53. THE CONCEPT OF THE BEAUTIFUL FROM THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE.—Truth
and Goodness characterize reality as related to intellect and to will.
Intimately connected with these notions is that of _the beautiful_,(193)
which we must now briefly analyse. The fine arts have for their common
object the expression of the beautiful; and the department of philosophy
which studies these, the philosophy of the beautiful, is generally
described as _Esthetics_.(194)
Like the terms “true” and “good,” the term “beautiful” (καλόν; _pulchrum_,
_beau_, _schön_, etc.) is familiar to all. To reach a definition of it let
us question experience. What do men commonly mean when, face to face with
some object or event, they say “That is _beautiful_”? They give expression
to this sentiment in the presence of a natural object such as a landscape
revealing mountain and valley, lake and river and plain and woodland,
glowing in the golden glow of the setting sun; or in contemplating some
work of art—painting, sculpture, architecture, music: the _Sistine
Madonna_, the _Moses_ of Michael Angelo, the Cathedral of _Notre Dame_, a
symphony of Beethoven; or some literary masterpiece: Shakespeare’s
_Macbeth_, or Dante’s _Divina Commedia_, or Newman’s _Apologia_, or
Kickham’s _Knocknagow_. There are other things the sight of which arouses
no such sentiment, but leaves us indifferent; and others again, the sight
of which arouses a contrary sentiment, to which we give expression by
designating them as “commonplace,” “vulgar,” “ugly”. The sentiment in
question is one of _pleasure_ and _approval_, or of _displeasure_ and
_disapproval_.
Hence the first fact to note is that _the beautiful pleases us_, _affects
us agreeably_, while the commonplace or the ugly leaves us indifferent or
_displeases us_, _affects us disagreeably_.
But the _good_ pleases us and affects us agreeably. Is the beautiful,
then, identical with the good? No; the really beautiful is indeed always
good; but not everything that is good is beautiful; nor is the pleasure
aroused by the good identical with that aroused by the beautiful. Whatever
gratifies the lower sense appetites and causes organic pleasure is
good—_bonum delectabile_—but is not deemed beautiful. Eating and drinking,
resting and sleeping, indulging the senses of touch, taste and smell, are
indeed pleasure-giving, but they have no association with the beautiful.
Again, the deformed child may be the object of the mother’s special love.
But the pleasure thus derived from the good, as the object of appetite,
desire, delight, is not esthetic pleasure. If we examine the latter, the
pleasure caused by the beautiful, we shall find that it is invariably a
pleasure peculiar to _knowledge_, to apprehension, perception,
imagination, contemplation. Hence in the domain of the senses we designate
as “beautiful” only what can be apprehended by the two higher senses,
seeing and hearing, which approximate most closely to intellect, and
which, through the imagination, furnish data for _contemplation_ to the
intellect.(195) This brings us to St. Thomas’s definition: _Pulchra sunt
quæ visa placent_: those things are beautiful whose vision pleases
us,—where vision is to be understood in the wide sense of apprehension,
contemplation.(196) The owner of a beautiful demesne, or of an art
treasure, may derive pleasure from his sense of proprietorship; but this
is distinct from the esthetic pleasure that may be derived by others, no
less than by himself, from the mere contemplation of those objects.
Esthetic pleasure is disinterested: it springs from the mere
_contemplation_ of an object as beautiful; whereas the pleasure that
springs from the object as good is an interested pleasure, a pleasure of
_possession_. No doubt the beautiful is really identical with the good,
though logically distinct from the latter.(197) The _orderliness_ which we
shall see to be the chief objective factor of beauty, is itself a
perfection of the object, and as such is good and desirable. Hence the
beautiful can be an object of interested desire, but only under the aspect
of goodness. Under the aspect of beauty the object can excite only the
disinterested esthetic pleasure of contemplation.
But if esthetic pleasure is derived from contemplation, is not this
identifying the beautiful with the true, and supplanting art by science?
Again the consequence is inadmissible; for not every pleasure peculiar to
knowledge is esthetic. There is a pleasure in seeking and discovering
truth, the pleasure which gratifies the scholar and the scientist: the
pleasure of the philologist in tracing roots and paradigms, of the chemist
in analysing unsavoury materials, of the anatomist in exploring the
structure of organisms _post mortem_. But these things are not
“beautiful”. The really beautiful is indeed always true, but it cannot
well be maintained that all truths are beautiful. That two and two are
four is a truth, but in what intelligible sense could it be said to be
beautiful?
