I call _vulgar_ (common) all that does not speak to the mind, of which
all the interest is addressed only to the senses. There are, no doubt,
an infinite number of things vulgar in themselves from their material
and subject. But as the vulgarity of the material can always be ennobled
by the treatment, in respect of art the only question is that relating
to the _vulgarity_ in form. A vulgar mind will dishonor the most noble
matter by treating it in a common manner. A great and noble mind, on the
contrary, will ennoble even a common matter, and it will do so by
superadding to it something spiritual and discovering in it some aspect
in which this matter has greatness. Thus, for example, a vulgar
historian will relate to us the most insignificant actions of a hero
with a scrupulousness as great as that bestowed on his sublimest
exploit, and will dwell as lengthily on his pedigree, his costume, and
his household as on his projects and his enterprises. He will relate
those of his actions that have the most grandeur in such wise that no
one will perceive that character in them. On the contrary, a historian
of genius, himself endowed with nobleness of mind, will give even to the
private life and the least considerable actions of his hero an interest
and a value that will make them considerable. Thus, again, in the matter
of the plastic arts, the Dutch and Flemish painters have given proof of
a vulgar taste; the Italians, and still more the ancient Greeks, of a
grand and noble taste. The Greeks always went to the ideal; they
rejected every vulgar feature, and chose no common subject.
A portrait painter can represent his model in a _common_ manner or with
_grandeur;_ in a _common manner_ if he reproduce the merely _accidental_
details with the same care as the essential features, if he neglect the
great to carry out the minutiæ curiously. He does it grandly if he know
how to find out and place in relief what is most _interesting_, and
distinguish the accidental from the necessary; if he be satisfied with
indicating what is paltry, reserving all the finish of the execution for
what is great. And the only thing that is great is the expression of the
soul itself, manifesting itself by actions, gestures, or attitudes.
The poet treats his subject in a common manner when in the execution of
his theme he dwells on valueless facts and only skims rapidly over those
that are important. He treats his theme with grandeur when he associates
with it what is great. For example, Homer treated the shield of Achilles
grandly, though the making of a shield, looking merely at the matter, is
a very commonplace affair.
One degree below the common or the vulgar is the element of the base or
gross, which differs from the common in being not only something
_negative_, a simple lack of inspiration or nobleness, but something
_positive_, marking coarse feelings, bad morals, and contemptible
manners. Vulgarity only testifies that an advantage is wanting, whereof
the absence is a matter of regret; baseness indicates the want of a
quality which we are authorized to require in all. Thus, for example,
revenge, considered in itself, in _whatever place or way_ it manifests
itself, is something vulgar, because it is the proof of a lack of
generosity. But there is, moreover, a _base_ vengeance, when the man, to
satisfy it, employs means exposed to contempt. The base always implies
something gross, or reminds one of the mob, while the common can be
found in a well-born and well-bred man, who may think and act in a
common manner if he has only mediocre faculties. A man acts in a
_common_ manner when he is only taken up with his own interest, and it
is in this that he is in opposition with the really _noble_ man, who,
when necessary, knows how to forget himself to procure some enjoyment
for others. But the same man would act in a _base_ manner if he
consulted his interests at the cost of his honor, and if in such a case
he did not even take upon himself to respect the laws of decency. Thus
the common is only the contrary of the noble; the base is the contrary
both of the noble and the seemly. To give yourself up, unresisting, to
all your passions, to satisfy all your impulses, without being checked
even by the rules of propriety, still less by those of morality, is to
conduct yourself basely, and to betray baseness of the soul.
The artist also may fall into a low style, not only by choosing ignoble
subjects, offensive to decency and good taste, but moreover by treating
them in a _base manner_. It is to treat a subject in a _base manner_ if
those sides are made prominent which propriety directs us to conceal, or
if it is expressed in a manner that incidentally awakens low ideas. The
lives of the greater part of men can present particulars of a low kind,
but it is only a low imagination that will pick out these for
representation.
There are pictures describing sacred history in which the Apostles, the
Virgin, and even the Christ, are depicted in such wise that they might
be supposed to be taken from the dregs of the populace. This style of
execution always betrays a low taste, and might justly lead to the
inference that the artist himself thinks coarsely and like the mob.
