itself for Ideas of Reason (which
collectively constitute eloquence), sufficient influence upon human
minds; so that it is not needful to add the machinery of persuasion,
which, since it can be used equally well to beautify or to hide vice
and error, cannot quite lull the secret suspicion that one is being
artfully overreached. In poetry everything proceeds with honesty and
candour. It declares itself to be a mere entertaining play of the
Imagination, which wishes to proceed as regards form in harmony with
the laws of the Understanding; and it does not desire to steal upon
and ensnare the Understanding by the aid of sensible presentation.[92]