But besides the scientific pleasure of seeking and discovering truth,
there is the pleasure which comes from contemplating the object known. The
aim of the scientist or scholar is _to discover truth_; that of the artist
is, through knowledge to derive complacency from _contemplating the thing
known_. The scientist or scholar may be also an artist, or _vice versa_;
but the scientist’s pleasure proper lies exclusively in discovering truth,
whereas that of the artist lies in contemplating something apprehended,
imagined, conceived. The artist is not concerned as to whether what he
apprehends is real or imaginary, certain or conjectural, but only as to
whether or how far the contemplation of it will arouse emotions of
pleasure, admiration, enthusiasm; while the scientist’s supreme concern is
to know things, to see them as they are. The beautiful, then, is always
true, either as actual or as ideal; but the true is beautiful only when it
so reveals itself as to arouse in us the desire to see or hear it, to
consider it, to dwell and rest in the contemplation of it.
Let us accept, then, the _a posteriori_ definition of the beautiful as
_that which it is pleasing to contemplate_; and before inquiring what
precisely is it, on the side of the object, that makes the latter
agreeable to contemplate, let us examine the subjective factors and
conditions of esthetic experience.
54. THE ESTHETIC SENTIMENT. APPREHENSION OF THE BEAUTIFUL.—We have seen
that both the appetitive and the cognitive faculties are involved in the
experience of the beautiful. Contemplation implies cognition; while the
feeling of pleasure, complacency, satisfaction, delight, indicates the
operation of appetite or will. Now the notion of the beautiful, like all
our notions, has its origin in sense experience; but it is itself
suprasensible for it is reached by abstraction, and this is above the
power of sense faculties. While the senses and imagination apprehend
beautiful objects the intellect attains to that which makes these objects
beautiful, to the _ratio pulchri_ that is in them. No doubt, the
perception or imagination of beautiful things, in nature or in art,
produces as its natural concomitant, a feeling of sensible pleasure. To
hear sweet music, to gaze on the brilliant variety of colours in a
gorgeous pageant, to inhale delicious perfumes, to taste savoury
dishes—all such experiences gratify the senses. But the feeling of such
sensible pleasure is quite distinct from the esthetic enjoyment which
accompanies the apprehension of the beautiful; though it is very often
confounded with the latter. Such _sentient_ states of agreeable feeling
are mainly _passive_, organic, physiological; while esthetic enjoyment,
the appreciation of the beautiful, is eminently _active_. It implies the
operation of a suprasensible faculty, the _intelligence_; it accompanies
the reaction of the latter faculty to some appropriate objective stimulus
of the suprasensible, intelligible order, to some “idea” embodied in the
object of sense.(198)
The error of confounding esthetic enjoyment with mere organic sense
pleasure is characteristic of all sensist and materialist philosophies. A
feeling of sensible gratification always, no doubt, accompanies our
apprehension and enjoyment of the beautiful; for just as man is not a
merely sentient being so neither is he a pure intelligence. Beauty reaches
him through the senses; in order that an object be beautiful for him, in
order that the contemplation of it may please him, it must be in harmony
with his whole _human_ nature, which is both sentient and intelligent; it
must, therefore, be agreeable to the senses and imagination as well as to
the intellect. “There is no painting,” writes M. Brunetière,(199) “but
should be above all a joy to the eye! no music but should be a delight for
the ear!” Otherwise we shall not apprehend in it the order, perfection,
harmony, adaptation to human nature, whereby we pronounce an object
beautiful and rejoice in the contemplation of it. And it is this
intellectual activity that is properly esthetic. “What makes us consider a
colour beautiful,” writes Bossuet,(200) is the secret judgment we
pronounce upon its adaptation to the eye which it pleases. Beautiful
sounds, songs, cadences, have a similar adaptation to the ear. To
apprehend this adaptation promptly and accurately is what is described as
having a good ear, though properly speaking this judgment should be
attributed to the intellect.