No doubt there are cases where art itself may be allowed to produce base
images: for example, when the aim is to provoke laughter. A man of
polished manners may also sometimes, and without betraying a corrupt
taste, be amused by certain features when nature expresses herself
crudely but with truth, and he may enjoy the contrast between the
manners of polished society and those of the lower orders. A man of
position appearing intoxicated will always make a disagreeable
impression on us; but a drunken driver, sailor, or carter will only be a
risible object. Jests that would be insufferable in a man of education
amuse us in the mouth of the people. Of this kind are many of the scenes
of Aristophanes, who unhappily sometimes exceeds this limit, and becomes
absolutely condemnable. This is, moreover, the source of the pleasure we
take in parodies, when the feelings, the language, and the mode of
action of the common people are fictitiously lent to the same personages
whom the poet has treated with all possible dignity and decency. As soon
as the poet means only to jest, and seeks only to amuse, we can overlook
traits of a low kind, provided he never stirs up indignation or disgust.
He stirs up indignation when he places baseness where it is quite
unpardonable, that is in the case of men who are expected to show fine
moral sense. In attributing baseness to them he will either _outrage_
truth, for we prefer to think him a liar than to believe that
well-trained men can act in a base manner; or his personages will offend
our moral sense, and, what is worse, excite our imagination. I do not
mean by this to condemn _farces_; a farce implies between the poet and
the spectator a tacit consent that _no_ truth is to be expected in the
piece. In a farce we exempt the poet from all _faithfulness_ in his
pictures; he has a kind of privilege to tell us untruths. Here, in fact,
all the comic consists exactly in its contrast with the truth, and so it
cannot possibly be true.
This is not all: even in the serious and the tragic there are certain
places where the low element can be brought into play. But in this case
the affair must pass into the _terrible_, and the momentary violation of
our good taste must be masked by a strong impression, which brings our
passion into play. In other words, the low impression must be absorbed
by a superior tragic impression. _Theft_, for example, is a thing
absolutely _base_, and whatever arguments our heart may suggest to
excuse the thief, whatever the pressure of circumstances that led him to
the theft, it is always an indelible brand stamped upon him, and,
æsthetically speaking, he will always remain a base object. On this
point taste is even less forgiving than morality, and its tribunal is
more severe; because an æsthetical object is responsible even for the
accessory ideas that are awakened in us by such an object, while moral
judgment eliminates all that is merely accidental. According to this
view a man who robs would always be an object to be rejected by the poet
who wishes to present serious pictures. But suppose this man is at the
same time a murderer, he is even more to be condemned than before by the
_moral_ law. But in the æsthetic judgment he is raised one degree higher
and made better adapted to figure in a work of art. Continuing to judge
him from the æsthetic point of view, it may be added that he who abases
himself by a _vile_ action can to a certain extent be raised by a
_crime_, and can be thus reinstated in our _æsthetic_ estimation. This
contradiction between the moral judgment and the æsthetical judgment is
a fact entitled to attention and consideration. It may be explained in
different ways. First, I have already said that, as the æsthetic
judgment depends on the imagination, all the accessory ideas awakened in
us by an object and naturally associated with it, must themselves
influence this judgment. Now, if these accessory ideas are base, they
infallibly stamp this character on the principal object.
In the second place, what we look for in the æsthetic judgment is
_strength;_ whilst in a judgment pronounced in the name of the moral
sense we consider _lawfulness_. The lack of strength is something
contemptible, and every action from which it may be inferred that the
agent lacks strength is, by that very fact, a contemptible action. Every
cowardly and underhand action is repugnant to us, because it is a proof
of impotence; and, on the contrary, a devilish wickedness can,
æsthetically speaking, flatter our taste, as soon as it marks strength.
Now, a theft testifies to a vile and grovelling mind: a murder has at
least on its side the appearance of strength; the interest we take in it
æsthetically is in proportion to the strength that is manifested in it.
