Further determinations of the concept of art--Theoretical and practical
activity--The progress of æsthetic theories--An American instance:
morality and art--The typical--The ends of art--The process of æsthetic
production--Relations of the æsthetic with the practical activity--The
delusion of objective beauty--Æsthetic hedonism--The æsthetic value.
The determination of the concept of art as pure intuition would be
little more than a verbal variation of older doctrines, if its validity
and importance could not be proved in the actual practice of thought on
æsthetic problems, in the study of the relations of the æsthetic fact
with the other facts of human activity, and in the criticism of errors
which have invaded the field of æsthetic thought through a confusion of
the æsthetic with the intellectual or the practical. We shall therefore
not be able to grasp the new concept in the fulness of its meaning
until we have surveyed the whole ground of the philosophy of mind: the
æsthetic concept cannot be said to be fully determined until we have
a clear conception of the other fundamental grades or forms of the
spirit. For the purposes of our exposition, we may however anticipate a
summary or scheme of the essential relations, which will be more fully
developed in the following chapters.
We have already seen how the logical activity springs from the soil
of the pure intuition; how the knowledge of the universal follows the
knowledge of the individual. The æsthetic and the logic grade, of which
the second implies the first, exhaust the whole of knowledge, the
whole theoretical life of man. A third grade or form does not exist:
not in history, which Croce still considered, in the first years of
this period, as reducible to the concept of art, and differentiated
from it only by its employment of the predicate of existence, of the
distinction between reality and imagination; and not in the natural and
mathematical sciences, which elaborate the data of intuition through
fictions, hypotheses, and conventions, which are practical and not
theoretical processes.
The relation between the theoretical and the practical activity is
of the same kind as that between the two grades of the theoretical
activity: that is, the first is the basis of the second. We can think
of a knowing which is independent from the will, but not of a will
which is independent of knowledge: it is impossible to will without
historical intuitions and a knowledge of relations. Within the
practical activity, we can further distinguish two grades corresponding
to the two grades of the theoretical activity: the economic, which
is the will of the individual, of a particular end, and the ethic,
which is the will of the universal, of the rational end. The relation
between the economic and the ethic activity is again the same
grade-relation as between the æsthetic and the logic, the theoretical
and the practical. The concrete life of the human spirit consists in
the perpetually recurring cycle of the four grades of its activity,
which is the law of its unity and development. The concept rises from
the intuition, and action from knowledge; ethical activity is not
conceivable without a theoretical foundation, and the concreteness of
a particular end. At the close of the cycle, the spiritual life itself
becomes the object of a new intuition, from which a new concept and a
new action are reproduced _ad infinitum_. In the history of æsthetics,
the errors deriving from the confusion of that which is distinctively
æsthetic with other forms of theoretical or practical activity,
present themselves as a series of doctrines, which can be considered
as gradual approximations to the definition of art as intuition. It
is not necessarily, or not only, a chronological series, but rather a
succession of actual moments in the deduction of the concept of art.
Empirical æsthetics recognises the existence of a class of æsthetic
or artistic facts, without attempting to reduce them under a single
concept; practical (hedonistic or moralistic) æsthetics makes a first
attempt at interpreting them by putting them in relation with one
of the categories of spiritual activity; intellectualiste æsthetics
denies that they belong to the practical sphere, though failing to
discover their precise theoretical character; agnostic æsthetics
criticises all the preceding moments, and is satisfied with a purely
negative definition; mystic æsthetics, conscious of the difference of
æsthetic from logical facts, makes a new spiritual category of them,
affirms their autonomy and independence, but mistakes the nature of
their relation with conceptual knowledge. We are all more or less
familiar with the various aspects of these doctrines, and it can be
said that none of them (with the exception of the first, which is now
represented by psychologic æsthetics) is now being held consistently
by any responsible thinker. The truth of the intuitive theory, which
we find adumbrated already in classical antiquity in the Aristotelian
theory of _mimesis_, and of which artists and critics have always had a
kind of obscure presentiment, is now implicitly recognised by all who
have an intimate contact with and a sincere feeling for art and poetry.
The literary and artistic development of the end of the eighteenth and
of the nineteenth century has been accompanied by such a wealth of
critical thought, that a conscious understanding of the nature of art
is now much more frequent than in former ages. The forces that were
at work liberating logical and moral thought from the shackles of the
past, reacted vigorously on æsthetic thought, and helped to make it
more and more independent from both intellectualistic and moralistic
errors. It would be possible to extract aphorisms and meditations from
the writings of the greatest poets, artists, and musicians of the
period, to show how common among them was and is the knowledge of the
spiritual autonomy and of the intuitive character of art. But because
the task of the artist is not that of elaborating a philosophy of art,
and a good many critics and æstheticians, on the other hand, have very
little experience of the actual æsthetic processes, we find that though
the other doctrines are discredited, yet a number of prejudices which
have their roots in them are still current,--the artists themselves
rejecting them, as it were, by instinct and not by reasoning, and the
critics and æstheticians clinging to them because they help them to
gain a fictitious possession of that artistic reality which escapes
them in its purity and actuality. An intellectualiste or moralistic
critic can easily mask his lack of æsthetic taste, his fundamental
ignorance of art, by talking at length and with great solemnity about
unessentials. Artists and poets, on the other hand, are apt to react
to these prejudices by falling into the errors of æstheticism, that
is by attributing to their empirical selves the freedom that belongs
to their function, and by denying in the name of art the autonomy
and dignity of intellectual and moral values. In both cases, what is
manifestly lacking is a proper understanding of the meaning of logical,
or ideal distinctions, for which the artists, I suppose, ought to be
more readily forgiven than the critics, though æstheticism may be as
dangerous to art as moralism or intellectualism are to thought.