According to some the esthetic sentiment, the appreciation and enjoyment
of the beautiful, is an exclusively subjective experience, an emotional
state which has all its sources within the conscious subject, and which
has no real, extramental correlative in things. According to others beauty
is already in the extramental reality independently of any subjective
conditions, and has no mental factors in its constitution as an object of
experience. Both of these extreme views are erroneous. Esthetic pleasure,
like all pleasure, is the natural concomitant of the full, orderly, normal
exercise of the subject’s conscious activities. These activities are
called forth by, and exercised upon, some _object_. For esthetic pleasure
there must be in the object something the contemplation of which will
elicit such harmonious exercise of the faculties. Esthetic pleasure,
therefore, cannot be purely subjective: there must be an objective factor
in its realization. But on the other hand this objective factor cannot
provoke esthetic enjoyment independently of the dispositions of the
subject. It must be in harmony with those dispositions—cognitive,
appetitive, affective, emotional, temperamental—in order to evoke such a
mental view of the object that the contemplation of the latter will cause
esthetic pleasure. And it is precisely because these dispositions, which
are so variable from one individual to another, tinge and colour the
mental view, while this in turn determines the quality of the esthetic
judgment and feeling, that people disagree and dispute interminably about
questions of beauty in art and nature. Herein beauty differs from truth.
No doubt people dispute about the latter also; but at all events they
recognize its objective character and the propriety of an appeal to the
independent, impersonal standard of evidence. Not so, however, in regard
to beauty: _De gustibus non est disputandum_: there is no disputing about
tastes. The perception of beauty, the judgment that something is or is not
beautiful, is the product of an act of _taste_, _i.e._ of the individual’s
intelligence affected by numerous concrete personal dispositions both of
the sentient and of the spiritual order, not only cognitive and appetitive
but temperamental and emotional. Moreover, besides this variety in
subjective dispositions, we have to bear in mind the effects of artistic
culture, of educating the taste. The eye and the ear, which are the two
main channels of data for the intellect, can be made by training more
delicate and exacting, so that the same level of esthetic appreciation can
be maintained only by a constantly increasing measure of artistic
stimulation. Finally, apart from all that a beautiful object _directly
conveys_ to us for contemplation, there is something more which it may
_indirectly suggest_: it arouses a distinct activity of the imagination
whereby we fill up, in our own individual degree and according to our own
interpretation, what has not been actually supplied in it by nature or
art.
All those influences account sufficiently for the subjectivity and
variability of the esthetic sentiment, for diversity of artistic tastes
among individuals, for the transitions of fashion in art from epoch to
epoch and from race to race. But it must not be concluded that the
subjective factors in the constitution of the beautiful are wholly
changeable. Since human nature is fundamentally the same in all men there
ought to be a fund of esthetic judgments and pleasures common to all;
there ought to be in nature and in art some things which are recognized
and enjoyed as beautiful by all. And there are such. In matters _of
detail_ the maxim holds: _De gustibus non disputandum_. But there are
fundamental esthetic judgments for which it does not hold. Since men have
a common nature, and since, as we shall see presently, there are
recognizable and stable objective factors to determine esthetic judgments,
there is a legitimate foundation on which to discuss and establish some
esthetic canons of universal validity.
55. OBJECTIVE FACTORS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL.—“Ask the
artist,” writes St. Augustine,(201) “whether beautiful things are
beautiful because they please us, or rather please us because they are
beautiful, and he will reply unhesitatingly that they please us because
they are beautiful.” What, then is it that makes them beautiful, and so
causes the esthetic pleasure we experience in contemplating them? In order
that an object produce pleasure of any sort in a conscious being it must
evoke the exercise of this being’s faculties; for the conscious condition
which we describe as pleasure is always a reflex of conscious activity.
Furthermore, this activity must be _full_ and _intense_ and
_well-ordered_: if it be excessive or defective, if it be ill-regulated,
wrongly distributed among the faculties, it will not have pleasure for its
reflex, but either indifference or pain.
Hence the object which evokes the esthetic pleasure of contemplation must
in the _first_ place be _complete_ or _perfect_ of its kind (46). The
truncated statue, the stunted oak, the deformed animal, the crippled human
being, are not beautiful. They are wanting in the integrity due to their
nature.
