LIMITATIONS OF THE ASSOCIATED ARTS
The production of beauty in the respective arts--How they differ
in scope.
The Associated Arts have all the same method of producing beauty: they
throw pictures on the brain.[29] Sensorial or intellectual beauty, or
both together, may be exhibited, but in the arts of the painter and
sculptor the picture is transferred to the brain through the optic
nerves, and is necessarily presented before the intellect can be brought
to bear upon the impression. The arts of the poet and the story writer
involve the presentation of a picture representing the complete
composition, and in addition when the work is lengthy, of a series of
pictures each of which strengthens the relief of the general design. The
painter and sculptor each presents a complete picture, the meaning of
which is immediately determined through the sense of sight, and the
extent of the beauty is bounded by what can be recognized by this sense.
All the signs necessary to perfect the composition are simultaneously
indicated, the artist exhibiting at one blow a full description of what
makes up his thing of beauty. But the poet cannot so produce a picture
because he presents the parts successively and not simultaneously, and
in the most important of all the forms which he represents--that of the
human countenance--both beauty and expression have to be defined, and
the separate elements are indescribable. Consequently, however, we may
combine the features of a countenance as described by the poet, we
cannot throw a picture of the whole upon our minds. A particular form of
beauty must be presented to the eye before it can be mentally pictured.
The poet therefore does not attempt to dovetail his picture of the human
form with descriptive details, but relies upon imagery, suggestion, or
other artifice, to indicate his meaning in the most rapid way
possible.[30] The novelist is in the same position as the poet in this
respect, except that some of the devices of the latter are denied him.
But although the poet or novelist cannot put together the parts in his
description, he may in certain cases present natural beauty to the mind,
his scope depending upon the nature of the parts and the extent to which
they depend upon each other for the completion of the picture. Where the
beauty of the whole rests upon a combination of perfected parts of form
only, as in the case of a horse, then the poet is able to present beauty
of form notwithstanding that the separate parts are in themselves not
beautiful, though the beauty would be that of the type and not of the
individual. The beauty of a horse depends upon its possession of a
collection of features which have each a particular significance. If we
are able to recognize from a description that a horse has qualities of
form and action indicating speed, high spirits, proud bearing, and so
on, and at the same time has a harmonious symmetry in its general
outline, a beautiful animal is thrown on the mind without difficulty. We
readily picture the courser described by Shakespeare in his _Venus and
Adonis_ as a beautiful horse, but we should not be able to differentiate
it from the courser of Mazeppa. Where the parts of the thing described
are in themselves beautiful, then the poet may successfully throw on the
mind a series of pictures of aesthetic interest. Thus, he may call to the
imagination parts of a landscape which are in themselves beautiful
scenes, as for instance a deep gorge opening on to a lake, or a flowery
valley, though the parts could not be put together on the mind so that
the beauty of the whole may be presented.[31]
Summing up the limits of the Associated Arts in the presentation of the
two kinds of beauty, the poet and the novelist can present general or
particular beauty of mind, and general sensorial beauty, but are
powerless with particular sensorial beauty; the sculptor and painter may
present general or particular sensorial beauty, and general, but not
particular, beauty of mind. Particular sensorial beauty may be suggested
by the poet or novelist, by indicating its emotional effect, or by
symbols in the form of metaphor; and particular intellectual beauty may
be suggested by the sculptor or painter by representing the effect in
expression of a particular action, or by symbols in the form of human
figures of beauty.
[Illustration: PLATE 8 (See page 139)
Raphael's Sistine Madonna, with the Face of the Central Figure in
Fragonard's "The Pursuit" Substituted for that of the Virgin]
But while the poet cannot throw upon the brain a particular form of
human beauty, he may suggest a greater beauty than that which the
painter or sculptor can depict, and further produce emotional effects
relating to spiritual and human actions and passions which are beyond
the plastic arts: hence his art is capable of the highest reaches. Next
to him come the sculptor and painter, for they may represent ideal forms
which must be excluded from fiction. Theoretically, painting and
sculpture are equal in respect of the production of human beauty, for
there is no form designed by the one which may not be presented by the
other; but practically the painter cannot attain to the height of the
sculptor in the representation of ideal beauty.[a]
[a] See Chapter IX.
The sculptor and painter are at a disadvantage compared with the poet
and novelist, for the limitation of their arts compels them to confine
their imaginations to structural work. Each of the Associated Arts
consists nominally of three parts: (_a_) the scheme, or idea, or fable;
(_b_) the design or invention[32]; (_c_) the execution. In a
representation of action, the painter or sculptor can only depict a
particular moment of it, neither the beginning nor the end being
visible. He must therefore choose an action of which the beginning and
end are known, for while either may be suggested in a simple design,
both cannot be implied so that the whole story is obvious. He has
consequently to take his moment of action from a fact or fable in one of
the literary arts, or from actual life experience.[33] Where no
particular action is indicated, as in many pastoral and interior scenes
in painting, or ornamental figures in sculpture, the conception and
invention are one. Thus, the painter or sculptor is confined to only two
parts of his art, the design and execution. While therefore the scope of
the poet and novelist is as unlimited as the sea of human motives and
passions, that of the painter and sculptor is held within strictly
marked bounds.
All the Associated Arts are alike in that they cannot be specially used
for moral or social purposes without suffering a marked deterioration.
This is because of the limitations imposed upon the artist. His wings
are clipped: his imagination is confined within a narrow groove: he is
converted from a master to a slave. Hence no great work of one of these
arts has been produced where the conception of the artist was bound by
the necessity of pointing a moral, or of conforming to some idea of
utility.[34]