A recent literary polemic in America offered some striking examples of
these prejudices. A critic of the older school, in a discussion of the
moral tendencies of the age, introduced a criticism of the proposition
that art is not concerned either with truth or morality, by affirming
that this negative proposition could legitimately be converted into
the positive one: the object of art is to deny that which truth and
morality affirm. The sophism of this conversion is based on a confusion
between the two logical concepts of distinction and opposition. The
critic was not deducing a logical consequence of the first proposition,
any more than if he were interpreting my saying that I am not
interested as a student of literature in the law of gravitation, as
implying a disbelief in the law of gravitation: he was merely stating
his own conception of art as a conceptual and moral function, and of
the value of art as an intellectual and moral value; which is the error
of intellectualism and moralism. In his reply to the older critic, a
writer of the younger generation contended that æsthetic values are
higher than either logical or moral values, and in some mysterious way
transcend and comprehend them both. The younger writer was evidently
using the same kind of logic as his adversary, and affirming on his own
account the error of a variety of æstheticism.
What the original proposition actually implies is that judgments
regarding the logical truth or the historical verity, the moral merit
or demerit of a work of art, do not treat art as art, but dissolve the
work itself into its abstract elements, and deal with these elements in
an entirely different context. If I discuss the theology and philosophy
of Dante, I shall find a number of propositions which to my mind are
untrue; but the beauty of Dante's poetry is incommensurable with the
truth or falsehood of his logical thought. The beauty of Francesca's
episode is not impaired by the quite reasonable suspicion that the
poetical idealization of a guilty passion might have a dangerous
influence on weak and sentimental souls.
The imperfect distinction between art and logical or scientific truth
is responsible for the critical prejudice of art as expressive of
the typical. The typical is a product of abstract thought, of the
kind that is employed in the natural sciences. The expressions of
art are essentially individual and particular, and when we consider
them as typical, we merely use them as the starting point for our
own abstractions, that is, for the purposes of a quite different
mental process. Similar to the concept of the typical are those of
the allegory and symbol, which are mechanical constructions of the
intellect, and which art is unable to represent unless it reduces them
to the particular and concrete.
The confusion between art and morality, being ultimately founded on
the supposition that art is not a theoretical function, but an act of
the will, gives rise to the theories of the ends of art, and of the
so-called choice of the subject. But the end of art is art itself,
expression or beauty, or whatever other name we shall give to the
æsthetic value, just as the end of science is truth and the end of
morality is goodness; that is, the concept of end coincides in every
case with the concept of value. And the artist cannot choose his
subject, since there is no abstract subject present to his mind, but
only the world of his own already formed intuitions and expressions;
which he can neither will nor not will. This is the truth contained in
the old idea of poetical inspiration, which was merely another word for
the spontaneity and unreflectiveness of art. A choice of the subject
according to ends other than æsthetic is a certain cause of failure.
The only conceivable meaning that advice as to the choice of a subject
may have, is a kind of artistic _know thyself_, a warning to the artist
to be true to himself, to follow his inspiration, and that which is
deepest and most genuine in it. It is, however, a tautological meaning,
and the reverse of the one which is given to it by the moralistic
critic.
If it is impossible for us either to will or not will our æsthetic
vision, the internal image which is the true "work of art," it is clear
that an element of will enters into the production of the physical
or external image, made of sounds or lines or colours or shapes,
which we call works of art in a naturalistic or empirical sense. The
complete process of æsthetic production is symbolized by Croce in
the four following stages: _a_, the impression; _b_ the expression or
æsthetic spiritual synthesis; _c_, the feeling of pleasure or pain
which accompanies the æsthetic as well as any other form of spiritual
activity; d, the translation of the æsthetic fact into physical
phenomena. The only true æsthetic moment of the whole process is in
b, which alone is real expression, while _d_ is expression in the
naturalistic and abstract sense of the word. Such a conception clashes
against a number of deep-rooted fallacies, which in their turn are the
source of innumerable æsthetic prejudices. It is clear, however, that
what we call a printed poem is no poem at all, but only a collection of
conventional black signs on a white page, which suggest to me a number
of movements of my vocal organs destined to the production of certain
sounds; and again, that these sounds are not the poem in itself, apart
from my understanding of their meaning, from my re-creation of the
internal image which prompted their original production now recorded in
the pages of a book. Physically, a painting is constituted by colours
on a wall, or board, or canvas: here, the first stage of reproduction
which is required for the written poem is not necessary: the material
(visual, as it was auditive for the poem) on which the original image
fixed itself is directly present to me; and yet, again, that material
object is not the æsthetic vision, but a mere stimulus for its
reproduction. Starting from the material object, Croce symbolized the
inverse process of æsthetic reproduction in the following series: _e_,
the physical stimulus; _d-b_, the perception of physical facts (sound,
colours, etc.), which is at the same time the æsthetic synthesis
previously produced; _c_, the æsthetic pleasure or pain. Here, again,
the only moment of true æsthetic activity is in _b_ where, at least in
the hypothesis of a perfect understanding, my vision coincides with the
orignal creation.