But this is not enough. To be beautiful, the object must in the _second_
place have a certain _largeness_ or amplitude, a certain greatness or
power, whereby it can act _energetically_ on our cognitive faculties and
stimulate them to _vigorous_ action. The little, the trifling, the
commonplace, the insignificant, evokes no feeling of admiration. The sight
of a small pasture-field leaves us indifferent; but the vision of vast
expanses of meadow and cornfield and woodland exhilarates us. A collection
of petty hillocks is uninteresting, while the towering snow-clad Alps are
magnificent. The multiplication table elicits no emotion; but the
triumphant discovery and proof of some new truth in science, some
far-reaching theorem that opens up new vistas of research or sheds a new
light on long familiar facts, may fill the mind with ecstasies of pure
esthetic enjoyment.(202) There is no moral beauty in helping up a child
that has stumbled and fallen in the mud, but there is in risking one’s
life to save the child from burning or drowning. There must, then, be in
the object a certain largeness which will secure energy of appeal to our
cognitive faculties; but this energy must not be excessive, it must not
dazzle, it must be in proportion to the capacity of our faculties.(203)
A _third_ requisite for beauty is that the object be in itself _duly
proportioned_, _orderly_, _well arranged_. _Order_ generally may be
defined as right or proper arrangement. We can see in things a twofold
order, _dynamic_, or that of _subordination_, and _static_, or that of
_co-ordination_: the right arrangement of means towards ends, and the
right arrangement of parts in a whole, or members in a system. The former
indicates the influence of _final_ causes and expresses primarily the
_goodness_ of things. The latter is determined by the _formal_ causes of
things and expresses primarily their _beauty_. The order essential to
beauty consists in this, that the manifold and distinct things or acts
which contribute to it must form one whole. Hence order has been defined
as _unity in variety_: _unitas in varietate_; variety being the material
cause, and unity the formal cause, of order. But we can apprehend unity in
a variety of things only on condition that they are _arranged_, _i.e._
that they show forth clearly to the mind a set of mutual relations which
can be easily grasped. Why is it that things mutually related to one
another in one way make up what we declare to be a chaotic jumble, while
if related in another way we declare them to be orderly? Because unless
these relations present themselves in a certain way they will fail to
unify the manifold for us. We have an intellectual intuition of the
numerical series; and of _proportion_, which is equality of numerical
relations. In the domains of magnitude and multitude the mind naturally
seeks to detect these proportions. So also in the domains of sensible
qualities, such as sounds and colours, we have an analogous intuition of a
qualitative series, and we naturally try to detect _harmony_, which is the
gradation of qualitative relations in this series. The detection of
_proportion_ and _harmony_ in a _variety_ of things pleases us, because we
are thus enabled to grasp the manifold as exhibiting _unity_; while the
absence of these elements leaves us with the dissatisfied feeling of
something wanting. Whether this be because order in things is the
expression of an intelligent will, of purpose and design, and therefore
calls forth our intelligent and volitional activity, with its consequent
and connatural feeling of satisfaction, we do not inquire here. But
certain it is that order is essential to beauty, that esthetic pleasure
springs only from the contemplation of proportion and harmony, which give
unity to variety.(204) And the explanation of this is not far to seek. For
the full and vigorous exercise of contemplative activity we need objective
variety. Whatever lacks variety, and stimulates us in one uniform manner,
becomes monotonous and causes _ennui_. While on the other hand mere
multiplicity distracts the mind, disperses and weakens attention, and
begets fatigue. We must, therefore, have variety, but variety combined
with the unity that will concentrate and sustain attention, and thus call
forth the highest and keenest energy of intellectual activity. Hence the
function of rhythm in music, poetry and oratory; of composition and
perspective in painting; of design in architecture.
The more perfect the relations are which constitute order, the more
_clearly_ will the unity of the object _shine forth_; hence the more fully
and easily will it be grasped, and the more intense the esthetic pleasure
of contemplating it.
