[Sidenote] _The practical activity of externalization._
The fact of the production of the physically beautiful implies, as has
already been remarked, a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing
certain visions, intuitions, or representations, to be lost. Such a will
must be able to act with the utmost rapidity, and as it were
instinctively, and also be capable of long and laborious deliberations.
Thus and only thus does the practical activity enter into relations with
the aesthetic, that is to say, in effecting the production of physical
objects, which are aids to memory. Here it is not merely a concomitant,
but really a distinct moment of the aesthetic activity. We cannot will
or not will our aesthetic vision: we can, however, will or not will to
externalize it, or better, to preserve and communicate, or not, to
others, the externalization produced.
[Sidenote] _The technique of externalization._
This volitional fact of externalization is preceded by a complex of
various kinds of knowledge. These are known as _techniques_, like all
knowledge which precedes the practical activity. Thus we talk of an
artistic technique in the same metaphorical and elliptic manner that we
talk of the physically beautiful, that is to say (in more precise
language), _knowledge employed by the practical activity engaged in
producing stimuli to aesthetic reproduction_. In place of employing so
lengthy a phrase, we shall here avail ourselves of the vulgar
terminology, since we are henceforward aware of its true meaning.
The possibility of this technical knowledge, at the service of artistic
reproduction, has caused people to imagine the existence of an aesthetic
technique of internal expression, which is tantamount to saying, _a
doctrine of the means of internal expression_, which is altogether
inconceivable. And we know well the reason why it is inconceivable;
expression, considered in itself, is primary theoretic activity, and, in
so far as it is this, it precedes the practical activity and the
intellectual knowledge which illumines the practical activity, and is
thus independent alike of the one and of the other. It also helps to
illumine the practical activity, but is not illuminated by it.
Expression does not employ _means_, because it has not an _end_; it has
intuitions of things, but does not will them, and is thus indivisible
into means and end. Thus if it be said, as sometimes is the case, that a
certain writer has invented a new technique of fiction or of drama, or
that a painter has discovered a new mode of distribution of light, the
word is used in a false sense; because the so-called _new technique is
really that romance itself, or that new picture_ itself. The
distribution of light belongs to the vision itself of the picture; as
the technique of a dramatist is his dramatic conception itself. On other
occasions, the word "technique" is used to designate certain merits or
defects in a work which is a failure; and it is said, euphemistically,
that the conception is bad, but the technique good, or that the
conception is good, and the technique bad.
On the other hand, when the different ways of painting in oils, or of
etching, or of sculpturing in alabaster, are discussed, then the word
"technique" is in its place; but in such a case the adjective "artistic"
is used metaphorically. And if a dramatic technique in the artistic
sense be impossible, a theatrical technique is not impossible, that is
to say, processes of externalization of certain given aesthetic works.
When, for instance, women were introduced on the stage in Italy in the
second half of the sixteenth century, in place of men dressed as women,
this was a true and real discovery in theatrical technique; such too was
the perfecting in the following century by the impresarios of Venice, of
machines for the rapid changing of the scenes.
[Sidenote] _The theoretic techniques of the individual arts._
The collection of technical knowledge at the service of artists desirous
of externalizing their expressions, can be divided into groups, which
may be entitled _theories of the arts_. Thus is born a theory of
Architecture, comprising mechanical laws, information relating to the
weight or to the resistance of the materials of construction or of
fortification, manuals relating to the method of mixing chalk or stucco;
a theory of Sculpture, containing advice as to the instruments to be
used for sculpturing the various sorts of stone, for obtaining a
successful fusion of bronze, for working with the chisel, for the exact
copying of the model in chalk or plaster, for keeping chalk damp; a
theory of Painting, on the various techniques of tempera, of
oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportions of the
human body, on the laws of perspective; a theory of Oratory, with
precepts as to the method of producing, of exercising and of
strengthening the voice, of mimic and gesture; a theory of Music, on the
combinations and fusions of tones and sounds; and so on. Such
collections of precepts abound in all literatures. And since it soon
becomes impossible to say what is useful and what useless to know, books
of this sort become very often a sort of encyclopaedias or catalogues of
desiderata. Vitruvius, in his treatise on Architecture, claims for the
architect a knowledge of letters, of drawing, of geometry, of
arithmetic, of optic, of history, of natural and moral philosophy, of
jurisprudence, of medicine, of astrology, of music, and so on.