It must be understood, however, that these successive stages are not
real, but abstract or symbolical distinctions. We cannot re-create
an æsthetic vision except through the sounds or colours in which it
originally expressed itself; and those sounds or colours coincide with
the original expression. The words and rhythm of a poem are to it what
the body is to the soul, and once you have dissolved that form, there
is nothing left. Hence the theoretical impossibility of a translation,
which can only exist as a new creation. But when we consider those
words or that rhythm not within the expressive synthesis, in which
their reality is spiritual and not physical, but outside it, as words,
as rhythm, we build up by abstraction a category of physical facts,
to which we attribute a reality not inferior to that of the spiritual
activity. _B_ and _d_, in the preceding analysis, are not different
realities, but different elaborations, the first, ideal, the second,
naturalistic, of the same fact.
We have now established a relation between the æsthetic and the
practical activity: the physical expression is an act of the will,
and as such it falls legitimately in the domain of both economic and
ethical judgments. We may buy or sell the physical stimuli, books,
statues, and paintings, though no amount of wealth can give the
æsthetic vision: the possession of the objects of art is of another
order than the possession of the spiritual creation. We may consider
that the communication of a certain intuition is in certain cases
morally undesirable, and censure the artist for having willed it,
or try to prevent him from accomplishing it. The principle of the
spiritual autonomy of art, necessary to establish the nature of
æsthetic value, cannot be understood to imply the absolute practical
freedom of the artist from the laws that bind all other men. But even
from this point of view, there is no doubt that art is more likely to
suffer from excessive constraint than from excessive freedom; and that
the fanatics of morality in art are only too often inclined to mistake
a set of arbitrary rulings for morality, and to overlook the intention
of the artist. It is a significant fact, and one which deserves more
attention than it seems to have ever received, that the so-called moral
condemnation of a true work of art has never outlasted one or two
generations, and their prejudices and weaknesses.
The existence of the physical stimuli or material helps for the
æsthetic reproduction, fosters the illusion of beauty as an intrinsic
attribute of physical objects, first as artistic, and then as natural
beauty. It is hardly necessary to criticise this illusion at this
point of our discussion: beauty is not an objective attribute, but
a spiritual value. In the same way as there is no intrinsic beauty,
independent dent of our either creative or re-creative activity, in
words or notes or lines or colours, there is also no category of
natural beauty. What we call beauty of nature is either that which
in nature is merely pleasureable from a practical and sensuous
standpoint, or the presence of certain stimuli for the reproduction of
a preëxistent æsthetic vision. We recognise the obvious truth of this
fact, when we remark that the beauty of a certain landscape is not
visible to everybody, but only to him who looks at it with an artist's
eye. And it would be possible to write a history of the progressive
development of beauty in nature, which would practically coincide
with, or follow at a short distance of time, the various stages of the
history of poetry and painting.
Closely related with the confusion between the physical attributes
of the objects of art, and the true æsthetic value, are all the
theories of æsthetics which consider that the end of art is pleasure,
or æsthetic hedonism in its various forms. Of these the most ancient
is the one that considers beautiful that which gives pleasure to the
higher senses, he hearing and the sight; and other forms of it can
still be found, if not among artists and critics, at least among
psychologists. Two of the most recent interpretations of æsthetic
facts, the theory of empathy or _Einfühlung_ and the theory of tactile
values, are merely modern scientific variations of the old prejudice.
But no hedonistic theory can ever give a consistent account of
æsthetic facts, as it is impossible to draw a distinction, on a purely
psychological plane, between those pleasures of the senses which may
precede or accompany the æsthetic fact, and those that are purely
sensuous; and the inevitable result is a complete reduction of the
æsthetic to the sensual. In such theories, the real æsthetic problem
does not even reach the stage of being formulated.
The truth that the hedonist obscurely foresees is that every
spiritual activity is constantly accompanied by the practical reflex
of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, pleasure and pain, value and
dis-value. Value is every activity that unfolds itself freely,
dis-value is the contrasted, hindered, impeded unfolding of the same
activity. If we call beauty the æsthetic value, then beauty is but the
successful expression, or better, the expression, since an unsuccessful
expression is not an expression at all. And it is not necessary to
repeat that by expression we distinctly mean not the physical stimulus,
but the spiritual synthesis.
With this definition of æsthetic value we reach one of the most
important points of Croce's thought: the solution of what he calls
the dualism of values, or ideals, to the concrete realities. As the
beautiful expression is simply expression, the true thought is simply
thought, and so on, so the ugly expression or the false thought are
non-expression and non-thought, the non-being which has no reality
outside the moment of its opposition and criticism.