St. Thomas thus sums up the objective conditions of the beautiful:
_integrity_ or _perfection_, _proportion_ or _harmony_, and _clarity_ or
_splendour_.(205)
56. SOME DEFINITIONS OF THE BEAUTIFUL.—An object is beautiful when its
contemplation pleases us; and this takes place when the object, complete
and entire in itself, possesses that order, harmony, proportion of parts,
which will call forth the full and vigorous exercise of our cognitive
activity. All this amounts to saying that the beauty of a thing is the
_revelation or manifestation of its natural perfection_.(206) Perfection
is thus the _foundation_ of beauty; the showing forth of this perfection
is what constitutes beauty _formally_. Every real being has a nature which
constitutes it, and activities whereby it tends to realize the purpose of
its existence. Now the perfection of any nature is manifested by the
proportion of its constitutive parts and by the harmony of all its
activities. Hence we see that order is essential to beauty because order
shows forth the perfection of the beautiful. An object is beautiful in the
degree in which the proportion of its parts and the harmony of its
activities show forth the perfection of its nature.
Thus, starting with the subjective, _a posteriori_ definition of beauty
from its effect: _beauty is that whose contemplation pleases us_—we have
passed to the objective and natural definition of beauty by its
properties: _beauty is the evident integrity, order, proportion and
harmony, of an object_—and thence to what we may call the _a priori_ or
synthetic definition, which emphasizes the perfection revealed by the
static and dynamic order of the thing: _the beauty of an object is the
manifestation of its natural perfection by the proportion of its parts and
the harmony of its activities_.(207)
A few samples of the many definitions that have been set forth by
various authors will not be without interest. Vallet(208) defines
beauty as _the splendour of perfection_. Other authors define it
as _the splendour of order_. These definitions sacrifice clearness
to brevity. Beauty is _the splendour of the true_. This
definition, commonly attributed to Plato, but without reason, is
inadequate and ambiguous. Cousin(209) defines beauty as _unity in
variety_. This leaves out an essential element, the _clarity_ or
_clear manifestation_ of order. Kant defines beauty as _the power
an object possesses of giving free play to the imagination without
transgressing the laws of the understanding_.(210) This definition
emphasizes the necessary harmony of the beautiful with our
cognitive faculties, and the fact that the esthetic sentiment is
not capricious but subject to the laws of the understanding. It
is, however, inadequate, in as much as it omits all reference to
the objective factors of beauty.
57. CLASSIFICATIONS. THE BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE.—All real beauty is either
_natural_ or _artificial_. Natural beauty is that which characterizes what
we call the “works of Nature” or the “works of God”. Artificial beauty is
the beauty of “works of art”.
Again, just as we can distinguish the _real_ beauty of the latter from the
_ideal_ beauty which the human artist conceives in his mind as its
archetype and exemplar cause, so, too, we can distinguish between the real
beauty of natural things and the ideal beauty of their uncreated
archetypes in the Mind of the Divine Artist.
We know that the beauty of the human artist’s ideal is superior to, and
never fully realized in, that of the actually achieved product of his art.
Is the same true of the natural beauty of God’s works? That the works of
God in general are beautiful cannot be denied; His Wisdom “spreads beauty
abroad” throughout His works; He arranges all things according to weight
and number and measure:_cum pondere, numero et mensura_; His Providence
disposes all things strongly and sweetly: _fortiter et suaviter_. But
while creatures, by revealing their own beauty, reflect the Uncreated
beauty of God in the precise degree which He has willed from all eternity,
it cannot be said that they all realize the beauty of their Divine
Exemplars according to His primary purpose and decree. Since there is
physical and moral evil in the universe, since there are beings which fail
to realize their ends, to attain to the perfection of their natures, it
follows that these beings are not beautiful. In so far forth as they have
real being, and the goodness or perfection which is identical with their
reality, it may be admitted that all real beings are _fundamentally_
beautiful; for goodness or perfection is the foundation of beauty.(211)
But in so far as they fail to realize the perfection due to their natures
they lack even the foundation of beauty. Furthermore, in order that a
thing which has the full perfection due to its nature be _formally_
beautiful, it must actually show forth by the clearness of its proportions
and the harmony of its activities the fulness of its natural perfections.