A third reason is, because in presence of a deep and horrible crime we
no longer think of the _quality_ but the awful consequences of the
action. The stronger emotion covers and stifles the weaker one. We do
not look back into the mind of the agent: we look onward into his
destiny, we think of the effects of his action. Now, directly we begin
to _tremble_ all the delicacies of taste are reduced to silence. The
principal impression entirely fills our mind: the accessory and
accidental ideas, in which chiefly dwell all impressions of baseness,
are effaced from it. It is for this reason that the theft committed by
young Ruhberg, in the “Crime through Ambition,”[10] far from displeasing
on the stage, is a real tragic effect. The poet with great skill has
managed the circumstances in such wise that we are carried away; we are
left almost breathless. The frightful misery of the family, and
especially the grief of the father, are objects that attract our
attention, turn it aside, from the person of the agent, towards the
consequences of his act. We are too much moved to tarry long in
representing to our minds the stamp of infamy with which the theft is
marked. In a word, the base element disappears in the _terrible_. It is
singular that this theft, really accomplished by young Ruhberg, inspires
us with less repugnance than, in another piece, the mere suspicion of a
theft, a suspicion which is actually without foundation. In the latter
case it is a young officer who is accused without grounds of having
abstracted a silver spoon, which is recovered later on. Thus the base
element is reduced in this case to a purely imaginary thing, a mere
suspicion, and this suffices nevertheless to do an irreparable injury,
in our æsthetical appreciation, to the hero of the piece, in spite of
his innocence. This is because a man who is supposed capable of a base
action did not apparently enjoy a very solid reputation for morality,
for the laws of propriety require that a man should be held to be a man
of honor as long as he does not _show_ the opposite. If therefore
anything contemptible is imputed to him, it seems that by some part of
his past conduct he has given rise to a suspicion of this kind, and this
does him injury, though all the odious and the base in an undeserved
suspicion are on the side of him who accuses. A point that does still
greater injury to the hero of the piece of which I am speaking is the
fact that he is an _officer_, and the _lover_ of a lady of condition
brought up in a manner suitable to her rank. With these two titles, that
of thief makes quite a revolting contrast, and it is impossible for us,
when we see him near his lady, not to think that perhaps at that very
moment he had the silver spoon in his pocket. Lastly, the most
unfortunate part of the business is, that he has no idea of the
suspicion weighing over him, for if he had a knowledge of it, in his
character of officer, he would exact a sanguinary reparation. In this
case the consequences of the suspicion would change to the terrible, and
all that is base in the situation would disappear.
We must distinguish, moreover, between the baseness of feeling and that
which is connected with the mode of treatment and circumstance. The
former in all respects is _below_ æsthetic dignity; the second in many
cases may perfectly agree with it. _Slavery_, for example, is a base
thing; but a servile mind in a free man is contemptible. The labors of
the slave, on the contrary, are not so when his feelings are not
servile. Far from this, a base condition, when joined to elevated
feelings, can become a source of the sublime. The master of Epictetus,
who beat him, acted basely, and the slave beaten by him showed a sublime
soul. True greatness, when it is met in a base condition, is only the
more brilliant and splendid on that account: and the artist must not
fear to show us his heroes even under a contemptible exterior as soon as
he is sure of being able to give them, when he wishes, the expression of
moral dignity.
But what can be granted to the poet is not always allowed in the artist.
The poet only addresses the imagination; the painter addresses the
senses directly. It follows not only that the impression of the picture
is more lively than that of the poem, but also that the painter, if he
employ only his natural signs, cannot make the minds of his personages
as visible as the poet can with the arbitrary signs at his command: yet
it is only the sight of the mind that can reconcile us to certain
exteriors. When Homer causes his Ulysses to appear in the rags of a
beggar,[11] we are at liberty to represent his image to our mind more or
less fully, and to dwell on it as long as we like. But in no case will
it be sufficiently vivid to excite our repugnance or disgust. But if a
painter, or even a tragedian, try to reproduce faithfully the Ulysses of
Homer, we turn away from the picture with repugnance. It is because in
this case the greater or less vividness of the impression no longer
depends on our will: we _cannot help_ seeing what the painter places
under our eyes; and it is not easy for us to remove the accessory
repugnant ideas which the picture recalls to our mind.