Everything is worth knowing: learn the art and lay it aside.
It should be evident that such empirical collections are not reducible
to a science. They are composed of notions, taken from various sciences
and teachings, and their philosophical and scientific principles are to
be found in them. To undertake the construction of a scientific theory
of the different arts, would be to wish to reduce to the single and
homogeneous what is by nature multiple and heterogeneous; to wish to
destroy the existence as a collection of what was put together precisely
to form a collection. Were we to give a scientific form to the manuals
of the architect, the painter, or the musician, it is clear that nothing
would remain in our hands but the general principles of Mechanic, Optic,
or Acoustic. Or if the especially artistic observations disseminated
through it be extracted and isolated, and a science be made of them,
then the sphere of the individual art is deserted and that of Aesthetic
entered upon, for Aesthetic is always general Aesthetic, or better, it
cannot be divided into general and special. This last case (that is, the
attempt to furnish a technique of Aesthetic) is found, when men
possessing strong scientific instincts and a natural tendency to
philosophy, set themselves to work to produce such theories and
technical manuals.
[Sidenote] _Critique of the aesthetic theories of the individual
arts._
But the confusion between Physic and Aesthetic has attained to its
highest degree, when aesthetic theories of the different arts are
imagined, to answer such questions as: What are the _limits_ of each
art? What can be represented with colours, and what with sounds? What
with simple monochromatic lines, and what with touches of various
colours? What with notes, and what with metres and rhymes? What are the
limits between the figurative and the auditional arts, between painting
and sculpture, poetry and music?
This, translated into scientific language, is tantamount to asking: What
is the connexion between Acoustic and aesthetic expression? What between
the latter and Optic?--and the like. Now, if _there is no passage_ from
the physical fact to the aesthetic, how could there be from the
aesthetic to particular groups of aesthetic facts, such as the phenomena
of Optic or of Acoustic?
[Sidenote] _Critique of the classifications of the arts._
The things called _Arts_ have no aesthetic limits, because, in order to
have them, they would need to have also aesthetic existence; and we have
demonstrated the altogether empirical genesis of those divisions.
Consequently, any attempt at an aesthetic classification of the arts is
absurd. If they be without limits, they are not exactly determinable,
and consequently cannot be philosophically classified. All the books
dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned
without any loss whatever. (We say this with the utmost respect to the
writers who have expended their labours upon them.)
The impossibility of such classifications finds, as it were, its proof
in the strange methods to which recourse has been had to carry them out.
The first and most common classification is that into arts of _hearing,
sight_, and _imagination_; as if eyes, ears, and imagination were on the
same level, and could be deduced from the same logical variable, as
foundation of the division. Others have proposed the division into arts
of _space and time_, and arts of _rest_ and _motion_; as if the concepts
of space, time, rest, and motion could determine special aesthetic
forms, or have anything in common with art as such. Finally, others have
amused themselves by dividing them into _classic and romantic_, or into
_oriental, classic, and romantic_, thereby conferring the value of
scientific concepts on simple historical denominations, or adopting
those pretended partitions of expressive forms, already criticized
above; or by talking of arts _that can only be seen from one side_, like
painting, and of arts _that can be seen from all sides_, like
sculpture--and similar extravagances, which exist neither in heaven nor
on the earth.
The theory of the limits of the arts was, perhaps, at the time when it
was put forward, a beneficial critical reaction against those who
believed in the possibility of the flowing of one expression into
another, as of the _Iliad_ or of _Paradise Lost_ into a series of
paintings, and thus held a poem to be of greater or lesser value,
according as it could or could not be translated into pictures by a
painter. But if the rebellion were reasonable and victorious, this does
not mean that the arguments adopted and the theories made as required
were sound.
[Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the union of the arts._
Another theory which is a corollary to that of the limits of the arts,
falls with them; that of the _union of the arts_. Granted different
arts, distinct and limited, the questions were asked: Which is the most
powerful? Do we not obtain more powerful effects by uniting several? We
know nothing of this: we know only, in each individual case, that
certain given artistic intuitions have need of definite physical means
for their reproduction, and that other artistic intuitions have need of
other physical means. We can obtain the effect of certain dramas by
simply reading them; others need declamation and scenic display: some
artistic intuitions, for their full extrinsication, need words, song,
musical instruments, colours, statuary, architecture, actors; while
others are beautiful and complete in a single delicate sweep of the pen,
or with a few strokes of the pencil. But it is false to suppose that
declamation and scenic effects, and all the other things we have
mentioned together, are _more powerful_ than simply reading, or than the
simple stroke with the pen and with the pencil; because each of these
facts or groups of facts has, so to say, a different object, and the
power of the different means employed cannot be compared when the
objects are different.
[Sidenote] _Connexion of the activity of externalization with utility
and morality._
Finally, it is only from the point of view of a clear and rigorous
distinction between the true and proper aesthetic activity, and the
practical activity of externalization, that we can solve the involved
and confused questions as to the relations between _art and utility_,
and _art and morality_.
That art as art is independent alike of utility and of morality, as also
of every volitional form, we have above demonstrated. Without this
independence, it would not be possible to speak of an intrinsic value of
art, nor indeed to conceive an aesthetic science, which demands the
autonomy of the aesthetic fact as a necessity of its existence.
But it would be erroneous to maintain that this independence of the
vision or intuition or internal expression of the artist should be at
once extended to the practical activity of externalization and of
communication, which may or may not follow the aesthetic fact. If art be
understood as the externalization of art, then utility and morality have
a perfect right to deal with it; that is to say, the right one possesses
to deal with one's own household.
We do not, as a matter of fact, externalize and fix all of the many
expressions and intuitions which we form in our mind; we do not declare
our every thought in a loud voice, or write down, or print, or draw, or
colour, or expose it to the public gaze. _We select_ from the crowd of
intuitions which are formed or at least sketched within us; and the
selection is governed by selection of the economic conditions of life
and of its moral direction. Therefore, when we have formed an intuition,
it remains to decide whether or no we should communicate it to others,
and to whom, and when, and how; all of which considerations fall equally
under the utilitarian and ethical criterion.
Thus we find the concepts of _selection_, of the _interesting_, of
_morality_, of an _educational end_, of _popularity_, etc., to some
extent justified, although these can in no wise be justified as imposed
upon art as art, and we have ourselves denounced them in pure Aesthetic.
Error always contains an element of truth. He who formulated those
erroneous aesthetic propositions had his eye on practical facts, which
attach themselves externally to the aesthetic fact in economic and moral
life.
By all means, be partisans of a yet greater liberty in the vulgarization
of the means of aesthetic reproduction; we are of the same opinion, and
let us leave the proposals for legislative measures, and for actions to
be instigated against immoral art, to hypocrites, to the ingenuous, and
to idlers. But the proclamation of this liberty, and the fixation of its
limits, how wide soever they be, is always the affair of morality. And
it would in any case be out of place to invoke that highest principle,
that _fundamentum Aesthetices_, which is the independence of art, in
order to deduce from it the guiltlessness of the artist, who, in the
externalization of his imaginings, should calculate upon the unhealthy
tastes of his readers; or that licenses should be granted to the hawkers
who sell obscene statuettes in the streets. This last case is the affair
of the police; the first must be brought before the tribunal of the
moral conscience. The aesthetic judgment on the work of art has nothing
to do with the morality of the artist, in so far as he is a practical
man, nor with the precautions to be taken that art may not be employed
for evil purposes alien to its essence, which is pure theoretic
contemplation.