But there is no need to prove that this is not universally verified in
nature—or in art either. And hence we must infer that formal beauty is not
a transcendental attribute of reality.(212)
Real beauty may be further divided into _material_ or _sensible_ or
_physical_, and _intellectual_ or _spiritual_. The former reveals itself
to hearing, seeing and imagination; the latter can be apprehended only by
intellect; but intellect depends for all its objects on the data of the
imagination. The beauty of spiritual realities is of course of a higher,
nobler and more excellent order than that of the realities of sense. The
spiritual beauty which falls directly within human experience is that of
the human spirit itself; from the soul and its experiences we can rise to
an apprehension—analogical and inadequate—of the Beauty of the Infinite
Being. In the soul itself we can distinguish two sources of beauty: what
we may call its _natural_ endowments such as intellect and will, and its
_moral_ dispositions, its perfections and excellences as a free,
intelligent, moral agent—its _virtues_. Beauty of soul, especially the
moral beauty of the virtuous soul, is incomparably more precious than
beauty of body. The latter, of course, like all real beauty in God’s
creation, has its proper dignity as an expression and revelation, however
faint and inadequate, of the Uncreated Beauty of the Deity. But inasmuch
as it is so inferior to the moral beauty proper to man, in itself so frail
and evanescent, in its influence on human passions so dangerous to virtue,
we can understand why in the Proverbs of Solomon it is proclaimed to be
vain and deceitful in contrast with the moral beauty of fearing the Lord:
_Fallax gratia et vana est pulchritudo; mulier timens dominum ipsa
laudabitur_.(213)
58. THE BEAUTIFUL IN ART. SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF THE FINE ARTS.—The
expression of beauty is the aim of the fine arts. Art in general is “the
proper conception of a work to be accomplished”: “ars nihil aliud est quam
recta ratio aliquorum operum faciendorum”.(214) While the _mechanical_
arts aim at the production of things useful, the _fine_ arts aim at the
production of things beautiful, _i.e._ of works which by their order,
symmetry, harmony, splendour, etc., will give such apt expression to human
ideals of natural beauty as to elicit esthetic enjoyment in the highest
possible degree. The artist, then, must be a faithful student and admirer
of all natural beauty; not indeed to aim at exact reproduction or
imitation of the latter; but to draw therefrom his inspiration and ideals.
Even the most beautiful things of nature express only inadequately the
ideal beauty which the human mind may gather from the study of them. This
ideal is what the artist is ever struggling to express, with the
ever-present and tormenting consciousness that the achievement of his
highest effort will fall immeasurably short of giving adequate expression
to it.
If each of the things of nature were so wholly simple and intelligible as
to present the same ideal type of beauty to all, and leave no room for
individual differences of interpretation, there would be no variety in the
products of artistic genius, except indeed what would result from perfect
or imperfect execution. But the things of nature are complex, and in part
at least enigmatical; they present different aspects to different minds
and suggest a variety of interpretations; they leave large scope to the
play of the imagination both as to conception of the ideal itself and as
to the arrangement and manipulation of the sensible materials in which the
ideal is to find expression. By means of these two functions, _conception_
and _expression_, the genius of the artist seeks to interpret and realize
for us ideal types of natural beauty.
The qualities of a work of art, the conditions it must fulfil, are those
already enumerated in regard to beauty generally. It must have unity,
order, proportion of parts; it must be true to nature, not in the sense of
a mere copy, but in the sense of drawing its inspiration from nature, and
so helping us to understand and appreciate the beauties of nature; it must
display a power and clearness of expression adjusted to the capacity of
the normal mind.
We may add—as indicating the connexion of art with morality—that the work
of art must not be such as to excite disapproval or cause pain by shocking
any normal faculty, or running counter to any fundamental belief,
sympathy, sentiment or feeling, of the human mind. The contemplation of
the really beautiful, whether in nature or in art, ought _per se_ to have
an elevating, ennobling, refining influence on the mind. But the beautiful
is not the good; nor does the cultivation of the fine arts necessarily
enrich the mind _morally_. From the ethical point of view art is one of
those indifferent things which the will can make morally good or morally
evil. Since man is a moral being, no human interest can fall outside the
moral sphere, or claim independence of the moral law; and art is a human
interest. Neither the creator, nor the critic, nor the student of a work
of art can claim that the latter, simply because it is a work of art, is
neither morally good nor morally bad; or that he in his special relation
to it is independent of the moral law.
