_Being the substance of a series of Lectures delivered in Cologne,
Berlin, and Bonn._
I fear that the announcement of my intention to address you on the
subject of plastic art may have created no little surprise among
some of my hearers. For I cannot doubt that many of you have had
more frequent opportunities of viewing works of art, and have more
thoroughly studied its historical aspects, than I can lay claim to have
done; or indeed have had personal experience in the actual practice
of art, in which I am entirely wanting. I have arrived at my artistic
studies by a path which is but little trod, that is, by the physiology
of the senses; and in reference to those who have a long acquaintance
with, and who are quite at home in the beautiful fields of art, I may
compare myself to a traveller who has entered upon them by a steep and
stony mountain path, but who, in doing so, has passed many a stage from
which a good point of view is obtained. If therefore I relate to you
what I consider I have observed, it is with the understanding that I
wish to regard myself as open to instruction by those more experienced
than myself.
The physiological study of the manner in which the perceptions of our
senses originate, how impressions from without pass into our nerves,
and how the condition of the latter is thereby altered, presents
many points of contact with the theory of the fine arts. On a former
occasion I endeavoured to establish such a relation between the
physiology of the sense of hearing, and the theory of music. Those
relations in that case are particularly clear and distinct, because
the elementary forms of music depend more closely on the nature and on
the peculiarities of our perceptions than is the case in other arts,
in which the nature of the material to be used and of the objects to
be represented has a far greater influence. Yet even in those other
branches of art, the especial mode of perception of that organ of
sense by which the impression is taken up is not without importance;
and a theoretical insight into its action, and into the principle of
its methods, cannot be complete if this physiological element is not
taken into account. Next to music this seems to predominate more
particularly in painting, and this is the reason why I have chosen
painting as the subject of my present lecture.
The more immediate object of the painter is to produce in us by
his palette a lively visual impression of the objects which he has
endeavoured to represent. The aim, in a certain sense, is to produce a
kind of optical illusion; not indeed that, like the birds who pecked
at the painted grapes of Apelles, we are to suppose we have present
the real objects themselves, and not a picture; but in so far that the
artistic representation produces in us a conception of their objects as
vivid and as powerful as if we had them actually before us. The study
of what are called illusions of the senses is however a very prominent
and important part of the physiology of the senses; for just those
cases in which external impressions evoke conceptions which are not in
accordance with reality are particularly instructive for discovering
the laws of those means and processes by which normal perceptions
originate. We must look upon artists as persons whose observation of
sensuous impressions is particularly vivid and accurate, and whose
memory for these images is particularly true. That which long tradition
has handed down to the men most gifted in this respect, and that
which they have found by innumerable experiments in the most varied
directions, as regards means and methods of representation, forms a
series of important and significant facts, which the physiologist, who
has here to learn from the artist, cannot afford to neglect. The study
of works of art will throw great light on the question as to which
elements and relations of our visual impressions are most predominant
in determining our conception of what is seen, and what others are of
less importance. As far as lies within his power, the artist will seek
to foster the former at the cost of the latter.
In this sense then a careful observation of the works of the great
masters will be serviceable, not only to physiological optics, but also
because the investigation of the laws of the perceptions and of the
observations of the senses will promote the theory of art, that is, the
comprehension of its mode of action.
We have not here to do with a discussion of the ultimate objects
and aims of art, but only with an examination of the action of the
elementary means with which it works. The knowledge of the latter must,
however, form an indispensable basis for the solution of the deeper
questions, if we are to understand the problems which the artist has to
solve, and the mode in which he attempts to attain his object.
I need scarcely lay stress on the fact, following as it does from
what I have already said, that it is not my intention to furnish
instructions according to which the artist is to work. I consider it a
mistake to suppose that any kind of æsthetic lectures such as these can
ever do so; but it is a mistake which those very frequently make who
have only practical objects in view.