Under the specious plea that science in seeking truth is neither
positively moral nor positively immoral, but abstracts altogether from the
quality of morality, it is sometimes claimed that, _a pari_, art in its
pursuit of the beautiful should be held to abstract from moral
distinctions and have no concern for moral good or evil. But in the first
place, though science as such seeks simply the true, and in this sense
abstracts from the good and the evil, still the man of science both in
acquiring and communicating truth is bound by the moral law: he may not,
under the plea that he is learning or teaching truth, do anything _morally
wrong_, anything that will _forfeit or endanger moral rectitude_, whether
in himself or in others. And in the second place, owing to the different
relations of truth and beauty to moral goodness, we must deny the parity
on which the argument rests. Truth appeals to the reason alone; beauty
appeals to the senses, the heart, the will, the passions and emotions:
“_Pulchrum trahit ad se desiderium_”. The scientist expresses truth in
abstract laws, definitions and formulas: a law of chemistry will help the
farmer to fertilize the soil, or the anarchist to assassinate sovereigns.
But the artist expresses beauty in concrete forms calculated to provoke
emotions of esthetic enjoyment from the contemplation of them. Now there
are other pleasure-giving emotions, sensual and carnal emotions, the
indiscriminate excitement and unbridled indulgence of which the moral law
condemns as evil; and if a work of art be of such a kind that it is
directly calculated to excite them, the artist stands condemned by the
moral law, and that even though his aim may have been to give expression
to beauty and call forth esthetic enjoyment merely. If the preponderating
influence of the artist’s work on the normal human individual be a
solicitation of the latter’s nature towards what is evil, what is opposed
to his real perfection, his moral progress, his last end, then that
artist’s work is not a work of art or truly beautiful. The net result of
its appeal being evil and unhealthy, it cannot be itself a thing of
beauty.
“Art for art’s sake” is a cry that is now no longer novel. Taken
literally it is unmeaning, for art is a means to an end—the
expression of the beautiful; and a means as such cannot be “for
its own sake”. But it may signify that art should subserve no
_extrinsic_ purpose, professional or utilitarian; that it should
be disinterested; that the artist must aim at the conception and
expression of the beautiful through a disinterested admiration and
enthusiasm for the beautiful. In this sense the formula expresses
a principle which is absolutely true, and which asserts the noble
mission of the artist to mankind. But the formula is also commonly
understood to claim the emancipation of the artist from the bonds
of morality, and his freedom to conceive and express beauty in
whatever forms he pleases, whether these may aid men to virtue or
solicit them to vice. This is the pernicious error to which we
have just referred. And we may now add that this erroneous
contention is not only ethically but also _artistically_ unsound.
For surely art ought to be based on truth: the artist should
understand human nature, to which his work appeals: he should not
regard as truly beautiful a work the contemplation of which will
produce a _discord_ in the soul, which will _disturb the right
order_ of the soul’s activities, which will solicit the lower
faculties to revolt against the higher; and this is what takes
place when the artist ignores moral rectitude in the pursuit of
his art: by despising the former he is false to the latter. He
fails to realize that the work of art must be judged not merely in
relation to the total _amount_ of pleasure it may cause in those
who contemplate it, but also in relation to the _quality_ of this
pleasure; and not merely in relation to esthetic pleasure, but in
relation to the total effect, the whole concrete influence of the
work on all the mental faculties. He fails to see that if this
total influence is evil, the work that causes it cannot be good
nor therefore really beautiful.
Are we to conclude, then, that the artist is bound to aim
positively and always at producing a _good moral effect_ through
his work? By no means. Esthetic pleasure is, as we have said,
indifferent. The pursuit of it, through the conception and
expression of the beautiful, is the proper and intrinsic end of
the fine arts, and is in itself legitimate so long as it does not
run counter to the moral law. It has no need to run counter to the
moral law, nor can it do so without defeating its own end. Outside
its proper limits art ceases to be art; within its proper limits
it has a noble and elevating mission; and it can serve indirectly
but powerfully the interests of truth and goodness by helping men
to substitute for the lower and grosser pleasures of sense the
higher and purer esthetic pleasures which issue from the
disinterested contemplation of the beautiful.